We are continuing this morning with part 2 of our series, “More Than Enough,” and last week we were reminded that truth draws us to Jesus and his grace is always more than enough. As we move toward Christmas this week, if you are anything like me, celebrating as our family did, you may be feeling like you have had more than enough. However, if we are honest, that’s not true in every area of our lives. And so, today I want to show you that when you surrender what feels small, insufficient, or not enough, God takes it, blesses it, breaks it, multiplies it, and proves that he is more than enough in your life.

As you find your place in your Bibles, in the Gospel of John, chapter 6, my prayer is that God speaks to you personally. I pray that he shines his light on your life, answers the questions you have failed to ask, and ministers to the places where you feel like you are on empty. That is especially important today because many of you spend your lives pouring into others. You serve constantly, often without recognition, and the truth is that people will take something from you all day long. Even the people you love can drain you, and every call, every cry, every text takes something out of you.

And so, let’s go to the Scriptures, look with me at John chapter 6, verse one:

“Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.” (John 6:1-4)

“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.” (John 6:5-6)

“Philip answered him, ‘Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’” (John 6:7)

“Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’” (John 6:8-9)

I wonder how many of you have found yourself in that place where your desire is to meet the need, but the reality is that you don’t have enough.

My subject this morning is: “Thankful for the Small Things.” And that’s important today because our world has grown so big. In a short time, we can hear from everyone, see everything, and find that we have more voices in our heads than God ever intended.

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s healthy to take in that much noise, that much drama, and that much information. Because it wears you down, it raises your anxiety, stealing your sleep and causing a constant overload on your soul.

Does anybody know what I’m talking about?

It seems like life becomes crowded, loud, and nonstop, especially during the holidays.

That’s why I am “Thankful for the Small Things,” because there was a time when our world was small and simple. You had your family, your friends, and your church. You knew everybody, and they knew you.

Now we have “friends” we’ve never met, “followers” who don’t know anything about our real lives, and we’ve gained numbers but lost peace. We’re surrounded by people, but more lonely than ever, because more people don’t mean better relationships. How many people follow you doesn’t tell you anything about their loyalty because those people don’t know you, and many don’t even like you.

I wonder if there’s anyone here who, after spending all your emotional energy managing opinions from people you will never meet, has discovered that you have nothing left for the people who sit with you at the dinner table. Last week, as families gathered, some of you were sitting in a room filled with people who love you more than anyone else, but your mind was tied up and distracted with notifications, pictures, and voices that added nothing to the quality of your life.

That’s why our celebration of Thanksgiving, our giving thanks, matters, because real gratitude pulls you back into real relationships. It slows you down, it centers you, it brings you back to what is actually important. And so, smaller circles, real conversations, and genuine relationships is where gratitude grows.

Let’s be honest, because people can be overwhelming. They always want more, and so it’s not long before you feel the pressure of not being enough. And it is often the people who make the biggest withdrawals in your life who are often the ones who make the fewest deposits. Many of us are surrounded by people who need us, but not people who feed us. Consumers, but not contributors. And over time, you find yourself operating in the red.

What is unique about the Scripture in John chapter 6 is that this situation didn’t arise out of a crisis. Nobody was dying, nobody was sick; it’s just that it was late and the people were hungry. And so the problem could have been easily remedied if Jesus had dismissed the crowd and said, “Come back tomorrow.”

But Jesus sees an opportunity, not for the crowd, but for his disciples. He wants them to see something about God’s abundance. He wants them to understand that life will bring contradictions. There will be seasons when the demand is greater than the supply, especially during the holidays when everyone wants something from you. And so here we find Jesus teaching his disciples how to operate when they are working at a deficit.

I want to talk to someone who knows that feeling. You worshiped this morning, but underneath the smile, behind your hallelujah, you are running on empty. Like the apostle Paul said, you feel like,

“I am already being poured out” (2 Timothy 4:6).

And so, you get refreshed for a moment in worship, but as soon as you leave the church, the pressure hits again. In fact, some of you can’t even worship without someone texting you and demanding a response. The people who should be worshiping Jesus are texting you as if everything is going to fall apart if you don’t answer.

This constant pressure is wearing down your joy, making it hard to think, to dream again, and even to breathe. And what Thanksgiving is meant to bring, a heart of gratitude, quickly gets drowned out by stress and noise, leaving us in a mental fog. And so, what we desperately need is some peace and quiet, as David said,

“He leads me beside quiet waters” (Psalm 23:2).

I wonder, when was the last time you found a quiet place? A still place where you could think clearly, pray honestly, and give thanks? A place where you could remember what God has done instead of rehearsing everything you don’t have?

Maybe that is why God says,

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

And so, what do you do when people want more and more and you love them enough to try, but the truth is, you don’t have enough?

I believe this is where the text becomes real practical to many of us because it draws a line between principle and reality. The principle says, “I want to be there for you.” But the reality says, “Even if we tried our best:”

“Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite” (John 6:7).

How many of you know what I’m talking about? Isn’t that what happens to us? We give people a bite when they need a meal, a happy meal when they need a platter, and we wonder why families struggle, why marriages crack, and people drift. We don’t have enough.

In the gospel, a woman came up behind Jesus in the crowd and touched his cloak. Immediately, she was healed, and the Bible says,

“At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” (Mark 5:30).

Let me encourage you that if Jesus felt power leave his body when a woman touched him, then you don’t have to pretend like you don’t feel drained when people call you, tugging on your clothes, needing something from you. I mean, it’s not like you don’t care, but you are running out.

Philip is doing the best he can; he’s giving Jesus the facts, but the facts say, “I don’t have enough.” Then, Andrew spoke up and said:

“Here is a boy with 5 small barley loaves and 2 small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9).

And sometimes God allows you to feel overwhelmed so that you recognize that you are a limited resource and he is not. You love people, but you can’t be everything to everybody. And this text shows us that Jesus didn’t stumble into this moment, he created it. He said to Philip,

“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (John 6:5).

And so, Jesus asked Philip the question not to shame him, but to reveal his limits, because Jesus already knew what he was going to do. This was just a test, and God will intentionally lead you into places where you don’t have enough so you can discover that he is more than enough.

Some of you ought to thank God right now because you are being set free from the pressure of trying to be everything to everybody. Free from the guilt, free from the shame, free from the expectations you were never meant to carry.

Here’s a newsflash: you are not God. You are not omnipresent. And inevitably, you will disappoint someone. You will miss some signals, but God never asked you to be their Savior, he asked you to give him what you have in your hands.

The disciples brought what little they found: a boy with 5 loaves and two fish, and when they put it in Jesus' hands, everything changed. Look at what happened in verse 11:

“Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted” (John 6:11).

In other words, Jesus took what was not enough and made it more than enough.

Notice that the miracle started when Jesus gave thanks; it was his giving of thanks that unlocked the miracle of multiplication. In the same way, if you will give God what you have, your time, your strength, your gifts, your heart, you will be surprised at what he will do with your little. God has a way of multiplying whatever you surrender to him.

And this week, as you eat Thanksgiving leftovers, I want you to remember that thanks always precedes multiplication. Thanksgiving opens the door for God to do more with your life than you could do on your own. And the Bible says,

“When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted” (John 6:12).

Nothing in your life is wasted when it is in his hands. Not the pain, not the tears, not the broken places or pieces. God uses all of it.

There were lots of leftovers, because there was more than enough.

“So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten” (John 6:13).

Some of you have seen that kind of multiplication; you know exactly what it feels like. You serve everyone, you give quietly, you love faithfully, you help without recognition, and God acknowledges every loaf and every fish you have placed in his hands. He says, “I can use that” and later you are picking up the leftovers because there was more than enough.

Some of you may remember the story in first Kings chapter 17 where God provided for the widow of Zarephath, her son, and the prophet Elijah during a severe famine. She said,

"I don't have any bread — only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug" (1 Kings 17:12).

And just like God used the 2 fish and 5 loaves, he used a handful of flour and a little oil. God took something small, insufficient, and not enough and made it more than enough. The Bible says later,

“The jar of flour was not used up, and the jug of oil did not run dry” (1 Kings 17:16).

If God used a handful of flour and a little oil, if God used 2 fish and 5 loaves, maybe we need to stop praying to be big. If the miracle is in the pieces, the fragments that were left over, maybe we should ask God to make us small.

In fact, the Bible says that God blessed Saul when he was humble in his own eyes. He said,

“You were once small in your own eyes, and did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel?” (1 Samuel 15:17).

In other words, when you were small enough to serve, small enough to lift someone else, small enough to open doors for others, I blessed you.

You see, God blesses those who stay small in their own eyes. For those of you who feel stretched to the breaking point, overwhelmed, and overloaded, trust God with your pieces, trust him with your leftovers.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10).

He will take your fragments, your pieces, your leftovers, and show you exactly what to do. He will break it down for you, and so let him break, bless, and multiply what you surrender.

“After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, ‘Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14).

And that is what God wants to do through your life, beginning this Advent season: he wants to show himself strong, and he wants to take what you have and reveal who he is. He wants to turn your “not enough” into more than enough so that your life becomes a sign that points people to him

to make his mighty power known (Psalm 106:8).

So, this week, don’t focus on what you don’t have, don’t rehearse your lack, don’t magnify what’s missing, but give thanks for what you do have. And put your little in God’s hands and watch him multiply it. Watch him strengthen you, restore you, and provide for you, because in the hands of Jesus, your little becomes more than enough. 

Graphics, notes, and commentary from LifeChurch, Ministry Pass, PC Study Bible, Preaching Library, and Sermon Central. Scripture from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.