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Best Year Ever | Part 3 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Bill Bush · Jan 21, 2019 · 66 min watch · 3 min read

Best Year Ever | Part 3

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In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

John 6:1
John 6:7
John 6:6
John 6:8
John 6:11
John 6:13

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

To have the best year ever, focus on who Jesus is rather than on what you have.

In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus tests His disciples not because He needs their answer but because they need to confront where their focus lies. Philip measures the impossible task against their limited resources; Andrew brings what little exists but immediately doubts its worth. The boy with five loaves and two fish models the right posture: trusting who Jesus is rather than calculating what he has. When we surrender our little to Jesus, He multiplies it into much — and that pattern of deliberate, willing, focused faith is the path to the best year ever.

Key points

1
1Jesus tests His disciples to stretch their faith and redirect their focus from their own resources to His power.
2
2Philip's response reveals the first wrong focus: deciding what we have is too little for God to work with.
3
3The common saying 'God won't give you more than you can handle' is unbiblical; God regularly places us in situations beyond our capacity so that we turn to Him.
4
4Andrew's response reveals the second wrong focus: deciding that even what we bring is too little to matter, making the problem too big for God to accomplish anything.
5
5Our little surrendered to Jesus becomes much — He distributes it back through us, feeding thousands and leaving twelve baskets of leftovers, one for each doubting disciple.
6
6The boy trusted Jesus completely and modeled focused faith — he focused on who Jesus was, not on what he had.
7
7The best year ever is the result of deliberate, willing, and focused faith — choosing to trust Jesus rather than holding back until conditions feel sufficient.

A story from life

The preacher recounts spending eight hours and extra money dismantling a broken hot tub rather than simply calling the city — only to learn a phone call was all that was needed

Application

The pastor's challenge is direct: stop waiting until you have enough time, money, or emotional energy before obeying what Jesus has asked you to do. That posture — 'I'll do it as soon as I get ___' — keeps your little locked in your own hands, where it only grows smaller. Instead, identify the one area where God is asking you to step out, and offer what you have to Him, even when it looks embarrassingly insufficient. Jesus already knows what He is going to do; the test is whether you will trust Him enough to move. When you do, He multiplies your small act of faithfulness into something far greater than you could manufacture on your own — and that surrender is what the best year ever actually looks like.

Take it into your week

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“So here we go. John chapter six verse one. After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea Of Galilee, also known as the Sea Of Tiberias”
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From the transcript
“skip verse six, go to seven, we'll go back to six. So so in verse seven, here's what Philip says. Philip replied, even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them”
From the transcript
“Well, if you look at verse six, it says, he, meaning Jesus, was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was gonna do”
From the transcript
“So that leads to the the next question we'll see here in a minute when we look at the next verse, verse eight. Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother spoke up”
From the transcript
“and then look, it says, he goes, you know, sit down. And then verse 11, then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to god”
From the transcript
“Verse 13, I think, is the most powerful part of this whole story. And most of us have missed it whenever you've read this or heard it taught. Because in the beginning he goes, I already know what I was gonna do, I'm testing my disciples. And look what it says in verse 13. So they picked up the pieces and filled 12 baskets with scraps left by the people”

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

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Jesus already knew what He was going to do. John makes that clear right inside the story — 'He was testing Philip, for He already knew what He was going to do' (John 6:6). That detail is easy to read past, but it changes everything about how we understand the test. Jesus wasn't standing on a hillside, arms crossed, waiting to see whether His disciples would figure it out. He was initiating something on purpose. The question — 'Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?' — wasn't a problem in search of a solution. It was an invitation to look up from their own calculations and toward Him. We often assume that God is waiting on us the way a manager waits on a slow employee. But this passage suggests the opposite: Jesus is the one who is moving, and the test is simply whether we'll notice where He's already headed. When a situation in your life feels impossible right now, it's worth pausing to ask whether the impossibility itself might be intentional — not to crush you, but to redirect your eyes. The disciples had been with Jesus long enough to know better. They had seen enough to trust more. And yet, like them, we still default to our spreadsheets before we default to our Savior.

For reflection

Where in your life right now are you calculating resources before you've even asked Jesus what He intends to do?

Pray

Pray for eyes to recognize the tests Jesus is using to stretch your faith right now.

Philip did the math fast. Eight months of wages wouldn't make a dent — that's what he said, essentially. It's a reasonable answer. It's also the wrong answer, not because the numbers are wrong but because Philip aimed them at the wrong audience. He ran the calculation and handed Jesus the result, as if Jesus had asked for a budget report instead of a faith response. There's something painfully familiar about Philip's posture. We do this constantly — we assess what we have, conclude it's not enough, and use that conclusion to explain our inaction. The problem isn't that Philip was being practical. The problem is that his practicality stopped at human capacity and never extended to consider who was standing right in front of him. The sermon named this plainly: Philip decided what he had was too little for God to work with. When we make that decision on God's behalf, we've quietly taken authority over something that isn't ours to decide. You don't have to pretend resources aren't limited. They are. But limited resources in the hands of an unlimited God are not the end of the story — they're often the beginning of it. Philip's math wasn't wrong. His horizon was just too short.

For reflection

What is one area where you've handed Jesus a budget report instead of an open hand?

Pray

Pray for the courage to stop deciding what is and isn't too small for Jesus to work with.

Andrew's response is more generous than Philip's and somehow still lands in the same place. He went looking, found a boy with five loaves and two fish, and brought both the boy and the offering to Jesus. That's more effort than Philip made. But then Andrew added five words that undercut the whole thing: 'but what good is that?' He did the work of finding, and then he talked himself out of believing it mattered before Jesus even had a chance to respond. It's a very human thing to do. We take the first step — we show up, we offer something, we bring the little we have — and then we narrate our own insufficiency before the outcome is written. The sermon described this as the second wrong focus: making the problem so big that even our act of bringing something feels pointless. There's a kind of false humility in that. It looks like modesty, but it's really another form of trusting our own assessment over Jesus. Andrew wasn't wrong that five loaves and two fish weren't enough on their own. But he handed Jesus the offering and the verdict in the same breath. Jesus didn't need the verdict. He just needed Andrew to let go of the loaves.

For reflection

Have you ever taken a step of faith and then immediately narrated why it probably won't be enough? What does that reveal about where your trust is really sitting?

Pray

Pray for the grace to offer what you have without attaching your own verdict to it.

Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them. That sequence is worth sitting with. He didn't explain how it would work. He didn't reassure the disciples with a step-by-step plan. He simply received what was offered, expressed gratitude to His Father, and started giving. The miracle happened inside the act of distribution — not before it, not as a separate spectacle, but as Jesus actually fed people. There's something clarifying about that. We often want the miracle confirmed before we take the step. We want to see the multiplication before we release what's in our hands. But in this story the giving and the multiplying are the same motion. What the disciples handed to the crowd kept being enough because Jesus was the one doing the handing. The sermon's central image is exactly this: our little surrendered to Jesus becomes much, and He distributes it back through us. You are not removed from the miracle — you are part of how it moves. The disciples were the ones carrying the baskets. They got to be inside the abundance they had nearly dismissed. When you surrender what feels embarrassingly small, you don't step aside and watch from a distance. You become part of how Jesus feeds people.

For reflection

What would it look like practically for you to hand something over to Jesus this week rather than waiting for confirmation that it will be enough?

Pray

Pray for a willing and open hand — that whatever you're holding tightly would be released to Jesus today.

Twelve baskets of leftovers. That number almost certainly isn't accidental. There were twelve disciples — the same twelve who had stood on that hillside running numbers in their heads, convinced the situation was beyond what God could do with what they had. And after the crowd was fed, each one of them carried back more than what the boy had offered in the first place. The abundance wasn't abstract. It was tangible, and it landed right in the hands of the people who had doubted most. That's a very particular kind of grace. Jesus didn't just feed the crowd to make a point about His power. He gave the disciples a basket each — a physical, holdable reminder that their limits are not His limits. The sermon pointed to this moment as one of deliberate design, not coincidence. If you've been in a season where your faith has felt small and your resources have felt laughable, you are not disqualified from participating in what Jesus is doing. You are, if anything, exactly the kind of person this story was preserved to encourage. The disciples who doubted most loudly are the ones who ended up with full baskets. There's room for you in that number.

For reflection

How might God be inviting you to trust that the leftovers in this story were meant as a message — not just for the Twelve, but for you?

Pray

Pray for a deepened belief that God's abundance is not limited by your capacity to imagine it.

Related passage

The sermon made a direct challenge: stop waiting until you have enough time, money, or emotional energy before obeying what Jesus has asked you to do. That waiting posture — 'I'll do it as soon as I get enough ___' — keeps your little locked in your own hands, where it only grows smaller. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth with a principle that speaks directly into that posture: 'And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others' (2 Corinthians 9:8). That's not a prosperity formula. It's a description of what happens when trust actually moves into action. The promise isn't that you'll have an abundance before you step out. It's that you will have everything you need — and there will be enough left over to give again. The pattern in John 6 and the pattern in 2 Corinthians 9 are the same: surrender precedes supply. The boy didn't receive a full picnic basket before he offered his lunch. He offered his lunch, and then there was more than enough. Whatever Jesus is asking you to step into — with your time, your gifts, your money, your presence — the call is to move before the conditions feel sufficient. That is what trust actually looks like in daylight.

For reflection

What specific thing have you been waiting to do until circumstances improve — and what would it look like to take one step forward in that area this week?

Pray

Pray for the faith to take one concrete step of obedience in the area where Jesus has already been prompting you.

Looking back across this week, the whole passage holds together as a single invitation. Jesus tested His disciples not because He didn't know the answer but because they needed to discover where their focus was sitting. Philip looked at the crowd and calculated lack. Andrew looked at the offering and predicted insignificance. The unnamed boy simply handed over his lunch. The miracle didn't happen because the disciples eventually figured it out — it happened because one person, with very little, trusted who Jesus was more than he measured what he had. The sermon called this deliberate, willing, and focused faith — and named it as the shape of the best year ever. Not a year free of impossibility, but a year in which we stop letting impossibility have the last word. Over these seven days you've been invited to examine where you've been playing Philip, rehearsing Andrew's self-doubting speech, and consider what it would mean to live more like the boy with the lunch. That's not a guilt inventory. It's a compass reading. Where you go from here — one open hand, one surrendered resource, one step of obedience — is the beginning of something Jesus already knows how to multiply. He's been waiting, not impatiently, but purposefully. He already knows what He is going to do.

For reflection

As you look back over this week, what is the one thing you sense Jesus most clearly asking you to surrender or step into — and what is your next concrete move?

Pray

Pray for the courage and clarity to carry this week's conviction into the days ahead — not as a resolution, but as a daily posture of trust.

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message zooms in on a familiar miracle — Jesus feeding thousands with a child's small lunch — and asks why He involved His disciples in the first place when He already knew exactly what He was going to do.

Discussion questions

1
John 6:6 tells us Jesus already knew what He was going to do before He ever asked Philip the question. What does that detail change about how we read the test He gives?
2
Philip does the math in John 6:7 and concludes the resources don't add up. Andrew finds a boy with five loaves and two fish, but then pulls back with 'what good is that?' (John 6:8-9). What do both responses have in common, and what are they each focused on?
3
The message pushed back on the saying 'God won't give you more than you can handle,' arguing that God regularly places people in situations beyond their own capacity. How does the feeding of the five thousand illustrate that idea — and what does it suggest the disciples were meant to do with that impossibility?
4
After Jesus gives thanks and distributes the food in John 6:11-13, the leftovers fill twelve baskets — one for each disciple. What might that detail communicate to the very people who had just doubted what He could do?
5
The unnamed boy in the story never speaks, but the message described his posture as the model of focused faith — trusting who Jesus is rather than calculating what he had. What made his response different from Philip's and Andrew's?
6
The pastor challenged us to name the one area where we're waiting until we have enough — time, resources, or energy — before we take a step of obedience. How might a community like this one help people actually take that step rather than just think about it?

Pray together

Surrendering what feels too small, and trusting Jesus to do what only He can do with it

Made by Rewind AI from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Best Year Ever

Week 3 · 3 messages

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Focused Faith God's Power in Our Weakness Surrender and Multiplication Trust Over Calculation

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