S7E20 - Luke 9:1-17 - Proclaiming, Perplexing & Provision through Prayer

Jesus sends people out before they feel ready and He does it on purpose. In Luke 9, we watch Him gather the twelve, give them real authority, and then tell them to take almost nothing for the road. That tension is the point: obedience that forces dependence. We talk about what it means to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the gospel, live the Great Commission, and trust God when you don’t have a perfect plan or the resources you wish you had. 

Then the story pivots to Herod, a man who hears all the talk about Jesus and gets intrigued, even unsettled, but never actually pursues Him. We dig into that warning for today: curiosity about Christianity isn’t the same as surrender to Christ. If you’ve ever felt spiritually interested but hesitant, Herod’s reaction raises a hard question about where fascination ends and faith begins. 

Finally, we slow down in the feeding of the 5,000, one of the only miracles recorded in all four Gospels. We unpack the disciples’ fatigue, the crowd’s need, and Jesus’ simple command: “You give them something to eat.” From Philip’s scarcity math to Andrew bringing the boy’s lunch, the story confronts our “spreadsheet faith” and replaces it with prayerful trust. If you need encouragement that God can provide, multiply, and meet real needs, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review so more people can find it and grow with us.

New episodes every Monday
www.lifehousemot.com
info@lifehousede.com

Join us Sundays at 9 & 11 AM

Intro music by Joey Blair

Transcript

Welcome And Luke Nine Preview

SPEAKER_01 0:12

What's up, Lifehouse family? Welcome back to the Life Talk Podcast. We are always excited, say it every single week, but the excitement never dies. We enjoy truly in our uh just heart of hearts coming to you each week, studying God's word together. We do thank you for taking the time and we truly pray that this encourages, gets your week off to a good start, or if it's in the middle of the week, picks you back up and keeps you moving with the Lord. And thankful for the guys who join me. We are continuing on these several weeks, and I am rejoined by Mitch Unretired Mitch. We give him a hard time every week because he could be peacefully retired, but he still joins us. So how's it going, Mitch? Doing good. It's getting close. Weather's heating up, and uh, you're gonna have the R V out on the road, right? Already have a couple times. Uh Mitch is a big R V camping guy, so he is loving this weather. So and Jeremy Alrich, QAQC. Jeremy, back with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Uh hey Nate. Happy to be here and be you know, QC for you there.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I'm thankful you guys put up with me. That's all I can say. But but for our listeners, you know, we are obviously considering continuing through Luke. We are not jumping books on you, but last week we finished chapter eight, really talking about some amazing miracles of Christ's power over all circumstances, and we're moving ahead into chapter nine, which pieces together a few interesting episodes. And today we're going to see the power to preach, the perplexing without pursuit, and the planning or praying for provision in the feeding of the five thousand, which is a very well-known story, but so much we can get out of this. But before we get to that, the first few verses are interesting.

Jesus Sends The Twelve Out

SPEAKER_01 2:02

This is a time when Jesus summons the disciples, he summons the twelve, and he gives them power. He gives them power and the authority that he had been demonstrating over demons and diseases, and he sends them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Notice he's not giving them this power for their own sake, but giving them to proclaim the kingdom. And he tells them, Take nothing for the road, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Really, Christ is going to provide, and they're going to have to depend on him in this journey, that whatever house they enter, stay and leave from there. And if they don't welcome you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them when they don't receive your message. And so they go out, they travel from village to village and proclaim the good news and doing this through healing. So we just see this power to preach. We see especially we know the apostles, we say disciples and apostles in interchangeably, but they were specifically empowered in this case, and so we should always be careful not to think that we have that same kind of thing in in this sense, but really Christ demonstrating his power. We are, in our sense, still empowered, as the demon-released man was to proclaim the good news, and that's something we should feel empowered to do because we do it through the power of the Holy Spirit. So any thoughts on these verses? Anything that jumps out to you guys?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, I mean, something that jumped out to me, and I'm blessed by having other men who have spoken into my life and you know, pastors and such, but so I'm again I'm borrowing from someone else. But so one of the things that has been that I've always that I've heard it stuck with me is that where God guides, He provides. And so we can see that here in in these verses, that Jesus never is is not calling them without equipping them for the for for the work of the ministry. And it there's calling them into a radical dependence on him, but also to it's a step of faith, right? But but again, but the the a fundamental and a foundational basis of that is where God guides, he's going to provide.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Yeah, I th I thought one thing that kind of stood out to me is you know, this is the first time that that Jesus is actually empowering his disciples and sending them out. I mean, up to this point, they had been observers largely and helpers. But now they're actively called to be participants in ministry. And I think there's a charge there for each one of us. When we've partaken of Christ, we have now a charge to go out and do. I I'm kind of reminded of the Great Commission in Matthew 28, verses 19 through 20, and that's the classic Great Commission. But y if you study it closely, each of the gospels has a Great Commission, some variation of that, usually right at the end of the book or very close to the end of the book. One exception to that, and it's not a gospel, but it's the next book, Acts, which was written by Luke. Acts starts with the Great Commission in Acts 1.8. And this is where Jesus is saying, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. So some have said that the Great Commission is at the end of each of the gospels because Christ's life was coming to a close, and here he's empowering the disciples to go out and teach in his name and to proclaim and to heal. But the church, which is birthed in Acts chapter two, is getting the Great Commission on the front side of the ministry, not on the back side of it. So the mission and the vision really to he's giving to his disciples here in in in in chapter nine, I think extends to us at the beginning of the church age, which is documented in the book of Luke or in the book of Acts, written by Luke, and that's our commission is to go out into each person, each portion of the world. And then if you look at what the disciples did after Jesus gives them that instruction, they did exactly what He what he told them to do. Verse 6, and they departed, they went through all the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. And that's exactly what he told them to do. They were obedient to the to basically the great commission that he's telling them to go out and do.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

It's really important, building on something we talked about last episode and what you said, Jeremy, God's going to empower you to share your story, to preach. You know, a lot of people think, well, I could never stand up in church on Sunday and preach. Well, if you can just share your story, communicate the gospel to people, you're you're preaching. You know, you're preaching the good news, you're sharing the good news of Christ, and you have the power to do that. Like Christ absolutely gives you the encouragement. We have the Holy Spirit, we have the ability to carry out the Great Commission. He would not have given that without giving us the

The Commission Extends To Us

SPEAKER_01 6:50

power to do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And this goes back to you know, who is my family? Like that God worked, they they were like you like you said, Mitch, you know, they went in obedience, and God works through that obedience, that that faithful obedience.

Herod’s Curiosity Without Pursuit

SPEAKER_01 7:05

And then we see another interesting few verses here talking about Herod, and it's important to note this is not the Herod from earlier in Luke and earlier at the birth of Christ, that Herod had sons who the kingdom was divided, and so this is a different Herod, Herod the Tetrarch, so not the one who necessarily sought to kill Jesus, but of his family and and line there in the ruling the area. But he heard about everything going on, and he was perplexed, because some said that John the Baptist had been raised from the dead, and some that Elijah had appeared, very important, referencing the end of Malachi and the prophet that would be forthcoming, and others one of the other ancient prophets had risen. And Herod says, I beheaded John, but who is this? I hear about such things. And it says, He wanted to see him. So we see perplexing, we see interest, but then we don't see a pursuit. We don't see here in the Bible that, you know, Herod was kind of interested, there's something going on here, but he doesn't really pursue him, kind of like we talked about last week with the woman who actually went to Christ for healing and in faith. You know, Herod's just kind of a casual observer. We've talked about the soils and the crowds, and so Herod just demonstrates that, you know, he clearly knows something's going on, but he's not actually going to pursue it to any kind of end. So kind of a lot of people have that interest in Christ. Maybe they want to learn about Christianity in relation to other religions. There's maybe something going on here, but they just don't really pursue it. They don't have that heart to hear, it's just something we've been talking about this month.

unknown 8:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Yeah, I mean, Herod, like what you said, Nate, is the same thing I drew out of this, is that you know, curiosity about Jesus isn't the same thing as surrender to Jesus. You know, Herod might have a fascination with who Jesus is because he's afraid he's you know, he's afraid that potentially he's John the Baptist come back or Elijah. But it's not the same thing as a repentant heart. Herod's heart is actually hardened and uh as we can see.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

And he says, you know, John the Baptist, I beheaded. He's kind of almost saying that, like, you know, I put an end to that one. Like, who in the world is this? He's heard so much about Jesus through this whole you know story that that Luke is unfolding and and just the crowds and just all this buzz around Jesus' ministry that it it caught the king's attention basically. And he's saying, you know, who is this guy? Yeah, there's an interest in Christ, but there's not a pursuit of him. And that's probably some of the saddest words in the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Yeah. So we see the proclaiming, but Herod demonstrating a reaction that is not responding to the proclaiming of the kingdom.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Kind of reminds me, was it Pilate at the crucifixion when he's on when Jesus was on trial that said, You almost persuade me to be a Christian? Sad words, you know, and and you kind of get the sense that maybe Herod's in some of that same place.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

And Festus with Paul when he's on trial, like you would want to persuade me, but yeah, I'm not I'm not there. You know, like I'm sort of interested. There's a but I'm just not personally gonna get there, right? So right. But then we see one of the better known stories

Feeding The Five Thousand

SPEAKER_01 10:19

in the Bible. Most people have heard of the feeding of the 5,000 because it is so reputable. But we, you know, really dig into the scripture here and timing of when the apostles returned and they reported to Jesus all that they had done, and they were withdrawing privately, but the crowds found out and they wanted to follow him. We see this again consistent theme that Mitch brought out several weeks, the crowds that follow him for a variety of reasons. But Jesus could have been like, hey, we're tired, we're we're piecing out, we're taking, you know, taking a break, taking a sabbatical. But he welcomed them and he spoke to them. He took this opportunity to continue to speak about the kingdom of God and heal. But late in the day, the twelve approached and said, Hey, you gotta get rid of these guys. Send the crowd away so that they can go into the surrounding villages and find food and lodging, because we are in a deserted place here. It's like woodstock or something. You know, we got all these people gathered. What are we gonna do with them? What did Jesus respond? He said, You give them something to eat. And they said, We have no more than five loaves and two fish, they said, unless we go and buy food for all of these people, for about five thousand men were there. And interesting aside, in the Bible, you know, they count by men, so that means there were actually way more than five thousand. That means families were there, wives, kids. There easily could have been fifteen thousand, you know, or more people gathered here. But Jesus, you know, we know in some other accounts, you know, he's always frustrated with these situations, but he told the disciples, have them sit down in groups of about fifty each. And they did what he said and had all of them sit down, and he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he prayed. He blessed and broke them. He kept giving them to disciples to set before the crowd, and everyone ate and was filled. And when it was all said and done, they still had twelve baskets of leftover people. So we see the the disciples who have no idea, they have no plan, but Jesus prays and there's provision that comes through this amazing opportunity to feed the crowd. So we just see Jesus again, as we've talked about, seizing this opportunity to speak and still provide, like still being interruptible, even when they were withdrawing to

Lessons From Philip Andrew And The Boy

SPEAKER_01 12:33

rest. So any observations on the feeding of the 5,000?

SPEAKER_02 12:36

But I mean, I think this is one of the only, don't quote me this, I'm almost positive though. This is one of the only miracles that's actually recorded in all four gospels. So I think you have to look at all four gospels to re because every gospel, every every writer takes a little different angle. They're taking a little different perspective on their recollection of this. And in John's Gospel, you get probably, in my view, anyway, the the largest and the most extensive account of this particular thing. And and there's a number of characters in here that I think remind me. One of them in particular reminds me of myself, and there's a couple others in here that are real interesting. But Philip is Jesus actually says to Philip, at one of one of these points, when they're looking up over the crowd and seeing how large it was and how we're going to feed him. Philip said to Jesus singled Philip out for some reason. And he says, Where are we to buy bread so that all these people may eat? He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Jesus knew exactly what he was going to do. He was asking Philip to teach Philip a lesson. Here's Philip's response, verse 7 of John chapter 6. It says, Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough to even get each one of them a little bit. And then it says one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, was the one that says we have a boy here. So Andrew was the guy, he was the connector. He was the guy that was connecting the boy, the resources, with Jesus. But Philip, Philip's the bean counter. Philip's the guy that he's got the spreadsheet. He reminds me of myself. He's looking at the he's looking at the this large group of people, 15 to up to 15, 20,000 people, saying, How are we going to do this? 200 denero, which is basically 200 days worth of wages. A denero is one day's wage. He's saying two-thirds of a year, basically, is worth of income would not feed even this crowd just to get everybody a little bit. So Phillips doing this mental math in his head, and Jesus said this to test him. And Jesus said this because he knew exactly what he would do. And then Andrew's the one that connected the resources, the boy, back to Jesus. And I think sometimes the character that's left out in this is the boy. He had a he had he gave everything. He gave his lunch, what his mom or somebody packed for him that morning, whether it was him or his mom or somebody, said this is what you're going to eat. He willingly gave that up to Christ. Didn't know what was going to happen, but he gave everything, absolutely everything. He didn't give a tithe, he didn't give an offer. He gave everything he had to God, to Christ, to Jesus here. And then we know what the what the story looks like after that. But it's just interesting, I think, to uh to look at the different gospel accounts of the of the stories and kind of piece them together and understand some of the characters that are involved here and really why you know Jesus calls some of these out.

Interruptible Compassion And Provision

SPEAKER_00 15:12

I think something that stood out to me was how these disciples, the the disciples had just come back from this from this ministry, they were obeying what and in obedience what Jesus had called them to do. And and like you had said, like they were withdrawing, Jesus was withdrawing to a place of rest, but he didn't let that that need for rest be something that overrode compassion. Like and we and how and if we're looking at that in our lives, like we need to you know, we need to look at at how we need to be interruptible too. Like we need to be uh we all we're we're so busy, we have fine things. We talked about busyness uh a couple weeks ago too, and we're we're so we get in these periods of points of time where we can kind of get locked in on I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done. But we we need to have those we need we perhaps need to be a bit more open to being interruptible and be and having those moments, letting God direct us in those paths of you know, hey, this person this person has a need, let me go, let me go help them out, let me let me pray with them, let me talk with them. And another thing that uh Mitch that you brought up about the boy and and the fish the idea of like what we give to God, and he can know he can multiply way more than what we could ever do in our in our in our fine in our human capabilities. Like look what he did in this story. Yeah. You know, taking those those loaves and fishes and turning it into feeding not just five thousand men, but you know, you know, maybe like fifteen, twenty thousand people in the story.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, I think things you guys are bringing out. We always like to plan out provision, you know, like you said, Mitch, with Philip. We have it in our head, like this is what I need, and this

Faith Thread And Abundant Leftovers

SPEAKER_01 17:00

is what I need to get there, and we have all these finite ideas and and miss what God can do. And I'm reminded of the story uh George Mueller. If you've heard George Mueller, he started orphanages in the United Kingdom before there was a you know adoption system or anything, like kids were just on the street, but he felt led and he did everything by prayer. Like most of the time, people thought he was crazy because he really didn't have a lot of plan. He just knew God called me to start these orphanages, and they'd have some nights where they had no food and no provision, and they would just pray like God were in need, and uh crazy miracles would happen. You know, a milk truck would break down outside and they'd be like, Hey, we got this, can you guys use it? You know, or bread that people would just deliver or checks arriving in the mail. When I read his biography, I I was convicted because eventually halfway through, I'm like, all right, God showed up again, you know, like, you know, feeling like almost like okay, you know, but every single time God just miraculously providing because they lived by prayer, they lived by dependence on the Lord and just seeing that. So if you've never read much about him, I would encourage you. It's a really cool story that I'm just reminded of with kind of the points you guys are mentioning here.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, I think there's a thread that kind of ties a lot of these stories together that we've talked about really over the last two or three weeks doing the podcast, and that is of faith. If you think about it, Jesus said in the storm, Jeremy, I think you talked about this. He said, Where is your faith? Yeah. When he talks about, you know, healing different people, he said, you know, you have to have faith. And then I think this is an element of trust. He he just empowered his disciples three verses earlier to go out and to proclaim the kingdom and to heal. And he gave them that kind of power, and they were they were obedient to that. They went out and did it to the point where Herod is perplexed, and now they sit down with 15,000, whatever, 20,000 people, and God is again saying, Where's your faith? Trust me. Philip, don't be the bean counter. Andrew, you know, bring it bring the boy to me, but trust me to provide when the odds seem completely insurmountable. And I think there's this thread weaving through each of these stories about trust and about really our reliance on God that that you know we're hard-pressed to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

We still struggle, right? We've seen these, we read God's word, and yet in our flesh we still doubt. And we've talked about doubts before, you know, just in big picture belief, but also we just doubt that if we are the family of God, that you know, God's going to provide for us. But if he calls us sons and daughters, why would he not provide for us? Why would he not meet needs? And when we are part of the family, that's something we're called to do. We continue to provide, and so man, so much we see here as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah, I mean, not only does he provide, he provides abundantly. Abundantly, how many baskets are left over in this story? Like twelve, right? Like more than enough. Like, and I think these are big baskets the way that they're being described in the Greek. You know, the disciples had just gone through this ministry period. They needed the rest, and they were and and there were twelve of them, and there was then like this there were twelve baskets, and so I'm not saying that like material like material provision is always something that is gonna happen, but like but the Lord provides what we need when we need it. Yeah. I think it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

I mean, the story starts in verse 10, but it really starts in verse 12. He says, Now the day began to wear on. But in verse 10, look what happens. And this is right after he sends the sends his apostles out. They go out, they're preaching the gospel, they're healing. And verse 10 says, and upon their return, so he sends them out, they're coming back. The apostles told Jesus all that they had done. So he's getting the download of their ministry. And what did he do? He took them and withdrew apart to a

Final Takeaways And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_02 20:50

town called Basadia. I think it's interesting that after they're out working, they're doing all this stuff, you gotta spend time with Jesus individually. And Jesus takes the time to pull them away. They're doing ministry, they're doing good work, but sometimes you need to unplug and you need to just recharge your batteries and get at the feet of Jesus. Then verse 11, look what happens. When the crowds learned about it, that he had withdrawn himself. Here's the crowds punching him or going after him again. They followed him and he welcomed them. He wasn't, he didn't burn out. He wasn't saying, Hey, I need to rest here, we need some recharging. But at this time he says he welcomed them and he spoke to them of the kingdom of God and he cured all those who needed healing. What did he charge the apostles with doing? Going out, preaching the gospel and healing. And what did he do? What was he interrupted by again? The crowd. He welcomed them and he spoke to them of the kingdom of God he preached, and he cured them of what needed to be healed. He did exactly what he commanded his apostles to do. And then verse 12 picks up with this story of the feeding of 5,000 and this theme of trusting the Lord not in and of ourselves. But good stuff, man.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So just in summary, we have the power to preach. You know, we see in the first part of this as disciples, as followers of Christ. Christ, we're empowered to share the gospel to make the good news known. Are we casting out demons, healing? Well, you know, hey, God provides where he needs, but we shouldn't necessarily go let he commission us in that way. But we are all empowered to preach. And then we see what we're not to be. We see, don't be perplexed and not pursue Christ. Don't be like Herod, but truly then pray. Don't don't hold our plans loosely, like we say. We don't want to have a have a finite mindset, but an abundance mindset in how we live, knowing that God will provide in some amazing ways. So, Lifehouse Family, we thank you for tuning in. We thank you for following along with us in Luke. And as we continue in chapter 9 next week, we look forward to another great episode and spending more time with you. So we'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to the Life Talk Podcast. If this episode encouraged you, please be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find this content as well. And we'll look forward to seeing you next Monday for another great episode.