STANDING STRONG IN A SHAKEN WORLD: GOD’S POWER

Do you ever wonder about the power of God?  After all God is omnipotent, which means all powerful, but this is not always our experience as we go
through life.  If anything, we may struggle with seeing and experiencing God’s power in our lives.  Why isn’t everyone we pray for healed?  Was God not able
to heal them or did we not have enough faith?   In our series, Standing Strong in a Shaken World the sermon is God’s Power.  The most difficult time to
experience God’s power is when our world has been shaken to its core, when things do not work out, when we feel our hope is lost.  We turn to Mark 6:31-
46, a miraculous moment in which Jesus feeds the 5,000 with only 5 loaves and 2 fish.  Yet, this was also a teaching moment for the disciples and for us about God’s power in our lives.   God is always able to strengthen us to stand strong, but it does not always happen in a singular dramatic moment.   This event illustrates how God continues to give us strength to witness to his awesome power in every circumstance of our lives.  We pray that you will sense this
strength as you read Mark 6:31-46:  31  Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them,
Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.  32  So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.  33  But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.  34  When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.  35  By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. This is a remote place, they said, and it 39 already very late.  36  Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. 37  But he answered, You give them something to eat. They said to him, That would take more than half a year 39 wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? 38 How many loaves do you have? he asked. Go and see. When they found out, they said, Five– and two fish.  39  Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.  40  So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.  41  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 his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.  42  They all ate and were satisfied,  43  and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish.  44  The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.  45  Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd.  46  After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.