Mark 6 is where we're at. We're going to start in verse 33 and we're going to go all the way down to verse 44. So I'll begin reading in Mark chapter 6 verse 33. The people saw them departing and many knew him and ran a foot thither out of all cities and out went them and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep, not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. He answered and said unto them, give ye them to eat. And they saying to him, shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat? He saith unto them, how many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they say, five and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes he looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them and the two fishes divided he among them all and they did all eat and were filled and they took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes together in verse 44 and they that did eat of the loaves were about 5,000 men now it's a familiar account I'm sure feeding the 5,000 But we're going to look at it, not so much as the miracle, which obviously it is a great miracle, but of the work that went behind it. And some things we can learn in the idea of service and ministry. So eaters and feeders. Let's pray and we'll get into it. Father, I do pray now that you bless this message, this time of preaching, those of us who are gathered here tonight. I pray you work in our hearts and Lord we're thankful for all you've done now going on soon Lord just a few months will be celebrating 19 years and that's because of your faithfulness and your blessing and your goodness not 19 years of our faithfulness 19 years of your faithfulness and your goodness we thank you for it pray the blessed preaching of your word to our hearts we ask in Christ's name amen you may be seated I think when we come to ministry and come to, you know, doing the work of the ministry in a church, I think there are several problems that arise. I think one of the problems is our thinking. We're not clear in our thinking. I think there's different reasons for it. Partly maybe because you come from a church that maybe has some weird teaching or something and maybe confuses you about, but I think more so, at least at this point in time, more so it probably deals with Probably more of the things like TV and movies. A lot of people, when they think about church, they identify some movie or some TV. For example, Little House on the Prairie. I know that's an old TV show, but a lot of people grew up, well, people my age grew up watching it. And you have Reverend Alden. Reverend Alden, you know, never raises his voice, always nice, always polite, always friendly. Let me tell you, that's not really what church and preaching is like. You know, you're not here to make friends. It's not wrong to have friends. You're not here to keep everyone happy, even though it's not wrong people being happy. But typically you're here, you're trying to get people saved, you're trying to challenge them to live for the Lord, and so it's really not like what you see on TV. In fact, what they're modeling after that time period was when you had the Methodist camp meeting. that really made Baptists look pretty tame. I mean, they were pretty rough. You had a fellow named Peter Cartwright. Peter Cartwright would have these big camp meetings, and people would come in and try to disturb him. Now, he would go out west. You know what out west was back in those days? Like Kentucky, like here, maybe a little bit further. This was the west, like Oberlin. If you go on the Oberlin tour, we talk about how Oberlin was the far west when it was founded. People would come in, they would try to disturb. They have a big camp meeting. If you kind of go Kentucky, Illinois, down through, all the way down through there, they'd have all these camp meetings, and people would come in and try to disrupt them. Peter Cartwright was, he was kind of a rough fella. And so Peter Cartwright would get up to preach, and one of the things he would do is he'd take his six-shooter out and put it on the pulpit and get ready to start preaching. He'd let people know he's there for business. People would come in the back sometimes and mess around, and he'd have guys who were supposed to, you know, you know, knock heads and throw them out. Well, one time, a couple guys came in, they were bigger than a head knocker, so he went back there, knocked heads, and threw the guys out. Now, that's historically what happened. Now, I'm sure there was some Reverend Aldens, but those were the exceptions. I mean, they were men's men who preached back in those days. So we come up with this TV thinking, and we start trying to think church is supposed to mirror TV. Well, church is not supposed to mirror TV. Church is supposed to mirror the Word of God. That's just what we look to. So one of the biggest challenges when it comes to preaching or even just teaching God's Word is getting people to think the way they need to think. In fact, the Bible itself kind of leads us to understand this. We see in Philippians 2.5, the Bible says, So we're supposed to think like Jesus thinks. Well, how did Jesus think? He thought just like the Bible. How do I know that? Because He's called the Word and the Bible's called the Word. The thinking is one and the same. 1 Corinthians 2.16 says, but we have the mind of Christ. How can we know what Jesus thinks about something? Because whatever the Bible says is what Jesus thinks. This here is the mind of Christ. Whatever the Bible says is what God thinks about it. God's mind never changes. And so when we come to trying to understand about serving the Lord, about doing ministry, if you get confused, and it's easy to do that, you get frustrated, which is easy to do that as well, you get discouraged, that's not too hard either, it's always wise to come back to the Word of God and say, okay, how do I need to think about ministry based on what the Bible teaches? Not based on how I feel, or what I think, or what someone told me, but what does the Bible say? How can I align myself or orientate myself around what the Bible teaches? So, for me, this passage I just read was this kind of change of thinking for me. I understood some of this because, you know, I did spend eight years in Bible college, which is a whole story in itself, but I spent, you know, I was in Bible college, I was under good preaching, but it usually takes something for the Lord to kind of get your attention and try to, like, you have all this stuff in your head, and it's like a Rubik's Cube, and all of a sudden the Lord has to kind of spin it around, make all the colors the same, and you're like, okay, now it makes sense. For me, this teaching here in Mark chapter 6 was a thing that spun the Rubik's Cube the right way and all the colors match and it was like a light coming on and made sense to me. So I'm going to share with you seven things as the Lord taught me as I kind of in the late 90s kind of put some things together in my head and thinking about ministry and then in turn as I preach this message in the late 90s and then again in the early 2000s. Hopefully it'll be a help to you today. So there's seven things I want to share with you. So let's go back now to our text, Mark chapter 6, and we're going to look at verse 42 to start with. Verse 42 says, "...and they did all eat and were filled." So what was the condition to start with? They were out in a desert place and they were what? Hungry. And they had the absence of? food. So you have a whole bunch of hungry people, at least 5,000. It is thought maybe up to 20,000. It's 5,000 men besides women and children. Might have been 20,000, might have been 25,000. We know there's 5,000 plus people, okay, because it says besides women and children. There are women and children there. And so 5,000 plus people, and you had how many loaves? Five. How many fish? Two. Now how many of those 5,000 can five loaves and two fish? Well, let me explain to you. They came from one person. So basically it was one person's lunch, this little boy, it was his lunch, maybe it was his lunch and dinner, maybe it was maybe a couple meals, but it wasn't 5,000 meals. So you have this very small meal, you have this very huge crowd, and they all are looking, imagine my head, they're all staring at the boy's lunch, and the boy's like, hey, go get your own. So you have all of these people who are hungry, and they come to Jesus, rightfully so, Jesus feeds them. That brings us to our first thought. Number one is this, Jesus can meet our needs. In other words, everyone can eat. Everyone can get fed by the Lord. Jesus can meet our needs. But here's what I want you to notice. What did it take for Jesus to meet their needs? What was the process? Did he go abracadabra, hocus pocus, boom! They come to him, and they said, Jesus, we're in a desert place. There's no food here. Send him away. And the first thing he said is, well, have you really checked out? Do you think Jesus knows about the boys' lunch? Yeah. There is more food than what the people gave credit for. They just said, oh, there's nothing here. Go send him to town. He said, why don't you take a moment and go really look and examine? So they go through, and somehow they find this kid. And the only food they can find is one kid's lunch. And Jesus takes that lunch and then feeds them. Now, notice what it took for their needs to be met. Let's go back to Mark chapter 6, verse number 39. And he commanded them to make all, them would be the disciples, to make all, that would be the 5,000 plus people, sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. So there's some organizing going here, there's some work going on here. There's, okay, all you people sit over here, and you people sit there, and you people sit there, so there's some way they can move between them to deliver this food. So Jesus makes them go through this process of dividing up and sitting down, getting the food that they could find, all this process. Now I'm going to say several things here. Hopefully they are somewhat clear in how I present it. Because it's a little bit of conflating some things, but hopefully I'll be clear as I go through it. I want you to notice this. Jesus didn't need to do any of that. Can Jesus feed 5,000 people like that? Of course He can. Did He have to break them down in hundreds and fifties to feed them? Did He need a little boy's lunch? Now listen to this statement. It's not what God needs from you. It's what God requires from you. He doesn't need it. He requires it. In other words, He can do it without you doing certain things, but He's required for you to do certain things before He does things. It's not so much that He's handicapped and can't do it until you do it, it's He won't do it until you do it. Our needs are met, now watch this, because the point is this, Jesus can meet our needs. So understand this, our needs are met as we are doing the will of God. Not our will. He didn't tell them to go figure it out. He said, here's what you need to do. And as they obeyed Him, as they looked for the food and found all they could find, and separated the people and had them sit down, as they did everything He said, then He met their needs. Now understand this. Let's look at it slightly differently. In another place, Jesus told His disciples, that God could take care of them. And he used as an example the sparrows and the lilies. He said, I feed the birds, look at the lilies, how they're clothed, look at all that I can do. I can meet your needs, but He said, seek ye first the kingdom of God. It's not that God couldn't meet their needs. He's saying, I can meet your needs, but there's a requirement for me to do that. You need to do what I'm telling you to do. You need to follow my will. You need to obey me. The seeking of God's kingdom was the requirement or the basis of providing all that they needed. So when we say that God can meet our needs, and this is now we're painting the eaters and the feeders and putting them together in a moment we'll separate the two, but as we look at everyone, all the believers together, God can meet every need we have. But God has put requirements to meet those needs. A lot of times we go to the Lord and we bring our needs to the Lord and we expect the Lord to meet the needs without ever considering what he's requiring from you. there's a requirement on your side. You know, there are people, and I know we've talked about this maybe last week or two weeks ago, whatever it was, There's a thought that people, you know, they think they can live their life apart from the Lord, all of a sudden they get in trouble, they want to run to the Lord, get their needs, so they can run back and do what they want to do again. And they can't figure out why God won't go along with it, because that's not how the Lord works. The Lord expects certain things from you. Again, not that He needs it. He doesn't. God does not need you. God desires to bless you. but he requires certain behavior for him to bless you. So let's make it a little bit more, because you look way too happy. There's not one person in this church that is needed. But there's plenty in this church for everyone to do. The Lord wants to use you. Sometimes we get a little puffed up. Well, you know, if I ever leave this church, they're gonna have to close down. We had a church before you showed up, and we'll have a church after you leave. The only one thing that we cannot do without is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only one that we cannot do without. Someday I'm going to be gone. About five, six years. You say, well, what's going to happen? I don't know. I think the same God in heaven who's taken care of us for nearly 19 years can still take care of us. This church isn't built on Dennis White. Never was. I appreciate the love, I appreciate the things you do, but it's not built on me. I heard, Chloe, I think it came from you or your husband, there was a cup that had the cowboy picture on it. Did that come from you yesterday? Maybe. It came from someone. That's the word I got. And I didn't see the cowboy. I just saw a cowboy and a cup. And I thought, that's cute. Someone today showed me the cup, I guess they have another one. And it's me in my little cowboy outfit, you know, on the Roundup Sunday, my hat, my red shirt, and all that. And they showed it to me, and they had little cutouts. I guess it came from you, it came from someone. It came from someone. I thought, that's cute. You know, I appreciate the thought, I appreciate the kindnesses, I appreciate the love, but the truth is, if I'm not here, God is still able to take care of anything that goes on here. God requires things from us. He does not need anything from us, but He requires because He desires to use us based on His conditions. So the first thing we have to understand is this, is that Jesus can meet our needs. Now, within that concept of us serving Him, because there's a requirement, now I need to be a part of what He's doing, so there's a requirement I'm getting a part of, so within that, that brings us to our second thought. That brings us now back to our text. We're at 42, look at 41, and we'll go back into 42. verse 41 and when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes he looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them that's the five thousand and the two fishes that divided he among them all and they did all eat and were filled so he had the twelve disciples he had all the food he separated and then and then as he blessed it and they just kept There's some different ideas how it happened, but in some way or another, they each had a thing of food, maybe just a few, because if you take five loaves and two fishes, you don't get much in a plate. But as they kept going, every time someone's pulling out, there's plenty more, and they keep pulling it out, and they go all the way around. All the 12 go to the 5,000, and the 12 who are the feeders are able to give food to the 5,000 who are the eaters, which brings us to our second thought. In the work of God, There are eaters and there are feeders. There are both in the work of God. I'm not putting down one and putting up with the other. I'm just saying in the work of God there are people who eat and there's people who feed. Hopefully you're both. The eaters, the eaters alone, the eaters apart from being feeders, all they are eaters. The eaters would be the ones who just show up. They're not involved in the ministry. They're not committed to the work of God. They really have no attachments. They may not even be a member. They just come. And they just show up, and they sit there with their plate, and their fork, and their spoon, and their napkin tucked in, and they're just sitting there. That's all. They just come to eat. They come to eat, and they come to get, and they maybe belch along the way, but that's all they do. They're just eaters. They just show up and eat, and they enjoy the activities. When it's warm in here, they appreciate it. When it's cold outside, if it's hot outside and nice in here, they appreciate that. They appreciate the lights, appreciate the chairs, appreciate the technology, but all they do is consume. They're just eaters. There are people that way in the work of God. Then there are the people who are not just eaters, but they're feeders as well. The feeders are the ones who are faithful. Those are the ones you can count on. They're the ones who are doing the feeding of the people. They come to eat, yes, which is good, but as they eat they're also trying to feed others. They come early so they can feed someone. They come early so they can encourage and inspire and befriend and help. Let me just stop for a moment. Because we have been good and we have been bad. We've kind of trended both ways. I think we're kind of trending on the bad side of this. You realize when you walk in the door, if all you do is walk in and sit down and that's all you do, you really haven't done what you're supposed to be doing. Take time and shake hands and see. If someone's been here three, four, five, six weeks and you just say, oh, I never noticed them. That's not their fault, that's your fault. You ought to be noticing who's here. Look around. If you don't know what their face is, you don't know their name. I don't know their name. This is difficult. I'm going to give you college-level teaching. Ready? Here's Larry. I don't know who Larry is, even though I just called him Larry. So we just call him, I don't know who that guy is. Now, this is hard. Here's what you have to do. You have to go up and say, hey, I don't know who, I never got your name. What was your name? Larry, Larry, my name is Dennis. Man, it is good to see you. Now that is a hard thing to do. I mean, you're gonna probably have to pray all night, maybe fast and pray. It's a difficult thing to do. I'm being sarcastic, okay. Let me tell you, you think, here's what we think. As long as the preaching is biblical, that's all that people need. That's not all that people need. We're social animals. We need to know that someone cares that I'm here. And when I'm not here, we need people to care that I'm not here. Now, maybe they're not here for not a very good reason, but at least someone should say, hey, I missed you. I wish you were here. People need that interaction. So these are feeders. These are people who greet other people, people who encourage people, people who try to inspire people and befriend people and help people. They're the ones who want to be a part of the answer. They're the ones who, you know, they're not trying to create problems, they're trying to be part of the answer. They see the need, they're trying to help. Now, both of these people are important. I'm not downplaying the eaters. I'm not trying to disrespect the eaters. I'm not trying to be condescending towards the eaters. Both are important. The job of the church, of a local New Testament church, our job, in the idea of soul winning and outreach, our job is to gain eaters. When someone first gets saved, they're not a feeder. They're just an eater. That's all they are. They come for the first time, and they look around, they see the strange faces. For me, this church is like the church I grew up in. It is just as, like, That's like an old pair of tennis shoes. It's just I'm accustomed to it, I'm used to it. This is how I've always done church, okay? This is how I grew up. I grew up in an independent, fundamental Baptist church, and so I'm familiar. But if you grew up in a Catholic church and you came to this church, my guess is you're like, this is weird. They're kind of loud in here. If you came from a charismatic church, blah, you're like, man, they're kind of quiet in here. So whatever your background is, this is probably different for them. Okay? I understand that, but for us, this is what we're accustomed to. So they come in, that's all they are, eaters at first. They ride the bus for the first time, maybe someone invited them, they come for the first time. That's how we start, and there's nothing wrong with eaters. I'm not criticizing. Thank God for eaters. That's the future of the church. We need eaters. That's how we gain people in. That's all they are to start with, they're eaters. Now, the job not only is to gain the eaters, but the second part of our job is to change the eaters into feeders. That's the growth, that's the sanctification, that's the teaching, and the encouraging, and the pointing, and the pushing, okay? You start as an eater, now you've got to become a feeder. We're not trying to chase people away. We want to change them. We want them to be all they can be. So thank God for eaters. That's the future. Thank God for the feeders. They're the present. And so, in the work of God, there's eaters and there's feeders. Never get upset with people who are only eaters. Say, well, they've been eating for a long time. Yep. But they're coming. And there's always opportunity to become a feeder. Pray for them. Encourage them. Say, hey, won't you come back Sunday night and sit with me? Hey, come back Wednesday night. Encourage them. Thank God for the eaters, but don't stay as an eater. We need to become feeders. So in the work of God, there are eaters and there are feeders. There's the 5,000 who are taking the food, and there's the 12 who's giving the food out. Which brings us to our third thought, verse 36. Send them away, this is now the 12 disciples, send them away that they may go into the country roundabout into the villages and buy themselves bread for they have nothing to eat. He answered, this would be Jesus, and said unto them, this is the 12, give he them to eat. And they say unto him, shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat? In other words, what do we got? We don't have anything. So here's our third thought. So number one, Jesus can meet our needs, but there's requirements. Because there's requirements, that's why we got to go from the eater to being a feeder. In the work of God, there are eaters and there are feeders. And here's thirdly, you can be a feeder. Everyone can be a feeder. We think, sometimes we think, oh, you know, I can't do it. Everyone can do something for the Lord. Everyone can do something. Notice how the disciples responded. The people were hungry, they had nothing to eat, and they said, you know, send them away. And what did Jesus say? You go do something. You know, maybe when you look out and you see something needs done, maybe that's the Lord pointing something out to you. You know, someone should come early and maybe arrange the psalm books. Maybe someone should. Maybe someone should come, maybe between the services and make sure all the chairs are lined up, because I just saw this one, it's going to bother me the rest of the service. Maybe someone should come in early and make sure all the chairs are lined up. Maybe someone should. There's a lot that things can be done. Our problem is this, we're always telling Jesus, Jesus, you've got to do something! And Jesus always looks at you and says, exactly. Go do it. That's what they said to Jesus. Jesus, there's too many people! There's no food! Send them away! And Jesus said, oh, you notice there's no food. Go feed them. And they're like, uh, uh, uh. So you can be a feeder. Not just a neater. Everyone can do something. Everyone can be busy in the work of God. Everyone has a part to play. Everyone can serve the Lord. If you're born again, there's a place for you in the local New Testament church to serve. God has given to every born-again believer at least one, most likely more than one, at least one spiritual gift to use. Are you born again? Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior? You have the Holy Spirit inside of you, and you have a spiritual gift to be used for the Lord. Now you may not know what it is, it may be confusing to you, you may not know how it's going to play out, so here's what you do. You start getting involved and the Lord will begin opening doors and revealing to you what that spiritual gift is. When I first went off to Bible college, I'm coming out of public school. I didn't know what Christian schools really were. That's where the pastor's kids went. That's all I knew about Christian school. I didn't know there was a Bible college. So I go to Bible college, and I take out the jet from Pittsburgh, landing in Chicago. get off the, this is now again 1982, things are slightly different at the airport, and I didn't even have to take my shoes or belt off, and so I'm coming off the plane, and I'm coming down this ramp, airport, and I'm not on the tarmac, I mean inside the actual building. So I'm coming down this little ramp, and at that point in time, you could go right to the door where they came off, you know, remember those? You could actually come to the door and meet them right there. So I'm coming down this ramp, and now I'm 17 years of age. I just flew out of Pittsburgh, which means I just drove from Morgantown up to Pittsburgh, got in a plane, landed in Chicago, 17 years of age. Now, let me back up. I'm living on the farm, got in a blue pickup, drove over to the church, got in my pastor's car, he drove me up to Pittsburgh, got in a plane, landed in Chicago, I'm walking down this thing, and I hear someone say this, Dennis White. Let me tell you what I did. This is what I did. I ain't looking. No one knows me. There's got to be someone else. Dennis White. Then I see a guy, you know, motioning towards me. That was Brother Moore from the college. So he was sent there to meet me. I didn't know that. So he said, okay, get your bags. Here's the bus. There's several other guys, other people showing up. There's about maybe a half dozen of us on the bus. We're taking this back to the college. Along the way, he said, hey, I can, this is funny thinking back, he said, hey, we need bus workers in the bus ministry. You ever think about being a bus ministry? I'm thinking, I'm at a bus ministry, you know, I was a bus kid, so that's, you know, we didn't do programs and stuff like that. We got on the bus and we rode to church, that was it. Our program was we showed up and got a piece of candy and we got off. That was the whole program. So I'm like, well, I don't know. Okay, fine. I'm here to serve the Lord. Yeah, whatever you need. Here, my Lord, send me. I had no idea all that that meant. And so, We're going up to Chicago, first few weeks, you know, they're kind of being nice to you. Pretty soon, they want you to be a part of the program. You lead a singing. Now, you know, I never did anything like this. So, and I didn't even know that we didn't even sing bus songs on our bus. So, the only thing I know, I'm watching them, and the easy one was, you know, deep and wide. I kind of got those words down the first couple weeks. So he said, okay, Brother Dennis, come up and lead a song, okay? and there's a bunch of kids, okay, here we go, deep and wide, deep and wide, and all the kids are like, you know, no enthusiasm whatsoever. So they'd have me sing one song, and they'd say, okay, shut down, Brother Dennis, and let's have someone else up here to do the program. That was my first year in Bible college. At the end of that, so I finished one year in Bible college, summer started, and I said to the Lord, I said, Lord, this ain't gonna work. I'm not very good at that, but I think I need to be good at that. But it's kind of embarrassing. I mean, you're up there, you know, how do you get those kids? I'm not an outgoing person. And the Lord basically said to me, not in an audible voice, but He kind of spoke to my heart and said, either you're going to have to learn it and you're going to be a big failure in life. Now, I don't like the word failure. That word just doesn't resonate with me. I'm like, mm-hmm, we'll see about that. Okay. So I said, Lord, what should I do? And here's what I felt like the Lord said to me. You gotta forget about being Dennis White and just be what those kids need. Okay, Lord. So here's what I learned to do. Okay, Brother Dennis, come up here and lead us to a song. Okay, here we go, we're gonna sing deep and wide now, ready? Is this deep? The kid's like, no, what is deep? This is deep, yeah, okay, ready? Deep, no, no, no, this is deep, ready? Deep and wide, deep and wide, there's a fountain flowing deep and wide. Hallelujah, Brother, deep and wide. Okay, next verse. What do you do? You lose yourself. That's how you serve the Lord. You just say, you know what? I'm just going to become a feeder. I'm not going to sit there and be an eater all the time. I need to forget myself. I've got to lose myself. Everyone can do something. It's not based on your personality. I don't have an outgoing personality. I don't have a personality. I don't have an outgoing personality. I'm not that person. but I had to be that person because I wanted to be a feeder. Everyone can be a feeder if you lose yourself. Quit being you and start being Jesus. That's what people need. They don't need you, they need Jesus. You can be a feeder. Number four, you can only feed others when Jesus multiplies what you have. Go with me and I'll explain. I think you get the drift without reading the verse, but I will. Verse 38. He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. When he had taken the five loaves and two fishes, he looked up to heaven, blessed, break the loaves, gave them disciples, sat before them, and the two fishes divided among them all. And they did all eat and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes. And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men. only way we can do this is when the Lord multiplies, when the Lord takes, when we give it to the Lord, all that we got, and then the Lord just uses it. Even though I said you got to lose yourself and all that is true, but it's still not me, it's still Him. Every gift I have is not sufficient unless I give the gift to Him. Every Christian can serve the Lord, every Christian can do something, but we give it to the Lord and let the Lord multiply it as He sees fit. Now here's the sad part. There are some believers who know what their spiritual gifts are and they use it for their own purposes. Some people, you have a good gift of teaching, or a good gift of talking, a good gift of conveying things, and there's a lot of believers who use that to make money. There's nothing wrong with making money. There's something wrong when you take God's gift and only use it to make money. Preachers make good salesmen. But God didn't call us to be salesmen, He called us to be preachers. Think about those whom God has given a good voice to. You know, I don't know how true this is now, but I can tell you at one point in time in my youth, if you're thinking 80s and 90s, some of the, especially because I grew up in country music, some of the best country music groups started singing in churches. And they got popular, and they found out there was money in it. And that's what they started doing. They took the gift that God gave them, and they started using it for their own purpose. Now, they still sang, but they weren't feeding people. Whatever gift the Lord has given you, the benefit in that gift is when you give it to the Lord, use it in a local New Testament church, and let the Lord multiply what He can do with it. Now, I'll say this, and I say it carefully because it can sound like arrogance or cockiness or pride, and that's not my goal. But if you were to ask me, 1982 when I started college, 1990 when I graduated. If you had asked me any time between those two or even at 1990, I would have said, well, the best thing I can do maybe is teach in a Christian school, maybe be a bus director. I didn't think I necessarily had, maybe you might agree that I maybe should have stayed with that, but I didn't think I had great gifts to do too much. But I took the little I had. I said, Lord, it's all I've got. But you can have it all. Can I tell you, the Lord has multiplied that. It's not me, it's Him. I'm going to be careful because it's going to sound arrogant, and that's not my goal. My goal is to explain that the Lord takes little and makes it much. Do you understand what the Lord has done in this church over 18-19 years? Our next pastor, he was saved before he got here, but he got his training here. We'll just say this in a nice way. He got his head straightened out while he was here. He got his training. Now, that doesn't always happen in every church. In fact, that happens in a few churches, where the next guy is someone who got developed through that ministry. Well, you have Cole, then you have Sam, who at least got good enough to marry the other preacher's daughter. He got that good at least. You have Sam's sister, Sarah, who's basically marrying a preacher. Then you have Mike, who's getting ready to graduate in May. Starting with one, me, you got four. Now I'll tell you this, most of you know, maybe a cat out of the bag for some, we have a fifth guy getting ready to start Bible college. Now we have Doug who's just going to Bible college to train. So I should say we already have a fifth one, sorry Bill. Bill's taking classes there at Southwest at Faith Baptist Institute, okay. You think, am I missing anyone else because I already embarrassed myself? I think I've covered all the ones. Then there's a sixth guy. Wow. The Lord is good, isn't he? There's a sixth guy getting ready to start. Joe the Younger. Starting the spring semester, he'll be going to HBI. Now that is the Lord's doing. That's not me. Let me tell you, I am not a motivating type of speaker. That's the Lord's doing. So you take your little, You give it to the Lord, and the Lord uses it much. That's the blessing of being a feeder. People say, well, you know, I like eating. You want to be blessed, become a feeder. Let the Lord take your little and make it much. Let me hasten. So I said number four, you can only feed others when Jesus multiplies your food. Number five, here's the sad part. Look at verse 36. Send them away. that they may go into the country round about into the villages and buy themselves bread, if they have nothing to eat. Number five, most Christians want to eat rather than feed. And we kind of alluded to this earlier, but this is the reality of it. If you're going to serve, if you're going to serve the Lord, you've got to understand you're dealing with people, and people are people. So, well, you know, not everyone wants to serve God. You're right. A lot of people, oh, they just want to come and get and get, and they don't want to give. You're right. This is a part of the ministry of being a feeder. It seems as if the disciples wanted the others to leave so that maybe they could eat the little food that they found maybe. Most Christians come to church with their fork and spoon, they eat up, they belch, they leave, they don't feed anyone. Now that may be true. The purpose of eating, though, is so that we help someone else to eat. Even if others, all they want to do is eat, still, as someone who wants to be a feeder, we still want to feed them. It is paramount for the feeders to eat, that is true, but the reason we eat is so that we feed someone else. We don't want to just eat, we want to feed as well. Even though others only want to eat, we want to feed. I'll move from that to the last couple because it's already time. Number six, verse 42. And they did all eat and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes." They took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes. My guess is this, you got twelve baskets, you got a lot more than five loaves and two fishes. How many men were feeding? Twelve. How many basketfuls did you have left over? Twelve. It seems like all the feeders had a whole basketful for themselves. That brings us to number six. Feeders always have enough to eat. Now, I spent a lot of time on those other points. These next two I'm just going to kind of go a little bit quicker through. They all ate, but yet it was the disciples who received, in many ways, the most. They had these whole basketfuls of leftovers. Eaters may go hungry at times. Feeders never do. Often when people say, and they're in church, they're like, I just don't feel like I'm being fed. A lot of times what that means is I'm not feeding, because those who are feeding are typically those who are fed. If you want to learn this book here, let me tell you the secret, the best way to learn this book, go teach it. You know who learned the most this morning from the Sunday school lesson? Bill Parnell. First of all, he had to write. the Sunday school lesson. Then he had to review the Sunday school lesson. Then he had to get up and teach a Sunday school lesson. He has lived with that lesson for multiple weeks, and then the people who were here this morning, they had it for 35, 40 minutes. He had it for hours, beating around, bopping around his head. He learned more than anyone. That's the value of feeding. Feeders always eat. Feeders always get basketfuls of food. People have asked me this. Again, I'm not trying to sound arrogant. I'm 60. I've been around a few times, so I have some stories to tell. People ask me, how did you learn that? Did you learn that in college? Most of the time it's, you know what, I've just read my Bible and tried to preach. and God has revealed things to me, helped me to understand some things. Not nothing that's not in the Bible, but he's helped me to understand some things. How did you read that and get that out of it? I just read it and said, Lord, I gotta teach it, I gotta preach it, Lord, you gotta teach it to me. Feeders always get plenty to eat. The reason you get nothing from this book is because God has no reason to teach it to you. Because all you're gonna do is just keep taking it from the Lord and keep shoving it in your pocket and you never try to share it with anyone. Those who are the feeders always have basketfuls of food. Feeders always have plenty to eat. That's the blessing, again, of being a feeder. Number seven, the last one. Eaters, let me tell you this story, because the point may not make sense if I don't tell you. Jesus fed the 5,000. Mm, full stomach, they were happy. Jesus leaves. They go looking for him, because after a while, their stomach got empty. And they showed up again, and they said, hey, where'd you go? Jesus, we've been looking for you. And Jesus, this time, doesn't feed them. He says, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, he says, what do you come looking at me for? All you want is some more food. And I'm done feeding you. There's no feeding of the 5,000 this time. You need to, I'm here for more than just getting your belly full. You see, the eaters, I'm talking about eaters only, will always become hungry again. If all you do is eat and never feed, you're gonna be a hungry person, because you're never gonna have a full belly. If all you want is get, get, get from the Lord, no matter how much you get, you're always gonna get hungry and want more. You say, oh, I need this, or I want that, and the Lord provides whatever it may be, but then you want something else. You want more, and more, and more, and more, and you never are content, and never are happy. You're never going to be happy at just eating. It is the feeding that fills you, that gives you the fullness. After Jesus had filled their bellies, they wanted even more. They came to him and said, well, if you can fill our bellies, you can overthrow the Romans. You can set up a Jewish kingdom. You can lead a heroic army. You can take care of all of our oppressors. It was always something more they wanted Jesus to do. They didn't want Jesus. They just simply wanted what Jesus could do for them. That's the eaters. The feeder said, no, Lord, I just want to be used by you. Eaters are never full. Only eaters. Now I'm gonna give you three final thoughts. You thought we were done. Okay, now we're done with the introduction. Here's three points. Three things to consider. So when I consider all these seven, here is how now I process it. Feeders started out as eaters, who were not feeders. If you're a feeder tonight, if you say, Pastor White, I'm there with ya, I try to be a feeder, thank you, I appreciate it. Appreciate all that you do. Let me tell you, you started out as an eater. When I get frustrated with eaters, here's what the Lord has said to me, and this is what I try to remind myself, that was you. That was you that one day. Remember, that's all you did was eat. Someone has always been like that little bird, feed me, feed me, and all you did is eat. So when I get frustrated with eaters, I say, that is where I started. Feeders started out as eaters who were not feeders. How long did you eat before you fed anyone? How long did you come to church and receive before you actually were giving? How long did you show up and just got, got, got, and never gave, gave, gave? That's how we all started. Don't get too upset with the eaters. You were one. I'm talking about eaters only, never feeding, just eating. That's how you started. That's the first thought. Here's the second. Eaters are supposed to become feeders. That is what the Lord is trying to direct you to. Sometimes the Lord puts things in your life to try to get your attention that he expects more out of you. One of the things he does is take away what you have. Because he gets your attention that way. Because then you realize it's not that is what I need, it's I need you. and you get your attention back on him. Eaters are supposed to become feeders. So how long are you going to eat and never feed? And here's the third thought that I get from it. A successful church needs both. We need eaters, eaters only, new believers. But also we need the eater-feeders, the workers, the one who does the job. It's not about either or. It's not about looking down at the others. It's not about being critical of the eaters. This is, we want eaters so we can grow them into feeders. We want them, we pray for them, we desire them, and then we work with them. A successful church has to have both groups. That is what the Lord has taught me about ministry. All through the years, when I get little about stuff, the Lord says, eaters and feeders. I say, yep, Lord, eaters and feeders. That's right. Let's pray.