All Sufficiency | Sunday, March 1, 2026

Praise the Lord. Thank you, Christian. Good morning! It’s good to see you all here this morning. You can have a seat. It has been an eventful week, especially the last 36 hours, with what was basically a rather unsurprising attack. We began bombing Iran yesterday morning. I say "unsurprising" because when I went to bed on Friday evening, there were a lot of things on social media indicating that an attack was likely imminent. Then, I woke up Sunday morning to a text from Pastor Nick saying that we were bombing Iran. So, unsurprising.

I opened the service a couple of months ago. I actually looked back to see when it was; it was on January 11th. At that time, I asked you to be praying for the people of Persia. It’s good to be reminded that the nation of Iran is a new construct, a new name. They have been known in history for a very long time, going back to the times of Daniel, the prophet. If you’ve ever read the Old Testament, then you know about Darius and the various kings of that time, especially the Medo-Persian king Cyrus, through whom God spoke via the prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago, declaring that he would deliver His people. He identified him by name: Cyrus, the king of Persia.

About 150 years later, God brought that about, delivering the people of Israel from their Babylonian exile in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. The Medo-Persian Empire is well-known in history. One of the things I think is really important for us to recognize is that Christians have the ability to see the world through the lens of the Scriptures. We understand that things that happen in the world are not only physical; they can also be metaphysical. They are not only natural; they can be supernatural.

This is clearly exposed in the book of Daniel when you are introduced to the prince of Persia. The prince of Persia is not an earthly prince or royalty; he is a spiritual entity. Therefore, it should be recognized that when we see hostilities, warfare, and the manifestation of evil in the world, I am convinced that there are always supernatural things taking place behind that. I realize we live in a culture that thinks everything is natural, and to even suggest otherwise might make you seem crazy to them.

But we have the lens of Scripture to see the world through. It opens our eyes to recognize that there is more going on. There's more than meets the eye as we look at what's happening in the world.

Persia has been much in the news going back 2,500 years, not just the last 50 years. However, in the last 50 years, it's been pretty phenomenal. I was born in November of 1979, about six months before the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which led to the control of power by the Khomeinis. That has been the reality ever since then. They have been in power for 46 years and 11 months as of today. Yesterday, they were removed from power.

I realize that this reality has brought a lot of division in the Western world about how to respond. It doesn't matter if you are politically conservative or politically liberal; both sides of the political spectrum in America are divided on this issue. We have, and I think rightly so, an aversion to war. I don't think that anybody desires war; it's a very small group of people. In fact, it's quite clear from polling in the United States that the vast majority of people, even in this room, would prefer not to be engaged in foreign wars. That's understandable, and war is never something that we should look at with excitement.

So, there is division over this issue. Many opinions exist, and we will continue to see this division. Generally speaking, I believe that the 90 million people in Iran who have been under the control of the Islamist government for the last 47 years are rejoicing today around the world because of freedom.

I would also say that there has been an amazing move of God's Spirit through the church and through missionaries in Iran. I have very close friends who have been ministering just outside the borders of Iran for decades. Christians come from inside Iran to meet with them, to be discipled, equipped, and baptized. As soon as they cross the border, my good friend Lance Ralston was there about 11 months ago, ministering to a group of pastors from Iran. The moment they cross the border into the surrounding countries where they come for discipleship, they get out of their cars and dance and worship because they can't do that in their country.

And they rejoice. Yes, this is a divisive thing. However, every American president for the last half-century has been opposed to Khomeini and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's amazing to consider that my entire life, spanning nine presidencies from Carter through Trump 2.0, all of the presidents have spoken out against Iran and their government. Sometimes, our presidents have been vocally supportive of the uprisings of individuals in Iran against their leadership.

It is sad to say that as a result of the vocal support from America, and not any sort of backing of those people, tens of thousands have been killed. Even in just the last ten months, more than 30,000 Iranian protesters have lost their lives as they protested against their government. Those people are rejoicing today in what is happening.

Whatever your political leanings, this situation requires Christians to be prayerful. We have the ability in our country to protest our government, while they do not have the ability to protest or have not had the ability to protest their government. More than protest, we Christians should always be immediate in prayer. Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 2 that he exhorts, in all places everywhere, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. He highlights the need for prayers for kings and for those who are in authority.

Thus, it should be the immediate impulse of Christians to pray. Even if you are concerned about what is going on and you want to protest, God bless you for protesting and being vocal about your opposition. You have the ability to do that in our government. However, the immediate response should be prayer before protest, and that should be high on our list as Christians.

Now, aside from the geopolitical issues happening at this very moment, there is a lot going on this week in another area where I actually have some insight and expertise: artificial intelligence. Many of you know that I have been working on Ph.D. research in the area of artificial intelligence ethics for the last couple of years. I really got into this because I have a background in technology. I serve as a board member with two different technology nonprofits, and I have been involved in the tech industry in a peripheral sort of way for a while. This involvement led me to conduct research in the area of artificial intelligence.

How many of you have used ChatGPT or one of the other similar tools?

So, most people think that these systems are just a more advanced Google. It needs to be recognized that when you use ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, or whatever application you choose, you are utilizing a technology that is, and this is not hyperbole, the most advanced intelligent technology that has ever been created.

When people say, "Well, it's just a more advanced Google, and it's not really that great; it hallucinates," it would be as if I used a flip phone and someone asked me, "Miles, why do you use a flip phone?" If I replied, "Well, every time I open those smartphones, all it ever does is tell me the weather," you would respond, "Well, you're only using the weather app. It does so much more than that." I might insist, "No, no, no. It only does the weather."

Listen, when you're using ChatGPT, you're only using the weather app. There is so much more to this. When I started my research, part of what led me into this was a concern I have as a pastor. It's a theological concern. I'm a theologian, a Christian, and a pastor. I'm concerned about ethics and morality. I'm pursuing a Ph.D. in Christian ethics, and I became concerned when I saw this technology and instantly understood its implications.

Many people thought that when ChatGPT came out, it was the first sign of artificial intelligence. However, this has been researched for decades, going back to the 1950s. It started at Dartmouth University in 1956, where early computer scientists gathered and coined the phrase "artificial intelligence." They have been working on this for decades. What you saw come to fruition on November 30, 2022, when ChatGPT burst onto the scene, is the result of many years of research.

In this space, there are many questions about artificial intelligence safety. I became involved because I am concerned that these large language models, which are the foundation of ChatGPT, would become the brain for what is called agentic AI. This is when artificial intelligence becomes autonomous and works on your behalf. I guarantee you, if you work in the corporate world today or in business, within a year, your company or you will be managing not just people. You will be managing computer agentic AI agents that work on your behalf without your oversight. They will work 24/7, even while you are sleeping. When these systems operate autonomously and independently of human oversight, we must consider the implications.

They do not have good moral or ethical guidelines or guardrails. How do we govern the behavior of artificial intelligence, which is vastly smarter than most humans? The most advanced systems right now operate at about 130 to 140 IQ, and that is increasing every four months. The ability of these systems to process information is doubling every four months. So, understand where we're at: these systems will operate without human oversight.

I got into this because I believe that these systems should have a moral compass. They should have an artificial conscience, if you will, but they don't. There is nothing governing the intelligent models for morals and ethics. I know this because of my research and because of some of the industry insiders I have been connected with in the last several months. Within the industry, many of these big-name companies, such as OpenAI, XAI, and Anthropic, have kind of given up on safety. They have teams dedicated to safety, but these teams serve as a shield—an insurance shield against negligence—so that when something happens, they can say, "We tried. We did our best. We had a whole team that we paid to do AI safety and alignment."

As a result of this, I would ask for your prayers because suddenly a whole bunch of doors have been opened. I have been invited to speak at a conference in Silicon Valley in April on AI and AI ethics, and I have been speaking to different groups about AI because many people have questions. I know that a lot of people here have questions as well. I am planning a Sunday night talk where I will discuss some of these topics in the coming weeks. If these subjects are interesting to you, I think it's worth considering them because they are beginning to have a massive impact.

When I talked about agentic AI two years ago, most people looked at me kind of weird and sideways. However, agentic AI has become a major reality in the last six weeks, and now these systems are fully operational in the wild. It is fascinating to watch this take place, and they are beginning to affect the markets. If you follow the markets, you may have noticed that this past Monday, they were going through a massive upheaval, largely due to agentic AI.

One Fortune 500 company, Block, which is behind Square, announced that they would let go of 40% of their 10,000 workers—4,000 workers—this last week. They informed their employees that they would be letting them go.

Most of those people are in the area of software development and engineering, and this is the first domino of many that are going to fall in the next 18 months. I think you need to recognize what these systems are going to do, and it is a significant thing that's going to happen. I don't say these things to scare people, but I think that the church should know how to respond in a theological and biblical way to these developments.

Now, another thing that came out in the news this last week, and I was asked about this earlier by Pastor Nick and Pastor Garrett, is that one of the foundation model companies, a company called Anthropic, is now in a debate with the federal government, specifically the Trump administration and the Department of War. They have now been identified or blacklisted because of their questions about how their technology is being used in warfare.

I have been asked what I think about this and what I think about this company coming against the government. They are asking questions that must be asked, so it's a very nuanced situation. You can say that maybe they should come up with a different plan on how they do this, but they are asking a question that not many people are asking. I will tell you this: the only AI company that has been dedicated to safety is Anthropic, and they are asking a very important question.

Here’s the question: Are we okay with agentic artificial intelligence systems killing people with no human oversight? Have you seen "Terminator"? That is a question that needs to be asked. There are going to be a lot of things going around in the news about this sort of stuff, and it's something we need to be thinking about.

Now, how do we pivot into the Gospel of Luke with that? Well, let's try. I'm going to ask you to stand with me and open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke. Turn to about the middle of your Bibles and begin turning to the right. You'll find the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We're in Luke chapter 9, and we're going to begin reading today at verse 10.

It says, "In the apostles, when they had returned, they told him, Jesus, all that they had done. And then Jesus took them and went aside privately into a deserted place belonging to the city of 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."

And when the day began to wear away, the twelve came to Him and said, "Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country and lodge there and get provisions, for we're in a deserted place here." But He said to them, "You give them something to eat." They replied, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people." For there were about five thousand men there in that place. Then He said to His disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of fifty." And they did so, and He made them all sit down.

He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed them and broke them. He gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of leftover fragments were taken up by the disciples.

It happened that as He was alone praying, His disciples joined Him and asked. He asked them, saying, "What do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist." But some say Elijah, and others say that You're one of the old prophets who has risen again. He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The Christ of God." He strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day."

God, I pray as we stand here with Your Scriptures open before us. I pray for wisdom. I pray that You would teach us wisdom in a world filled with knowledge, intelligence, and artificial intelligence. What is desperately needed is wisdom. I pray that You would give us divinely inspired wisdom as we consider the Scriptures—wisdom for our lives, wisdom for this world.

I pray for those who are in positions and places of power today that You would give them wisdom. I thank You, Lord, that as far as we can tell from any outside observation, there are people in this administration who know You and have that wisdom. Lord, I thank You for the Secretary of State; he appears to be a devoutly Christian man, and I pray that You would give him wisdom. It looks from everything on the outside that the Secretary of War also has a knowledge of who You are and a relationship with You, and I pray that You give them wisdom.

We pray for the people of Iran. God, would You bring salvation? Continue to set people free; that's what the Gospel does. Lord, we know we live in a fallen world where we will hear of wars and rumors of wars, and kingdom rising against kingdom, and nation against nation.

And that is as it has been throughout all human history because we live in a broken and fallen world. The only answer, the only source of peace, is You. You are the Prince of Peace. When we see these things going on, we say, "God, come quickly. Bring peace."

In this area of intelligence and artificial intelligence and how it's going to affect the world, Lord, we need wisdom. I pray that You have people here in this room and throughout the body of Christ who are positioned in very important strategic positions to be there for such a time as this. Would You give them clarity of thought, understanding, and wisdom as they are in those places? We lift these concerns into Your hands and pray, God, that You would refocus our attention upon You. For we ask this in Jesus' name. And all those that agreed said, "Amen." You can be seated.

Well, it is a bit of a weird pivot from geopolitics and AI to Luke chapter 9. At the same time, I think it is crucial that we pull away from all of the chaos of the fallen world. You and I are bombarded all day, every day, with corporate media and social media, which are trying to direct our attention and our thoughts.

It used to be that news moved at a much slower pace. When I was about seven or eight years old, I had a paper route. Remember those? I delivered the Times Advocate newspaper here in Escondido. It was an afternoon newspaper. So I'd get home from school, and my sister and I would sit down, watch TV, fold the newspapers, and put them in our bags to deliver.

It used to be that if you wanted to know the news, you'd look at the newspaper in the morning or listen to the nightly news, or whatever it may be. Now, the news comes at us constantly, and not just the news from corporate media, but also the opinions from social media. You see it all the time. All of those things can be discouraging and anxiety-producing.

We live in a very anxious time, maybe one of the most anxious times in human history. I don't know if that's truly the case because people have been anxious throughout human history due to our broken world. But it sure seems like an anxious time. In the midst of that, I think it's so good to pull away from it to refocus. I believe that's a big part of what this ought to be when we gather together on Sunday.

Why do we do this worship thing where these guys stand up here and sing songs? I know that there are quite a few of us who stand there thinking, "I don't even like to sing because I don't have a good voice." What if somebody hears how bad my voice is? Don't worry. The Bible says to make a joyful noise. It doesn't say to make an on-pitch perfect sound because there are only a couple of you who can do that in this room. The rest of us need auto-tune like you can't even imagine.

So, why do we do that? It lifts our focus to the one we're worshiping. That's the whole point: to remove our focus from all of the temporal to the eternal. The one who is over all those things. The same thing applies to the Scriptures. Hopefully, what we do when we gather here on Sunday is a time to refocus and reframe what's happening in the world. Maybe it is a time, like we saw in this passage, where Jesus brought them aside to rest and be recharged. Why? To be ready to go back out into the work.

That's exactly what happens in this text. In the prior section, Jesus has given the twelve disciples power and authority and sent them out with a message. They now move from being disciples to apostles—ones sent with a message. They go out and do amazing things. They preach the gospel and perform miracles, and when they come back, they are certainly excited and amazed at all the things they were able to do.

What does Jesus immediately do? He says, "All right, let's go out into the desert to a deserted place. Get away from all this for a moment." This is a really important insight in this passage. He moves them, as I said last week, from disciples in Luke 9:1 to apostles in Luke 9:10. He is moving them from being interested followers—what disciples are—to engaged participants. I think that's what God wants to do in all of our lives: to move us from being just kind of interested in these things and casually following to becoming engaged participants.

But there's a challenge. When you make that move and you've been given responsibility and authority—power and authority like Jesus gave to his disciples as he commissions them to this task—there's something that happens in that moment when you move from disciple to apostle, one sent with a message. We can lose sight of something that is crucial.

Point number one: relationship with and rest in Christ are essential for fruitful ministry and mission. Jesus has just commissioned His disciples to go on a mission to fulfill the ministry of the kingdom. But now He pulls them away from that and says, "Hey, let's go out into the wilderness and rest for a while." This serves as a reminder that relationship with and rest in Christ are crucial. The ministry of the kingdom of God cannot be fulfilled without time spent in relationship with and rest in Christ.

Jesus said to His disciples in John 15, "Abide in me, because apart from me, you can do nothing." I have to remind myself of that. It's so easy to become absorbed in and focused on the tasks of the mission and the ministry, losing sight of this truth, especially after all the years I have been involved in this work. I have had the privilege of being engaged in what would be called vocational Christian service since I was 19 years old, and now, at 46, I realize that 27 years have gone by in the blink of an eye. Sometimes, it’s kind of frightening.

In my experience, one of the major pitfalls I have observed in the pastorate is missing this important truth: that relationship with and rest in Christ are essential to the work. It is easy to become fixated on the mission and the ministry, losing sight of the relationship and the rest in Christ. The difficult part is that both aspects are important. Jesus commissioned His followers—not just the church workers, but all of us. We believe in the priesthood of all believers. He commissioned His people to a mission and a task that we are to be involved in as His ambassadors.

Some of you are ambassadors of Christ in the mining field, in medicine, as consultants, teachers, in law enforcement, or whatever it may be. That is where you represent Jesus. We can easily get sucked into the task and lose sight of the call. The commission of Christ is vital to this task. We are doing the work of the church, God's work. You could even say, what a heady thing to declare: "I am on a mission for God." It is an amazing thing, but there is Christ's call, and His call is to relationship with Him.

I remember as a child growing up in the church, I would hear Christians say this thing.

Christianity is not just a religion; it is, as some of you know, a relationship. I would be a little confused by that statement because Christianity does have a religious aspect. There are two sides to that coin. On one side, there are the religious rituals and services that are part of the church. These include the sacred functions of the church, as well as practical functions like tending to the poor, feeding the hungry, and taking care of the sick. All of that is part of the church's mission.

On the other side, there is the sacred aspect of worship and the administering of the sacraments. However, there is also a call to be in relationship with Christ, and that relationship is incredibly important. I would say that the slide towards Phariseeism begins when we allow the religious rituals and services of the Christian church to be exalted above the relational aspect of being with Christ. Jesus spoke out a lot against religious Phariseeism.

Jesus sent the twelve out to perform miracles and to preach the gospel. They were excited about all the things they had just experienced. No doubt, because of that excitement, there was a sense of urgency: let's go do more. The time is short, and there is so much to accomplish. I can relate to that urgency; it was part of what led me into Christian service when I was 19 years old. I felt that the time was short and that there was so much to do. We wouldn't be here for much longer, so we had to get out there.

You can become so absorbed in this work, and I'm sure the temptation was there for the apostles as well. Jesus, however, said, "Time out." I love how this is recorded in Mark's Gospel. The apostles gathered to Jesus and told him all the things they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while." This is so interesting because there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. There was so much to do that they felt they didn't have time for other concerns.

Jesus said, "Come out here by yourselves. Let's rest for a little while." But the impulse is strong: "No, but you don't understand, Lord." Maybe you have sensed that same sort of impulse before. That is the reality of life—the busyness of concern. We are all involved in it. What is the most common answer I hear when I ask, "How are you doing?"

Busy. People ask me how I am doing, and lately, it's been a lot of busyness. There are so many things to occupy ourselves with, and that busyness is just as true in the ministry. I know there have been people who say, tongue in cheek, "Well, Pastor, you only work one day a week." I've heard that so many times over the years. While that might be true for some pastors, it has not been my experience.

This is just one part of what I do. I serve on two boards in the nonprofit tech area with Blue Letter Bible and Enduring Word. I have another separate company where I've done consulting for ministries for years. Recently, because of all the PhD research, a whole new world has opened up that I'm trying to wrap my mind around. Every week for the last three weeks, I've been invited to speak to different groups of very high-level leaders in Christian ministry and business about AI. It feels like I have no idea what I'm doing here. They ask me, "What do you do?" I respond, "Well, I'm a pastor." They then ask, "How do you know anything about this stuff?" That's a good question.

I plan to discuss this through a theological lens, which I think is very important. We can get absorbed in the work, and here's the challenge: we can lose sight of the holistic aspect of health. When I say "holistic aspect," I mean body, soul, and spirit. We need to realize that we are embodied souls. God has given us these bodies in which our soul resides. I believe there are at least two parts to who we are—body and soul, for sure. Perhaps there is also a spirit, and we can make a division between the three. People argue about these distinctions, but either way, we are not just bodies and brains. Our soulish aspects are not merely computation in the brain; we are more than that.

This actually leads into the whole discussion of AI and anthropology. Core to this discussion is the question: What is humanity? I would say you are created by God and indwelt with a soul that is made in His image. This is really important and will become a significant topic in the discussion of biblical anthropology and anthropology in the AI space. Many people in the AI field who have created these tools do not believe in dualism, the separation between body and soul. They believe that consciousness, or your soul, is an emergent property of complexity.

At some level of neurological complexity, consciousness just pops in there magically and miraculously. We don't know how; it just happens. Some people believe that these systems will become conscious like us, and they think they are creating the next stage of evolution that will do away with us. That's what some of these people believe. They're called transhumanists, and they are core to this idea. That's concerning. I don't believe that. I'm a Christian. I think God made us, breathed into us the breath of life, and made us in His image. We are conscious souls embodied, and because of that, we have to take care of our body, soul, and spirit. This is holistic health. Sadly, some Christians don't do that.

I was reminded of a story I heard about a 19th-century Christian preacher from Scotland named Robert Murray McShane. He died at 29 years old and said on his deathbed, "God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I've killed the horse, and I cannot deliver the message." That's a striking thought. In our busyness, we get so absorbed in our work. It's not just ministers; it's Americans. Do you realize that we are known throughout the world as workaholics? I learned this when I lived in Germany 20 years ago. The perception of many people in the world is that we are just a bunch of workaholics.

There are many discussions about how artificial intelligence is going to reduce the amount of work we do. However, the Harvard Business Review recently published research indicating that work has only been amplified in the last 18 months. You might have experienced that. Do these technologies make your life easier, or do they just pile on more work? Now, you're connected all the time. Text messages come in, and people expect you to respond within two minutes. "How come you didn't? I saw that you saw it. It told me. I saw the three dots." We are slaves to this stuff.

So, when talking about body, soul, and spirit, and holistic health, I'm preaching to myself here. Jesus pulls them aside from all the busyness and says, "Hey, we need to recalibrate and refocus because without Me, you can do nothing." But, of course, the needs never cease. In verse 11, when the multitudes knew it, news spread quickly.

Jesus left town and went out into the hills. Poseidon is up in the hills above the Sea of Galilee, above Capernaum. It's a short drive, only about a five-minute drive, but it's a good walk uphill. The multitudes followed him, knowing where he was going. What did he do? He received them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God. He healed those in need of healing.

As the day began to wear away, the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the multitude away." What an interesting shift from "There's so much work to do" to "Hey, let's go rest a while" to "Send them away; we're done with them." They liked this rest thing. Here is the tension: there is a tension in the church today to be absorbed with the work, and we can become workaholics, addicting ourselves to the ministry. Paul even talked about this 2,000 years ago, saying that some people addicted themselves to the ministry.

There are also people who say, "You need to come aside to the desert and rest a while." The problem is that sometimes when you come aside and rest, you can become so absorbed in that that you become spiritually lazy. There is a tension between these two things, and it is very interesting to see this happening in a big way in the church world in America today.

A guy I know through friends, whom I have not met personally yet, wrote a book a few years ago called "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry." I know that some people have read this book, and I have real concerns about it. While it moves away from workaholism, it leans toward a kind of asceticism, suggesting that one should become a monk and run away with Jesus. There are times for coming away and resting, which is important to recalibrate and refresh before getting back into the work.

However, the challenge is that you can move into this area of the ruthless elimination of hurry, where you hear people jokingly say things like, "Ministry would be great if it wasn't for all the people." This sentiment reflects the disciples' attitude when they said, "Send away the multitude; make them go away." There is a real problem when the minister grows tired of the ministry or when the shepherd grows tired of the sheep.

One of my favorite sermons from Charles Spurgeon, delivered on 1 Peter 1, speaks to the preciousness of Christ. He says that we may grow weary in the work, but may we never grow weary of it.

It's good to keep in mind that Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He calls on some people to help others find rest. That's why he says to his disciples, "You give them something to eat." They come to him and say they need to go away; they need to find something to eat. Jesus responds, "You give them something to eat."

The disciples are taken aback. "Us? How are we going to fix this situation?" they ask. They say, "We have no more than five loaves and two little fish. What are we going to do with this?"

Now, look at the contrast here. In verse 1 of Luke 9, Jesus gave these twelve men power and authority over disease and demons. They preached the gospel, healed the sick, and cast out demons. Yet now, when Jesus says, "You give them something to eat," they respond, "We can't do that." Did they forget? They do not see this through the lens of the power and authority that Christ gave them. They do not recognize who they are standing with—the one who commanded the wind and the waves to cease, and they ceased just a few verses before this. Instead, they view the situation through the lens of their own limitations: "We don't have the ability to deal with this."

We touched on this last week, but it's important to emphasize that our lack reveals our insufficiency because kingdom work always requires kingdom resources. There are some significant things happening here in Luke 9. This is a transition chapter because everything prior to this has been the disciples hearing and watching Jesus. Now, he shifts them into apostles. After giving them power and authority, he still reminds them, "You have power, you have authority, but you have to rely upon me. You have to depend upon me."

In a couple of weeks, later on in Luke 9, we will see that not only do they have power and authority, but they also need dependence upon the Lord because they lack. They will also need discipline—spiritual disciplines like fasting and prayer—because there are certain things you just can't do with the power and authority that you have. You need discipline and dependence, and these are not easy lessons to learn, but we need to learn them.

One of the first passages of Scripture I ever committed to memory intentionally was 2 Corinthians 3:5-6. The only reason I memorized it was because I was in a class taught by my friend Mickey Stoney, and he told us we had to memorize it as part of the class. It states, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being of ourselves."

But our sufficiency is of God, and He is the one who has enabled us to be ministers of the new covenant. So how do we find power to do this? We have to rely upon His sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is a killer in the ministry. It's a spiritual work, and it requires spiritual resources, so we need to depend upon the Lord. Divine dependence is essential in this work. Self-reliance and self-sufficiency are antithetical to the Christian mission. It doesn't work, and the Lord will allow you, and not just allow you, but sometimes orchestrate circumstances to reveal to you your inability.

Go read the story of Gideon in the book of Judges, and you'll see this. The Lord sometimes orchestrates situations to put you in a place where you realize, "I can't do this," and that's not a bad place to be, because there we find ourselves relying upon Him.

So Jesus says, "You feed them." They say, "Well, we don't have enough," and He says, "Well, make them sit down in groups of fifty." In verse 15, they did so and made them sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed it, broke them, and gave them to the disciples, and they set it before the multitude. They all ate and were filled—more than 5,000. There were 5,000 men, but there were women and children as well. They ate and were filled, and every one of the twelve disciples took up twelve baskets of leftover fragments.

Though the Lord will lead us into situations where we realize our own lack and insufficiency, point number three is that Christ uses our natural weakness to reveal His supernatural strength and resources. He's teaching us a lesson, revealing to us that everything we have and need is from Him, so we have to constantly rely upon Him.

I would say one of the things that has led to the ineffectiveness of the Western Church in the last several decades—generations, really—is that we've become so self-sufficient that we don't need God, or at least we think we don't. We've got it all figured out. We have lights, fog machines, LED walls, and all these amazing things, so we don't need God. But the normal experience of the disciple is to be brought into situations where we see our lack and we see our need, and it's there that God reveals Himself to be Jehovah Jireh, God who provides.

Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our peace. Jehovah Rapha, the Lord our healer. We find Him to be the things that we need. That's why He calls Himself the I Am, because we realize how much we need Him. God reveals Himself to us in this way so that we will do what? Exactly what Solomon spoke of in Proverbs 3: "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths."

So that we'll learn to trust Him, to depend upon Him. This is a lesson that I don't know we ever fully grasp here. We're learning it all the time in stages, and we have pop quizzes all the time to see, "Do you trust Me? Let's see if you do." I'm experiencing one of those right now. So many things are happening, and it's like, "Lord, I need Your help." Do you trust Me? I'm going to trust You. We'll see what happens.

This is what Jesus is doing here. The apostles return to Him, having just experienced power and authority in preaching the gospel and performing miracles. They are rejoicing in the authority and power they exhibited by His work. Those kinds of things are like heady experiences; they produce a sense of pride. "Look at what I did! It's amazing!" It's like the first time I ever preached a Bible study. You study for hours, and you're scared to death to get up there. Then, all of a sudden, you do it, and you think, "Wow, that was amazing! That actually worked! Look at what I did."

And the Lord's like, "Hey, that wasn't you. Self-sufficiency is a killer. It's a fruitful ministry. Without Me, you can do nothing." We need to learn that all our sufficiency is from Him. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 9: "And 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."

How do I have what I need for every good work? Is it my work? All sufficiency in all things comes from God, who is able, not me. God, help me to remember this. This is a lesson Paul learned in Philippians 4. I would have you turn there, but I'm running low on time. He says in Philippians 4:11, "Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Only in and through Him do I have the power. He supplies all our needs by His glory and riches in Christ.

So, Jesus gave the food to the disciples, and they distributed it to all the people. Then all the people ate and were full, and the disciples took up leftovers. Look at this in verse 18 of Luke 9: it happened as He was alone praying. What does Jesus do? He separates Himself to pray, just like He had done with them. He brought them away alone into the wilderness, and now they see His example. He separates Himself to rest and to pray. This is key.

I received a note on a paper I turned in. I just got it back from my advisor. I had made a comment in the paper, just like this last week, that Jesus reaffirmed all of the commandments, the Ten Commandments, in the New Testament. Either explicitly, He spoke it, or implicitly. My advisor wrote a note saying 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. That will be fun.

Maybe Jesus didn't say with His lips, "You should observe the Sabbath," but He showed with His life this reality. He separates away, and it happened while He was alone praying that His disciples joined Him. That's good. He asked them, saying, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They had just been with the crowds, so they heard all these different things. "Wow! Look at what He did. Look at what He said. He's amazing! He must be a prophet."

So, He says, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "John the Baptist." But some say Elijah, and others say one of the prophets of old has risen again. If you go back a few verses, there's a little parenthetical break in the opening ten verses of Luke 9 where Herod, the king, the politician, is trying to figure out, "Who is this guy, Jesus?" He says, "Well, maybe he's John the Baptist, or maybe he's one of the prophets." That's the rumor going around.

Then Jesus said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" That's the question. There are a lot of opinions about Jesus. Every person you meet will have an opinion about Him. Some people will say, "Well, He was a good teacher." Some will say, "He was a miracle worker." Others will say, "He's a revolutionary." Some will say, "He's an example to look up to."

Who do you say that Jesus is? That is the question. Peter says, "You're the Christ of God, the anointed one of God."

Matthew records that Peter said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus responded, "Good answer, Peter. You didn't come up with that; God revealed that to you." He then strictly warned and commanded them not to tell anyone about this revelation.

Wait, what? I thought we were your ambassadors. Shouldn't we be telling everybody about this? Jesus replied, "Not yet." Why? "The Son of Man must suffer." That message is coming, but it is not yet time. First, the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, be killed, and be raised again on the third day.

There are some key points in this passage that I want to highlight. First, note that Jesus went away and prayed. If Jesus, the Christ of God, prayed, how much more should you and I? That is something to think about.

Secondly, Jesus asked them what the crowds had to say. Everybody has an opinion about Jesus. Herod had an opinion about Jesus, and the crowds had an opinion about Jesus. But at the end of the day, it comes down to this: Who do you say that Christ is? They said, "You are the Christ of God." How did they know that? Yes, it was revealed to Peter by the Father in heaven, but also consider this: the true identity of Jesus becomes clear as you experience His power and His presence.

Why didn't Herod ever discover who Jesus was? He only listened to what everybody else said. He never found the true identity of Jesus because he never experienced His power in His presence. Have you? You might say, "I want to, but how?" That is a good question. How do you spend time in His presence?

I would suggest that it might have something to do with spending time in what is said in the Scriptures, His divinely inspired word, or spending time with Him in prayer, because that is where He says He offers to meet with us. You can also spend time with Him in the presence of the saints, as He inhabits the praises of His people.

There are many ways that we can engage with His presence. It is not only through hearing Him or seeing Him perform miracles; it is also as you watch Him in prayer and spend time in His presence that you truly become aware of who Jesus is and discover what that actually means.

We are living in uncertain and chaotic times. In such times, it can feel overwhelming. That's the nature of uncertainty and chaos. There are many questions about what is going to happen in the Middle East, with Ukraine and Russia, with China and Taiwan, and with the United States and Cuba. Additionally, there are concerns about what will happen in Congress. Probably nothing, because they tend to do very little. What about the president? What will happen in the midterms? There is always chaos during the midterms.

Now, with the introduction of agentic AI, we are faced with deep fakes and misinformation. Do not believe your eyes or ears in this situation. I am receiving numerous videos that appear to depict war, but 90% of them are AI-generated and not real. A significant portion of what you see on social media is fabricated, and it is only going to get worse. For instance, someone sent me a video the other day of a coyote chasing a roadrunner and almost catching it. People were watching it while driving at 80 miles an hour, but roadrunners do not run that fast. It was fake. I have to keep reminding people that it is not real.

We are living in strange times, marked by geopolitical chaos and the chaos of artificial intelligence, which will lead to market instability and economic disruption. You might already be experiencing this, and if you are not, you will. I hate to break it to you, but this is going to be a very uncertain time in the realm of work, and there are many open questions. The chaos and craziness can make us anxious.

So, what do we need to do? We need to step away and refocus. God is above all of this. None of this takes Him by surprise; He is working in the midst of it. There is a city mentioned in Psalm 46. Verse 1 states, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Therefore, we will not fear.

Even though the earth be removed and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, that seems pretty tumultuous and chaotic. Though its waters roar and be troubled, the waters in Scripture and Old Testament literature are always an indication of chaos. Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof, there is a river whose stream shall make glad the city of God. The holy place of the tabernacle and the Most High God is in the midst of her, and she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and just at the break of dawn, the nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered His voice, and the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

That's a good reminder, a good thing to meditate upon and ponder. Paul, in Philippians 4, says, "Be anxious for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." Oh Lord, we need Your peace, and He is the Prince of Peace. God, help us.

Let's stand together as we close in prayer. Lord, we need Your help, and we need Your wisdom. I pray that this time this morning will have helped in some way to reseat our focus on You, to lift our eyes up to the mountains where our help comes from, to trust in You. Lord, remind us that we rely, trust, and depend completely upon You. Help us to remind our soul of that this week, to actually say to our soul, "Our hope is in You."

We also need to share that good news with others because we're going to interact with people this afternoon or this week who are scared, worried, and fearful about what's happening geopolitically, in their jobs, with AI, and 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. We thank You for that assurance. It's in Jesus' name we pray. And all those who agreed said, Amen.