Obeying God isn’t always easy, but it is always the wisest thing to do. Meditating on God’s Word, following His instruction, and trusting Him to provide for your needs are the cornerstone of obedience. You will be rewarded with immeasurable blessings when you trust and obey.
[Music]
timeless truths
a collection of classic sermons from dr
charles stanley
today’s selection recorded in 2001
when things seem impossible
what makes this book such an absolute
treasure to us
somebody says well because it’s the
revelation of god about himself
and about the way he deals with people
well that’s true
and there are many other wonderful
things about this book that gets our
attention and causes us to have
preeminence in our life
one of the most important things is the
fact that most of us who have trusted
jesus christ as our personal savior
realized this is the handbook for living
in other words this is the way you live
and
what we discovered is this if you follow
the principles in this book
you will experience life at its very
best if you violate these principles
written in this book
what you’ll discover is that you’ll reap
a very bitter harvest
and so therefore it’s very important the
way we view it
the very important the way we understand
it and the very
it’s very important the way you and i
practice it one of the unique things
about the bible
is the fact that so many of these
wonderful principles of scripture that
are so practical
for us every day they’re couched in
events
in events in the life of jesus and
events for example the life of the
apostle paul and others
not only that but oftentimes it’s just
what jesus was saying
or what the apostle paul or james of
peter was saying
and one of those events that is known
probably by most people who’ve ever read
the bible
is the event that i want us to look at
today and the title of this message is
when things
seem impossible all of us at some point
in our life have
had our backs to the wall and we think
god i don’t know what to do
i don’t know where to go i don’t know
which way to turn
what shall i do we’ve had our backs to
the wall and everything looked
rather impossible so i want you to see
today
nothing is impossible with god so i want
you to turn if you will
to john chapter 6. in fact in this sixth
chapter of john
it’s the story the account of the
feeding of the five thousand somebody
says oh i know that story
well but do you know the truth of this
story do you know the principles here
do you know what god is trying to say to
us in this passage
because god has some wonderful lessons
in this 6th chapter of john
and beginning in verse 1. and what i
want you to remember is this
that this is the only miracle that jesus
performed that’s recorded
in all gospels matthew mark luke and
john this is the only one
so there must have been some reason the
holy spirit inspired all of them to
include that
in the gospels so beginning in verse 1
after these things jesus went away to
the other side of the sea of galilee
or tiberius which is named after a
caesar a large crowd followed him
because they saw the signs which he was
performing on those who were sick he’d
been healing the sick
then jesus went up on the mountain and
there he sat down with his disciples
he was trying to get away to get a
little rest at this particular time
now the passover the feast of the jews
was near and so that means there are
lots more people floating around and
walking around than normal therefore
jesus lifting up his eyes and seeing
that a large crowd was coming to him
said to philip
where are we to buy bread so that we may
eat
this he was saying to test him for he
himself knew what he was intending to do
so that
was not a command that was just the
request we said where are we going to do
this
philip answered him 200 denari worth of
bread is not sufficient for them for
everyone to receive a little
one of his disciples andrew simon
peter’s brother said to him
there is a lad here who has five barley
loaves and two fish
but what are these for so many people
jesus said have the people sit down now
there was much grass in the place so the
men
sat down in numbers about five thousand
jesus then took the loaves and having
given thanks
he distributed to those who were seated
likewise also the fish
as much as they wanted when they were
filled he said to his disciples
gather up the leftover fragments so that
nothing will be lost
so they gathered them up filled 12
baskets
with fragments from the five barley
loaves which he were left over by those
who had eaten
therefore when the people saw the sign
which he had performed
they said this is truly the prophet
which is coming to the world
and two things don’t want your mind
remind you of number one
jesus primary purpose for performing
miracles was not just to heal people or
to help them feel better
his primary purpose was just what
happened here
he says therefore when the people saw
the sign
all of his miracles were signs of his
true identity that is that jesus christ
was and is the messiah
a second thing i want you to remember
about this passage is this that matthew
mark
luke and john all record this particular
event
not any one of them say the very same
thing
each one of them has a contribution that
they make somebody says well aha then
the bible’s not inspired yes it is
if all of them had been exactly the same
we’d have figured somebody copied
somebody
but each one of them as the holy spirit
led them
brought to mind those things that they
remembered and that they saw happen so i
will say some things that probably
are not here for example the bible says
that it was a very desolate place
and it was very late getting very late
in the evening when this happened so
if i say something so i don’t see that
in the passage it’s either in here
or it’s in matthew mark or luke so with
that in mind let’s think about this
whole idea
and first of all we’re talking about the
issue when things
seem impossible the times in all of our
lives when we
hit those situations where we don’t know
what to do
it looks impossible for us to be able to
get through this
without a great deal of pain or hurt
looks impossible for us to get through
this without
some real financial problems developing
it looks impossible
for us to be healed after what the
doctor said so there are all kinds of
situations we come into
the first thing i want you to notice
here is this and that is that jesus
is aware of those circumstances in which
we feel it is a seemingly impossible
situation
you’ll notice i didn’t say an impossible
situation but
seemingly impossible it appears to be
impossible
it looks like it’s impossible and here
in this situation there were
five thousand uh men and the bible says
in matthew for example that there were
five thousand men plus women and
children so that could have been
fifty five hundred six thousand sixty
five hundred or seven
thousand and so the impossible
situation it appears is that all of
these people who’ve been following jesus
and when he left
one side of the lake they sailed around
the edge of the lake and came to the
other side
and these people who saw him leaving
they followed him hundreds of them and
probably thousands of them
followed him around because they were
interested they were curious they had
seen healing they wanted to be healed
and so
a lot of them were curiosity seekers
then of course some were saying
this is the prophet this is the messiah
and so they want to see more
so they could decide whether he was or
whether he wasn’t so here they are now
tired
weary worn they’ve been listening to him
all day
and some of them also wanted to be
healed and they’re also hungry it’s till
the end of the day the evening has come
and so the disciples said
send them away jesus said
where are we going to buy food and i
want you to notice something very
significant and there are lots of little
lessons in this passage and i want you
to notice here what happens
notice what he says he said verse 6 that
he was testing philip when he said to
him
where are we to buy bread so that we may
eat and so
the scripture says philip answered him
200 denarii worth of bread is not
sufficient for them for
everyone to receive a little now donate
was a roman coin
and a day’s wages would be one denarii
then i want you to notice what happens
philip answered
or in beginning in verse eight one of
his disciples andrew
simon peter’s brother said to him
there’s a lad here who has five barley
loaves and two fish
but one of these for so many and so he’d
been scouting around when they realized
that there wasn’t any food there
and so here’s what i want you to notice
now you listen and say amen
he asked the wrong question look at the
question he asked
he says there is a lad here who has five
berlin loaves and two fish
but what are these for so many that’s
not the right question
the right question is here’s a lad here
who has five loaves and two fish
now lord jesus what are you gonna do
with that that’s the right question
not what is this among so many for
example when you and i hit one of those
difficult situations in life
are we our backs to the wall or we think
something looks impossible
what do we say we say oh lord what am
i going to do wrong question
now remember this is really important
because you’re going to get one of these
lord what what am i what in the world am
i going to do how many of us have asked
that
oh god what in the world am i going to
do that’s not the right question
the right question is lord what are you
going to do
nothing is impossible when the
supernatural
invasion of god by the lord jesus christ
comes into our life
and he enters our circumstance to deal
with them
if i and i alone have to deal with him
i’m going to have a problem
but if he begins to deal with them he if
i allow him
if i acknowledge him if i call upon him
into my circumstance he
is going because of his compassion love
to deal with that circumstance no matter
what it is
and oftentimes we wonder why things
don’t happen right we wonder why
why we can’t figure it out god doesn’t
want us figuring out he wants us to rely
upon him to trust in him
and as he says to call upon him and so
now they’re saying
we don’t know what to do send them away
and he says no i’m not going to send
them away
i’m going to feed them how much money do
we have
go buy something let’s let’s feed them
and so absolutely
totally they don’t have any idea what to
do but the bible says that jesus knows
what he’s going to do which leads me to
the second point and that’s this
not only is he aware of our circumstance
but listen
he always listen he always has a plan
for our seemingly impossible
circumstances that is
jesus is never caught off guard that is
he always knows
what he’s going to do and he knows how
he’s going to do it and he knows
how where when and he knows exactly
the resources that are necessary no
matter what you’re facing in life he
knows exactly what to do
and yet believers listen christians act
like
unbelievers we act like unbelievers oh
lord what in the world am i going to do
we
we have the shakes and we have all kinds
of problems going on and lord
we tell our friends and we want pity and
we want sympathy and we want all this
you need to get on your knees and say
lord what are you going to do
what are you going to do now i know what
i can do and what i can do is not going
to cut it it’s not going to work
but god it will work for you because you
said there’s nothing impossible with you
so i’m going to stop my calculation i’m
going to start trusting and see what you
do
you’ll be amazed at what god can turn
around in your life
but if you do what you feel like doing
what is natural and normal you’re going
to be calculating this what will happen
and what will not happen
and what happens is you end up losing
you listen
you can lose listen you can lose at the
finish line
of god’s very best blessing in your life
if you try to figure what you’re going
to be able to do or maneuver
to some situation trust him he will
guide you step by step because
he has a very definite plan he knew
exactly what he was going to do in this
situation
everything he required of them was one
of the steps toward
accomplishing his goal which was to feed
all these people and his ultimate goal
which was to demonstrate his power which
was part of his ultimate goal
to clearly say to them i am a prophet
and i
am the messiah that was his ultimate
goal step by step
he led them and see he’s got them in
training and they’re having a very
difficult time at this particular point
the third thing i want you to notice
here is this and that is
that jesus will often surprise us
by the way he turns our impossible
situations into things that are possible
sometimes he’s very surprising and he’s
surprising in lots of ways and when you
think about
uh what uh andrew said here he andrew
was scouting around and he found
five loaves and two fishes this little
boy and everybody nobody else seemed to
have any food at all
and so now we’re down to five loaves and
two fishes and uh
at least maybe i say we should we are up
to that we have five loaves and two fish
and we still have all these people
out there and so what do we learn here
when he brought them back to jesus he
brought the lad to jesus and i don’t
think he went and got him and said look
the master
give me your five loaves and two fish i
think he brought the little boy over to
jesus
and either jesus was seated or if he was
not seated he probably
sort of knelt down and asked this little
boy his name
but i think he must have had a
conversation enough that he said well
would you let me have your lunch
all of it could i have all of your lunch
all five loaves and two fish
yes sir he turned his bread over to
jesus
and what i want you to remember is this
don’t ever underestimate
what god can do in your life
when you surrender all you are and all
you have to him
i am fully persuaded that one of the
primary reasons that so many people
are discouraged with their life
disconcerted with life
sort of looking at life and thinking
well am i important i’ll never be able
to accomplish anything never be able to
amount to anything
that was just sort of discouraged about
their life most people
probably when they look at their lives
they don’t see a lot going on
could it be it’s because you have never
turned it over
to the one who created you surrendered
it
to the one who owns you yield it to the
one
who wants to work in you and reveal to
you and
show you what he can do what he will do
with your life
if you’ll give yourself to him most
people are selfish
they have their life in their own grip
this is the way i want to live this is
where i’m going to live this is what i’m
going to do this is what i’m going to
have yes where i’m going
and so their life is their own plan
and what they don’t realize is this that
god has the best plan
possible for your life but the only way
he can make that plan work
is for you to open your hands surrender
your life to him
and give yourself to him absolutely and
totally now that is a matter of pure
trust
do you believe that god has the best
plan absolutely
are you willing to allow him to
demonstrate to you the best plan
most people aren’t well you know they’ll
give some kind of reasoning well you
know well i’ve done my best and
this is what i think i’m trained for and
this is what i’m best at and
hear my gifts and and so what they’ve
done
they have locked themselves into their
own puny plan
when god has the best but you must open
yourself to him to see what could god do
with me
i was reading just this morning that the
tent meeting in 1949 in
california and around hollywood there
was led by a 30 year old
farm boy from north carolina
and that tent meeting became the awesome
stage upon which god set in motion
the whole ministry of billy graham that
has touched this globe
many many many times 30 year old farm
boy from north carolina
who is this so the next time you think
about well who am i
let me tell you something are you
listening say amen
it doesn’t make any difference who else
knows who you are
you know somebody who knows exactly who
you are
and what he’s willing to do in your life
if you just let him do it
well the last thing i want to mention
here is this that is that he will use
these
impossible seemingly impossible
circumstances in our life
to teach us to train us and to grow us
up
and if you’ll just think about what
happened to these disciples here
when they watch this they watch jesus do
this what kind of
impact they had in their life he’ll do
the same thing in your life in mind
so let’s look at this for a moment and
the first thing you see here is this
that this incident in their lives
strengthened their faith
how could they doubt they watched him
there was no
question there was no manipulation five
little barley loaves two fish
and he fed five thousand men plus women
and children
now how did you do that the awesome
power of god they saw it listen
they saw they they watched
and their faith was strengthened they
watched the power of god that is
he demonstrated his awesome power what
did he do and here’s what i think he did
because the bible doesn’t say how he did
it but he took those five loaves and two
fish the bible says
he prayed and thanked the father then he
began to break it
and passed his disciples and he kept on
breaking it and
the interesting thing is that every
single word in the bible is important
and oftentimes oftentimes the language
and
and the greek and so forth is important
in the sixth chapter of mark if you look
there for a moment
here’s what happens in the 40th verse it
says they sat down in groups of hundreds
and fifties now i want you to watch the
wording here
in this 41st verse because this is a way
i believe he did it
and mark gives this account he says and
he and he that is jesus took the five
loaves and the two fish
looking up toward heaven he blessed the
food and broke the loaves
and he kept giving them to the disciples
to set before them
and he divided it to two fish among them
all that is he kept on doing that now
what’s happening here here’s what’s
happening
he begins to break it and give it to his
disciples and he keeps breaking it and
giving it to them
and what happens they start passing it
out and when it comes to
euro for example you break it off and
you pass it to someone else
well when they get it and they break it
it’s still just as much there
and they passed the next one and somehow
there’s still just as much there
and they felt all those people what
happened god set in motion
his awesome miraculous power to break
those five loaves
and those two fish into enough to feed
probably six or seven thousand people
and so what’s he doing he’s building
their faith he he allows you to hit some
impossible situation in your life
what’s he up to he’s got a plan part of
his plan is to strengthen your faith
part of his plan is to demonstrate his
power
working in your life part of his plan is
also to demonstrate his love
that he loves you enough he loved those
people
he had never seen most of them before he
loved them he had compassion filled with
compassion moved compassion
god loves us so what does he do he works
in our life he begins to work in our
life in such a way
that we we see the most awesome things
happening what’s he doing he’s
demonstrating
his love to us just like he did to them
another thing he did was this
he revealed to them how inadequate they
were he said go buy food
we can’t do that uh feed them
what are we going to feed them with and
so oftentimes god allows us into those
situations where our backs to the wall
enable us to see that apart from him
what can we do in life listen if you
live your life
based on your resources your abilities
your talents your gifts
you’re gonna come up short you’re gonna
come up disappointed
you’re gonna you’re gonna end up failing
in life he wants us to live
listen according to his resources his
strength
his power trusting in him that’s his
goal for us
he will reveal our inadequacy that’s why
he doesn’t want us saying
over once what am i going to do now is
he wants us to come to the end of
ourselves
so we will say god i can’t i can’t
settle this what are you going to do
in my life and this is what’s happening
here
likewise he displayed his dependence
upon the father
he could have said let’s take five
loaves two fish and after all i’m god
and start breaking him no you know what
he did
he took the time to talk to the father
he asked the father to bless wouldn’t
you have loved to have heard that prayer
what what did he say to the father with
five loaves and two fish
i’m trusting you father to break this
enough times
that all of these people will have
enough to fill them
and there’ll be some left over one thing
about it the father always answered
every single prayer that jesus prayed
and you know what
listen to this jesus is interested in
answering
all our prayers what he wants them to he
wants the prayers to fit his will and
his plan for life because it’s the best
if you want god’s best you must
surrender yourself to him
and see what he will do and what’s he
going to do he’s going to show you how
inadequate
you are but he’s also going
to manifest his faithfulness that is has
there ever been a situation or
circumstance that god was late no
is is there any possibility that jesus
could not do something
no is there any possibility that he has
not heard you
no unless you’re just living in sin he’s
turned the deaf ear to you
is there anything that you and i could
come up with that he cannot do
but if you don’t understand who you are
you’ll say oh lord
what am i going to do wrong question
what am i going to do what’s the right
question
lord what are you going to do that’s the
right question
it’s interesting this morning i woke up
about four o’clock
and um i was just like that and this
song came to my mind
that i’m sure i hadn’t even thought
about it in 40 years i’m sure i haven’t
out of the clear blue of unconsciousness
i
woke up and these words came to my mind
are there any rivers that seem to be
uncrossable
are there any mountains you cannot
tunnel through
the next part goes
with god nothing is impossible he knows
a thousand ways
to make a way for you let go and let god
have his wonderful way
let go and let god have his way your
sorrows will vanish
your night will turn today if you let go
and let god have his way and thought
about it
years i thought what an absolutely
perfect
chorus for this message
are there any rivers that you can’t
cross impossible
mountains you can’t tunnel through looks
impossible
god specializes in things that seem
impossible
he knows a thousand ways to make a way
for you
but when we let go
and let god have his way his wonderful
way in our life
and i wonder what you’re facing you’ve
been trying to figure it out
just give up yourself isn’t giving up
weakness
giving up is not weakness it’s wisdom
when you’re giving up to god not
weakness but wisdom
because then what you do you allow
the invasion of the spirit of the living
god
to take your circumstances and
absolutely change them
for your benefit and i want to encourage
you if you’re one of those persons who’s
never been saved you’re not a christian
and all this seems just to be so
difficult
to you it takes simple childlike faith
to place your trust in him
and watch what he does in your life and
maybe you’re one of those persons who’s
been struggling with who you are
what you’re going to do with your life
where you’re headed and what god could
do with your life and you say well i’m
this age or i’m that age of this
educated that education all of these
things
none of that’s important the issue is
lord i surrender my entire being to you
now i’m going to watch what you do and
one thing for certain
listen he’ll do the best thing that a
sovereign
omnipotent omniscient i’m the i’m listen
i’m the present
all-loving unconditional loving god
will do in your life if you’ll let him
father how grateful we are that you can
take a simple story like this
and teach us so many wonderful marvelous
truths
that if we will apply to our heart we
will discover
what you are able ready and willing to
do in our life i pray the holy spirit
sink these truths teach us to ask the
right questions to place our trust in
you
to keep our focus upon you to refuse
pity parties and doubting fears and
anxiety and fretting
and to ask the wise question father what
is your goal for this circumstance in my
life
father what are you going to do with
these resources that i have
and then lord i know that you will bless
and honor every single person who
surrenders themselves
unconditionally to you and that is my
prayer today in jesus name
amen
you