CONTROL FREAK | Week 1 | Sermon · Rewind

CONTROL FREAK | Week 1 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Jul 21, 2024

Big Idea

Control issues are really trust issues — Quoting the message: where God guides, He provides, end quote., so we don't need to see His provision before we obey.

God isn't a God of subtraction trying to take from us, but a God of multiplication trying to give through us. When He asks us to trust Him with what He asks, what we have, and what He'll do — even before we see the outcome — He always provides for the very thing He guided us to.

Key points

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1Control issues are really trust issues
Pastor Bill opens with a story of driving cross-country with a friend who insisted on controlling the wheel, and was fine trusting him until a torrential storm hit and the friend started steering with his elbows while looking at his phone. He notes he had no problem trusting his friend's control until it scared him — showing that we're comfortable trusting God when it's easy, but resist when He guides us into a storm.
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2Where God guides, He provides — not the reverse
Pastor Bill states the big idea plainly: if God guides you somewhere, He will provide what you need to do what He wants. He contrasts this with how we naturally flip it — waiting for God to provide before we'll let Him guide — and calls that a control-freak posture rather than faith.
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3Trust God with what He asks
Working through Matthew 14, Pastor Bill shows Jesus withdrawing after John the Baptist's death, being followed by crowds, and then telling the disciples to feed the 5,000-plus. The disciples' response — 'we only have five loaves and two fish' — is treated as the natural but faithless answer; Jesus always asks us to do something we don't have the resources for, on purpose, to grow our trust.
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4Know, grow, and go — how we get to a place of trust
He sums up discipleship in three words: know Jesus (through public worship and private time in the Word), grow in community (circles, not rows, since we need others to see our blind spots), and go live intentionally with our time, talent, treasure, and testimony as stewards, not owners.
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5The crowd's rejection shows what happens when we only want provision, not the King
Pastor Bill points to John 6, where the crowd wants to make Jesus king only because He fed them — they want 'Burger King,' not the King of Kings — and many disciples abandon Him once He talks about His coming death. Peter's reply, 'Where would we go? You have the words of life,' is held up as the posture of real trust.
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6Trust God with what you have
Jesus tells the disciples 'bring them here' — He doesn't ask for everything, just what they have, and does something with it they couldn't do alone. Pastor Bill applies this to hidden habits, hang-ups, and addictions (naming porn and overspending) that keep people feeling too busy or too broke to obey, urging people to unchain themselves so they're free to give what's asked.
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7Trust God with what He'll do
Jesus blesses the five loaves and two fish, and the crowd of thousands eats until full with 12 baskets left over — one for each disciple. Pastor Bill stresses this is the God of multiplication, not subtraction, and that trusting Him before seeing the outcome is what turns 'I can't' into 'I will trust.'

Application

Pastor Bill's challenge is to turn your can't into I will trust by bringing God what you have, starting with the scariest thing on your list.

Know Jesus through worship and the Word
Come to gather with the church to sing and pray, but also spend time privately in the Bible during the week so you know His love and character before you're asked to trust Him with something hard.
Grow in community, in circles not rows
Get into a group with people at different life stages who will actually challenge you, not just people like you, because we all have blind spots we can't see alone.
Deal with what's chaining you back
Identify the habit, hang-up, or addiction (Pastor Bill names things like pornography or living beyond your means) that's actually stealing the time or money you claim you don't have to give God.
Bring Him what you have
Stop waiting until it makes sense on paper. Give God your time, talent, treasure, and testimony now, trusting Him to do what you can't do with it on your own.
Pick the scariest one first
If you have a list of things you believe in God about but haven't yet believed Him for, start with the one that scares you most — trusting Him there makes trusting Him with the rest easier.

Take it into your week

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“And that's what we're gonna see today in Matthew chapter 14. And I think that the big idea we're gonna unpackage about this, that control issues are really trust issues”
From the transcript
“So what happens? Here we go. Verse 13. As soon as Jesus heard the news, John the Baptist died, he left in a boat to remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns”
From the transcript
“And they ask him that. And so he says in verse 16, that isn't necessary. You feed them. Like 10,000 people there”
From the transcript
“It says, verse 17, but we have only five loaves of bread and two fish, they answered. We have five pita and a couple fish sticks”
From the transcript
“And then in Matthew 22, he says, love God with all your heart and love others. In other words, the gospel and the mission we have”
From the transcript
“it says in John six six six of all things. John six sixty six. It says, on that day, many of his disciples. He had more than just the 12”
From the transcript
“Verse 18, right after they said, but this is all we have, he says, bring them here. He said, bring them here. That's the living intentional part”
From the transcript
“look in verse 19 after they bring it to him, he says, then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took five loaves and two fish, looked up towards heaven, blessed them, And breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples who distribute it to the people”

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

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Day 1

There is a detail at the start of this story that is easy to skip past. Jesus has just received devastating news — the death of John the Baptist — and He withdraws by boat to a quiet place. He is grieving. And the crowds follow anyway. What strikes Pastor Bill, and what should strike us, is that Jesus does not send them away in His grief. He sees them, has compassion on them, and begins to heal the sick. The story of the feeding of the five thousand begins not with a miracle but with a choice Jesus makes while He is hurting: to show up for people anyway. This is the God we are being invited to trust. Not a distant manager who shows up when conditions are ideal, but a Savior who meets crowds in His own sorrow and still gives. If you find yourself in a hard season — tired, stretched, maybe even grieving something — this is the entry point into the passage. God's compassion toward you is not contingent on your circumstances being resolved first. He is already present, already moving, already inclined toward you. The trust that Pastor Bill is calling us to is not blind optimism. It is a response to a God whose character we can actually see here in the opening verses.

For reflection

What circumstance in your life right now makes it hardest to believe God is present and already at work?

Pray

Pray for eyes to see where God's compassion is already showing up in your current season.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message centers on a simple but unsettling idea: what we call control issues are really trust issues — and God has a pattern of asking us to move before He shows us the supply.

Discussion questions

1
In Matthew 14:16, Jesus tells the disciples, 'You feed them' — a crowd of thousands, with no obvious resources in sight. What do you think the disciples expected Jesus to say or do in that moment, and why might His response have caught them off guard?
2
Pastor Bill drew a distinction between trusting God when life is comfortable versus trusting Him when He leads us somewhere we don't feel equipped to go. What do you think makes the second kind of trust so much harder?
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In Matthew 14:17-18, the disciples point out that they only have five loaves and two fish — and Jesus says, 'Bring them here to me.' What does it suggest about how God works that He starts with what seems completely insufficient?
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Pastor Bill described God as 'not a God of subtraction but of multiplication.' Looking at what happens in Matthew 14:19-21, where does multiplication actually show up in the story — and what had to happen before it did?
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Pastor Bill challenged the group to think about areas where we believe in God but haven't yet believed Him — and suggested starting with the scariest one rather than the easiest. What might make that order of approach different from the way people usually handle uncertainty?
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Pastor Bill said Jesus wants something for us, not from us — that every ask He makes is an invitation into something greater than what we could manage on our own. How might that reframe the way we as a community think about what it looks like to bring our time, gifts, or story to Him?

Pray together

Trust where you've been holding back — and the courage to bring what little you have to Jesus first

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Topics

God Multiplies Our Gift God's Provision Step Out in Faith Surrender and Control Trust Issues

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