BEYOND ALL LIMITS
At first they didn’t seem like much. Just some wood scraps lying on the floor of a garage. They were leftovers from making picture frames. They might be good for fireplace kindling wood, but most people would be tossing them in a trash pile. Not so Elliot Handler. He had been making picture frames with his business partner Harold Matson in a garage workshop. And as the scraps began stacking up in their business, Handler and his wife, Ruth, found a use for them in the making of furniture for dollhouses. That product moved them into the toy business that most of you will recognize by the company name Mattel, a multi-billion dollar corporation that has brought us Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels toy cars.
Yes, Barbie’s roots can be …show more content…
A shepherd boy named David becomes a king, a poor girl name Mary gives birth to the Savior of the world, a fisherman named Peter leads the start of the early church. People who originally appeared to have no value or status in the eyes of the world were used to further the Kingdom of God.
Today we’re going to have another “Up Close and Personal Encounter With Jesus” and see how five loaves and two fish fed thousands. A child’s lunch basket shows us how God can take what the world sees as insignificant to do great things through those who turn to him. What we may deem impossible can be a done deal if we allow God in the mix. And that takes us to our key takeaway of the day: God can work beyond the perceived limitations in our lives. For you notetakers in the crowd today I’ll repeat that: God can work beyond the perceived limitations in our lives.
To flesh out that teaching, we will look at three points brought forth through our John chapter six passage …show more content…
First of all, the feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Jesus recorded by all four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Such commonality points to a major importance of this account in the life of Jesus. Basically, the story is the same in all four gospels, but there are a few differences that flesh out some of the details. For example, in the Matthew account, it mentions that the 5,000 fed were “men, besides women and children.” So the actual number fed could have been anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000, according to scholars. Our passage today is the only one that calls disciples out by name, noting that Jesus was testing Philip. Andrew is mentioned as finding the boy with the basket of bread and fish. We will incorporate a few details from the other gospel accounts as we unpack this John 6 verse
At first they didn’t seem like much. Just some wood scraps lying on the floor of a garage. They were leftovers from making picture frames. They might be good for fireplace kindling wood, but most people would be tossing them in a trash pile. Not so Elliot Handler. He had been making picture frames with his business partner Harold Matson in a garage workshop. And as the scraps began stacking up in their business, Handler and his wife, Ruth, found a use for them in the making of furniture for dollhouses. That product moved them into the toy business that most of you will recognize by the company name Mattel, a multi-billion dollar corporation that has brought us Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels toy cars.
Yes, Barbie’s roots can be …show more content…
A shepherd boy named David becomes a king, a poor girl name Mary gives birth to the Savior of the world, a fisherman named Peter leads the start of the early church. People who originally appeared to have no value or status in the eyes of the world were used to further the Kingdom of God.
Today we’re going to have another “Up Close and Personal Encounter With Jesus” and see how five loaves and two fish fed thousands. A child’s lunch basket shows us how God can take what the world sees as insignificant to do great things through those who turn to him. What we may deem impossible can be a done deal if we allow God in the mix. And that takes us to our key takeaway of the day: God can work beyond the perceived limitations in our lives. For you notetakers in the crowd today I’ll repeat that: God can work beyond the perceived limitations in our lives.
To flesh out that teaching, we will look at three points brought forth through our John chapter six passage …show more content…
First of all, the feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Jesus recorded by all four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Such commonality points to a major importance of this account in the life of Jesus. Basically, the story is the same in all four gospels, but there are a few differences that flesh out some of the details. For example, in the Matthew account, it mentions that the 5,000 fed were “men, besides women and children.” So the actual number fed could have been anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000, according to scholars. Our passage today is the only one that calls disciples out by name, noting that Jesus was testing Philip. Andrew is mentioned as finding the boy with the basket of bread and fish. We will incorporate a few details from the other gospel accounts as we unpack this John 6 verse