Community New Year Service

Tonight I attended and took part in the Lonoke Community New Year Service.  It is a time for the churches in our area to come together and worship together.  You shoulda been there!

Several churches took part in prayers and singing and instrumental music and benedictions and Scripture readings.  Bro. Byron Calhoun, pastor of St. John Baptist Church, brought a message from John 6:5-13… showing us some things from the occasion of Jesus feeding 5000+ from 5 loaves & 2 fish.  Here are a few notes I took from what Bro. Byron shared…

• Jesus asked Philip, one of His apostles, where a crowd that size might go to find food to eat.  He asked Philip because Philip was from that area… he was expected to know things about the place he lived.  APP:  How would you respond if Jesus were to ask you about your city?  Jesus expects you to know what’s going on in the community around you!
• John is the only Gospel writer to mention where the 5 loaves & 2 fish came from… a boy in the crowd.  Out of a crowd that large, that small boy was noticed.  Why?  Because he was willing to give what he had.  APP:  Giving people get noticed, even in a crowd.  And you may be where you may be because that’s where God needs you to be!
• Jesus took that boy’s lunch, 5 loaves & 2 fish, and turned into a buffet for 5,000+ people.  APP: God can take a little and make a lot.
• John mentions where Jesus got the starter snack… and mentions what it turned into.  But he doesn’t mention how it happened.  How did that snack multiply?  The other 3 gospels – Matthew, Mark & Luke – tell us Jesus “looked up”, and blessed it, and broke it, and gave it.  APP:  Just because you are in God’s hands doesn’t mean you won’t sometimes have to be broken in order to be used.
• A little snack became an all-you-can-eat buffet.  In fact, there were 12 baskets of food left over!  APP:  We serve a God of “more than enough”.  You may see what you have as “fragments”, “scraps” or “broken pieces” (depending on which version you may be reading from), but it still results in a full basket.  Rather than focusing on each small broken piece, let’s instead focus on the basket of blessing we hold in our hands!

See?  You shoulda been there!