Not Enough? That's Enough.

It’s Friday afternoon. You’ve just cranked out a massive work week – working at a job that doesn’t give you enough time to do the things they don’t pay you enough money to do. You clock out and power through an hour’s worth of bumper-to-bumper traffic. You’re dead tired, and all you’re thinking about is the weekend.

But when you finally do get home, there’s more work waiting for you.

There are outstanding bills that need to be paid. There’s a leaky faucet that needs to be fixed. You need to call your doctor to schedule an appointment, and you need to have a talk with your kid who got in trouble at school.

So much for a relaxing weekend.

There never seems to be enough time. You rarely feel like you have enough money. And you simply don’t have enough energy.

You walk into your home, drop your stuff, and sink into your sofa – feeling like the weight of the world rests on your shoulders. And that’s when your phone rings. It’s your boss, calling to tell you that you need to come in and work tomorrow.

The needs never seem to stop – and there’s not enough of you to meet them.

“You Give Them Something to Eat”

Jesus’ disciples could relate. They needed to sit down and rest. They needed something to eat. These tired, hungry men had just returned from their mission trips – and they needed some R&R and one-on-one time with Jesus.

But that proved to be near impossible. Crowds of people flocked around Jesus and his disciples – so much so that the disciples couldn’t even get a quick bite to eat.

So, they hopped in a boat and set sail for the opposite shore of the Sea of Galilee in hopes of finding a secluded place to rest. But somehow, the crowd caught wind of where Jesus and the disciples were sailing. So, they ran along the Northern coast to catch up, spreading the word as they went.

Can you could imagine the look on the disciples’ faces when they finally arrived at the Northeastern shore, and what they saw were thousands of people – men, women, and children – anxiously trying to find them? The very people they had deliberately sailed away from in the first place?

I can’t imagine these tired, hungry disciples were feeling very compassionate towards this crowd of thousands.

But Jesus was.

This crowd had brought Jesus their sick they needed him to heal. They had brought Jesus their spiritual questions they needed him to answered. But there was something else they needed that they hadn’t brought: food. And it was already getting late. So, the disciples came to [Jesus] and said, “This is a remote place…Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Seemed like a sensible suggestion, doesn’t it? That they needed to leave and get something to eat?

But Jesus suggests otherwise.

“They do not need to go away,” which left the disciples thinking, “If these people stay here, then who is going to feed them?” So, Jesus says, “You.” “You give them something to eat.”

But this was a need they simply couldn’t meet.

The disciples simply weren’t packing enough money to cater for over 5,000 people. Philip, one of the twelve, estimated that not even 8 month’s wages would be enough to provide even a bite of food for every man, woman, and child in that crowd. There were thousands of them! So, they searched among the crowd for any and all food they could find – and of the thousands and thousands crowding around Jesus that day, all they could find was one boy’s packed lunch.

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish.” In other words, “We don’t have enough.”

Sure, Jesus had given the disciples divine power to perform miracles on their mission trips – and they had performed miracles, too; but the immensity of this need seemed insurmountably great. “Jesus, we’d feed these people if we could! But five loaves and two fish is not enough for us to work with!”

And that’s when Jesus says, “Bring them here to me.”

Can you imagine the look on the disciples’ faces when they see this boy’s lunch placed in Jesus’ hands? How could this measly meal even put a dent in feeding a famished crowd this size? Jesus couldn’t possibly work such a massive miracle from such a meager amount of food, could he? How is this enough?

“How Is This Enough?”

You ever ask God that question? How is this enough?

Maybe it’s when you’re grocery shopping on a shoestring budget, and you look at what little you’ve put in the cart compared to how many mouths you have to feed at home and you wonder, how is this enough?

Maybe it’s when your car is always in and out of the shop. Or when your windshield suddenly cracks, when your tire blows out, when the alternator goes bad, or that fender-bender you never saw coming.

Maybe it’s after a break in and you lose some of your material possessions and you not only need to replace those but you need to pay for the damages. Maybe it’s when a recession or inflation wrecks your finances. Maybe it’s when your company starts to dissolve, and your job security with it. Maybe it’s when you’re drowning in bills, your credit card is declined, or you’re on the brink of bankruptcy.

You weigh those surmounting expenses against what scare resources you have and wonder, how is this enough?

But all these needs don’t just cost money; they require time and energy from you, too.

These needs just never seem to stop – and there’s not enough of you to meet them.

And when our finances are strained, when we’re buried in debt, when we are tired, worn out, and just struggling to get by – when it feels like we’re living hand to mouth, when we don’t have the time, the energy, or the resources we need to meet our needs, we ask the same question the disciples asked:

“How is this enough?”

But is your “not enough” not enough for God?

You see, buried beneath all this worry is doubt. We doubt God will provide for our needs, or we doubt God even can provide for our needs. We project our inability to work with scarcity onto God – and conclude that not enough for us is not enough for him.

“If I can’t work miracles with very little, then neither can God.”

And so, we worry.

“How am I going to provide for my family? How am I going to make all these tuition payments? How am I going to pay these medical bills? How am I going to pull myself up out of debt? How am I going to possibly meet all my needs? I don’t have enough! I don’t have what I need!”

The irony is, even in times of plenty we’ll say the exact same thing. Take for example the richest man in modern history – entrepreneur and oil-refining tycoon, John D. Rockefeller – who, when asked, “How much money is enough money?” replied, “Just a little bit more.”

Now, to be fair, Rockefeller was quite a generous philanthropist; but quotes like these leave you asking “How could the wealthiest man in history even joke about not having enough? How could someone so rich still not have what he needs?”

Because - regardless of how much time, money, and energy you think you have - the same sinful nature exists in all of us. We all get hung up on what the word “enough” means. Because we confuse our wants for needs, and lesser needs for ultimate needs.

It was no different for the crowds of people around Jesus.

They were convinced what they needed most was a political, cultural Messiah – not a spiritual one. They wanted a bread king, not a spiritual king. We, like the people crowding around Jesus, not only confuse what we “need” with what we “want,” we so often forget the greatest need we all have – a need that threatened our eternal standing with God – a need that only God can meet.

There was a time when the needs of this world never existed. A time when people had so much more than enough. In fact, they had an entire earthly paradise as their home!

But they bought into the lie that such a paradise wasn’t enough, that they needed something more. And when Adam and Eve rejected God and his abundant goodness, this world plunged into sin - and from that moment on, humanity would know first hand what “not having enough” really was. Our world was left desperately in need - in need of a Savior from sin: our sins of coveting, our sins of discontentment, our sins of doubt and distrust, and our sins of worry. We needed redemption. We needed saving. We were sheep in need of a compassionate shepherd.

But our need for such a shepherd has been met in Jesus.

More Than Enough

[Jesus] directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. The all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

The disciples were right: they couldn’t, by their own power, stretch a boy’s meager lunch into a meal for thousands. But for Jesus – the same God who made the heavens, the earth, and everything between – that boy’s lunch was more than enough!

That same LORD who broke bread to feed thousands until they were filled is the very Bread of Life who gives life to the world – and life to the full! Because what we needed more than full bellies was full forgiveness for all the wrongs against God we had done, and full reconciliation to God as family.

And in Christ, that need has been met! And how did God meet that need? Well, God became man for us. God would be born for us. Not to merely to feed thousands or fill our fridge. No, Jesus came to be perfect in our place, because we couldn’t. Jesus came to endure God’s holy justice in our place on a cross, so we wouldn’t.

Your God can and will provide for your earthly needs. But he’s given you something far greater than money, a great job, a nice house, and a full fridge.He gives hope those who are utterly hopeless. He gives rest for the weary, strength for the weak, and joy for the heart-broken. Your Shepherd has conquered sin, death and the devil for you! We are redeemed children of the one true King – heirs of eternal life in the glorious riches of heaven, where never again will we hunger, never again will we thirst.

Until that day, know this: your greatest needs have been met, because every good thing we need is found eternally in Christ.

What’s “not enough” in our hands is more than enough in the hands of Jesus. Your God works immeasurably more than our limited imaginations can conceive, with even less than this boy’s lunch. The God who stretched a boys lunch to feed thousands is the God who stretched his arms across a tree to rescue the entire world.

The God who attends to the temporary needs of the birds and flowers will certainly attend to your eternal needs. The eyes of all may look to him and he will give us today our daily bread.

So, we don’t need to worry. We have enough. We have enough for today. We’ll have enough for tomorrow. And we’ll have enough until our God takes us home. Because he’s a God who provides for his people’s greatest needs.