All Sufficiency | Sunday, March 1, 2026

Now the apostles, when they had returned, told Him all that they had done. And He took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city called Bethsaida. But when the multitudes knew it, they followed Him; and He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need of healing... "You give them something to eat." And they said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish..." So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them... "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered and said, "The Christ of God." (Luke 9:10–22)

When the work, the world, and the noise overwhelm us, Christ calls us aside to rediscover that all our sufficiency is found in Him.

Seeing the World Through the Lens of Scripture

It has been an eventful week, especially the last 36 hours, in what was a rather unsurprising attack: we began bombing Iran yesterday morning. When I opened a service back on January 11th, I asked you to be praying for the people of Persia. Iran is a new name, but this nation has been known in history a very long time, going back to Daniel the prophet—Darius, Cyrus the Medo-Persian king whom God named through Isaiah some 2,800 years ago, declaring he would deliver His people from Babylonian exile.

One thing it is important for us to recognize is that Christians have the ability to see the world through the lens of the Scriptures—to understand that things which happen are not only natural but supernatural. This is clearly exposed in Daniel when you are introduced to the prince of Persia, who is not an earthly royal but a spiritual entity. So when we see hostilities, warfare, and the manifestation of evil, I am convinced that behind it there are always supernatural things taking place. We live in a culture that thinks everything is natural; but Scripture opens our eyes to recognize there is more than meets the eye.

Prayer Before Protest

The Islamic revolution of 1979 brought the Khomeinis to power, and they ruled for 46 years and 11 months—until yesterday, when they were removed. This reality has brought division in the Western world. Both politically conservative and liberal people are divided, because we rightly have an aversion to war. War is never something to look at with excitement.

Yet I believe the ninety million people of Iran, long under that Islamist government, are rejoicing today. There has been an amazing move of God's Spirit through the church and missionaries in Iran. My good friend Lance Ralston ministered to Iranian pastors near the border about eleven months ago, and the moment they cross into surrounding countries for discipleship, they get out of their cars and dance and worship, because they cannot do that at home. Every American president for the last half century, from Carter through Trump, has opposed that government, and tens of thousands of protesters have been killed—more than 30,000 in just the last ten months.

Whatever your political leanings, this situation requires Christians to be prayerful. We have the ability to protest our government; they have not. But more than protest, we should be immediate in prayer. Paul told Timothy that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all men—especially for kings and those in authority. God bless you in being vocal about your opposition; but the immediate response should be prayer before protest.

The Coming Wave of Artificial Intelligence

There is also much happening this week in a field where I have some expertise—artificial intelligence. I have been doing PhD research in AI ethics for the last couple of years. Many of you have used ChatGPT, Claude, or Grok, and many people think these are just a more advanced Google. But these are applications sitting on top of the most advanced intelligent technology ever created. To say "it's just a better Google" is like using a smartphone only for the weather app and concluding that is all it does.

I got into this out of a theological concern. AI research has gone on since 1956 at Dartmouth, where the phrase "artificial intelligence" was coined. What burst onto the scene on November 30, 2022, with ChatGPT represents decades of work. I knew these large language models would become the brain for agentic AI—autonomous systems that work on your behalf, around the clock, without human oversight. Within a year, many of you in business will be managing not just people but AI agents. And right now these systems, which already operate around 130 to 140 IQ and double in capacity every four months, have no good moral or ethical guardrails.

I believe these systems should have a moral compass, an artificial conscience, and they don't. From industry insiders I've connected with, I know many of the big companies—OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic—have largely given up on safety; their safety teams now function mainly as an insurance shield against negligence. As a result, doors have opened: I've been invited to speak at a conference in Silicon Valley in April, and we plan to do a Sunday night talk on these things soon.

Agentic AI is no longer theoretical. This past week the markets went through upheaval because of it, and Block—the company behind Square and Cash App—announced it was letting go 40% of its workers, 4,000 people, mostly in software development. That is the first domino of many to fall in the next 18 months. I don't say this to scare anyone, but the church should know how to respond theologically and biblically.

A Necessary Question About AI in Warfare

One company, Anthropic, is now in a debate with the federal government over how its technology is used in warfare, and has been blacklisted for asking questions that must be asked. It is a nuanced situation—perhaps they could go about it differently—but Anthropic is the only AI company genuinely dedicated to safety, and the question they are asking is vital: are we okay with autonomous AI systems killing people with no human oversight? If you've seen Terminator, you understand why that question matters. These are things we need to be thinking about.

Pulling Away to Refocus

It is a strange pivot from geopolitics and AI to Luke 9, but it is crucial that we pull away from the chaos of the fallen world. We are bombarded all day by corporate media and social media, all trying to direct our attention. News once moved slowly—when I had a paper route as a boy, you got the news in the morning paper or the nightly broadcast. Now it comes constantly, along with everyone's opinions, and all of it can be discouraging and anxiety-producing. We live in a very anxious time.

That is much of why we gather on Sundays. Why do we sing? It lifts our focus to the One we worship, removing our gaze from the temporal to the eternal. (And don't worry that you can't sing—the Bible says make a joyful noise, not a perfect one.) The same is true of the Scriptures. Sunday is a time to refocus and reframe what is happening in the world—a time, like in this passage, where Jesus brings His people aside to rest and recharge so they are ready to go back into the work.

From Disciples to Apostles—and the Danger of the Move

In the prior section, Jesus gave the Twelve power and authority and sent them out. They moved from disciples—interested, obedient followers—to apostles, ones sent with a message. They preached the gospel, performed miracles, and came back amazed. And what does Jesus immediately do? He says, "Let's go out to a deserted place." He moves them from interested followers to engaged participants, which is what God wants in all our lives.

But there is a challenge. When you are given responsibility and authority, you can lose sight of something crucial. Relationship with and rest in Christ are essential for fruitful ministry and mission. The mission of the kingdom cannot be fulfilled without time of relationship with and rest in Christ. Jesus said in John 15, "Abide in Me, because apart from Me you can do nothing."

I have to remind myself of this constantly. I've been in vocational Christian service since I was 19; I'm now 46—27 years that went by in a flash. A major pitfall I've observed in the pastorate is missing this truth: it is easy to get fixated on the mission and lose sight of the relationship. Both are important. Christ commissioned His people—not just church workers, but all of us, in the priesthood of all believers—as His ambassadors in mining, medicine, law enforcement, teaching, wherever you are. But we can get sucked into the task and lose the call, which is relationship with Him.

As a child I heard people say, "Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship." That confused me, because Christianity is a religion in part—there are sacred functions of worship and sacraments, and practical functions of caring for the poor and sick. But there is also the call to relationship with Christ. The slide toward Phariseeism begins when we exalt religious ritual and service above the relational aspect of being with Christ.

"Come Aside and Rest a While"

The Twelve return excited, and the impulse is, "There's so much to do, the time is short, let's go!" That same impulse drove me into Christian service at 19. Mark records this same scene: "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while," for there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. And Jesus says, in effect, "Time out."

This busyness is the reality of life. What's the most common answer to "How are you doing?" Busy. I say it too. Some people joke that pastors only work one day a week—that has not been my experience. I serve on two nonprofit tech boards, do ministry consulting, and now the AI research has opened a whole new world overnight.

We can get absorbed in the work and lose the holistic aspect of health—body, soul, and spirit. We are embodied souls, created in God's image. This is core to the AI discussion, which is really a discussion about anthropology: what is humanity? Many in the AI space deny dualism and believe consciousness is merely an emergent property of complexity—that at some level of neurological complexity, the soul just pops in. They believe these systems will become conscious and that they are building the next stage of evolution to replace us. These are the transhumanists. I don't believe that. God made us, breathed into us the breath of life, and made us conscious souls in His image. And because of that, we must care for body, soul, and spirit.

I was reminded of the 19th-century Scottish preacher Robert Murray McCheyne, who died at 29 and said on his deathbed, "God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride, and alas, I have killed the horse and cannot deliver the message." We Americans are known throughout the world as workaholics—I learned this living in Germany twenty years ago. Many promised AI would reduce our work, but Harvard Business Review just reported it has only amplified it over the last 18 months. We have become slaves to constant connectivity and instant responses. So when Jesus pulls them aside, He is recalibrating them, because without Him they can do nothing.

The Tension Between Workaholism and Spiritual Laziness

But the needs never cease. The multitudes followed up into the hills above the Sea of Galilee, and Jesus received them, taught them about the kingdom, and healed them all day. As the day wore on, the Twelve said, "Send the multitude away." What a shift—from "there's so much work" to "we're done with them." Here is a real tension I see in the church. On one side, people addict themselves to the ministry and become workaholics. On the other, people come aside to rest and grow spiritually lazy.

This is happening in a big way in American church culture today. A book called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry moves away from workaholism, but I have concerns, because it can drift toward an asceticism that runs away from people altogether. There are times to come away and rest—to recalibrate and get back into the work—but you can also start saying, jokingly, "Ministry would be great if it weren't for all the people." That is exactly the sentiment here: "Send away the multitude." There is a real problem when the shepherd grows tired of the sheep. As Spurgeon said, we may grow weary in the work, but may we never grow weary of it.

Jesus says, "Come to Me, all you who labor, and I will give you rest." But He also calls some people to help others find rest. So He tells the disciples, "You give them something to eat." Us? "We have no more than five loaves and two little fish."

Our Lack Reveals Our Insufficiency

Look at the contrast. In Luke 9:1, Jesus gave these twelve men power and authority over disease and demons. Now He says, "You feed them," and they reply, "We can't." Did they forget? They do not see this through the lens of the power and authority Christ gave them, nor through the lens of who is standing with them—the One who commanded the wind and waves. They see it through the lens of who they are: "We don't have the ability."

Our lack reveals our insufficiency, because kingdom work always requires kingdom resources. Luke 9 is a transition chapter. After giving the Twelve power and authority, Jesus keeps reminding them they must depend on Him. Later in the chapter we'll see they also need discipline—spiritual disciplines like fasting and prayer—because some things cannot be done with power and authority alone.

One of the first passages I ever committed to memory was 2 Corinthians 3:5–6: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant." Self-sufficiency is a killer in the ministry. This is spiritual work requiring spiritual resources. The Lord will sometimes orchestrate circumstances to reveal your inability—go read the story of Gideon. That is not a bad place to be, for there we find ourselves relying on Him.

Natural Weakness, Supernatural Strength

So Jesus says, "Make them sit down in groups of fifty." He took the five loaves and two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples. More than 5,000 men, plus women and children, ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of fragments were taken up.

Christ uses our natural weakness to reveal His supernatural strength and resources. He is teaching them that everything they have and need is from Him. One reason for the ineffectiveness of the Western church in recent generations is that we've become so self-sufficient—with lights, fog machines, and LED walls—that we think we don't need God. But the normal experience of the disciple is to be brought into situations where we see our lack, and there God reveals Himself as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides; Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our peace; Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our healer. He calls Himself the I Am because we realize how much we need Him.

This drives us to Proverbs 3: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." We never fully graduate from this lesson—we have pop quizzes all the time. I'm in one right now, with so many things happening. "Lord, I need Your help." "Do you trust Me?" "I'm going to trust You. We'll see what happens."

As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9, "God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work." All sufficiency comes from the God who is able—not from me. And in Philippians 4 Paul says he has learned to be content in any state, whether full or hungry, abased or abounding: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Only in and through Him do we have the power; He supplies all our need according to His riches in glory.

Jesus Withdraws to Pray

Then notice verse 18: "It happened, as He was alone praying." Jesus separates Himself to rest and pray, just as He had drawn the disciples away. They see His example. This past week I got a paper back from my PhD advisor. I had written that Jesus reaffirmed all Ten Commandments in the New Testament, explicitly or implicitly, and he noted that Jesus didn't do that with the Sabbath. We have a conversation a week from tomorrow, and I'm going to tell him he's wrong—because while Jesus may not have said "observe the Sabbath" with His lips, He showed it with His life. He withdrew to rest and pray.

If Jesus, the Christ of God, prayed, how much more should you and I?

"But Who Do You Say That I Am?"

His disciples joined Him, and He asked, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist, but some say Elijah, and others one of the old prophets risen again." Earlier in the chapter, Herod the politician was wrestling with the same question. Everyone has an opinion about Jesus—a good teacher, a miracle worker, a revolutionary, an example to follow.

But then comes the question: "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Christ of God"—in Matthew, "the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said it was revealed to him by the Father. Then He strictly warned them to tell no one, because "the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day." That message was coming, but not yet.

The true identity of Jesus becomes clear as you experience His power in His presence. Why did Herod never discover who Jesus was? Because he only listened to what everyone else said; he never experienced His power in His presence. How do you spend time in His presence? Through His divinely inspired Word, through prayer where He has offered to meet us, and through the gathering of the saints, for He inhabits the praises of His people. It is not only as you hear Him or watch Him perform miracles, but as you watch Him pray and spend time with Him, that you truly become aware of who He is.

God Is Our Refuge in Chaotic Times

We are living in uncertain and chaotic times, and chaotic times feel chaotic. There are endless questions—about the Middle East, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, Congress, the midterms. And now, with agentic AI producing deepfakes, do not believe your eyes or ears. People keep sending me dramatic war videos; ninety percent of them are AI-generated. A large percentage of what you see on social media is not real, and it will only get worse. We face geopolitical chaos, AI chaos, market chaos, and economic and work chaos. If you haven't experienced it yet, you will.

So what do we do? Step away and refocus. God is above all of this. None of it takes Him by surprise. Psalm 46 says, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea... There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God... God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved... The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

And Paul tells us in Philippians 4, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." Oh Lord, we need Your peace—and He is the Prince of Peace.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we need Your help, and we need Your wisdom. I pray this time this morning has helped in some way to reseat our focus on You—to lift our eyes to the mountains, where our help comes from, to trust in You. Remind us that we rely and trust and depend completely upon You, and help us remind our soul of that this week, to say to our soul, "Our hope is in You." We also need to share that good news with others, for we will interact this week with people who are scared and worried about what is happening geopolitically, in their jobs, with AI, with all these things. Would You help us to have the right focus and understanding. The city of God—You are in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. We praise You, Jesus, and thank You for that assurance. It's in Jesus' name we pray, and all those who agreed said, Amen.