10:45 AM "Make The Men Sit Down" Pastor Reginald W Sharpe Jr , Sunday June 7, 2026

41:27 Lord, we thank you for the blood of Jesus. We thank you for another day to worship you in spirit and in truth. We thank you for giving us just enough safety to make it through one more week. You didn't have to let us live, but you let us gather in the worship sanctuary one more time now spirit of the living God fall fresh on us again direct and redirect our whole attention back to your son our savior Jesus Christ may we be open in our minds and our hearts to your word and may Lord you save a soul today redirect a path today heal a broken heart today strengthen our spiritual perspectives today break chains today minister to those who come in with weakened spirits we come because we know that when we come to you we can bring our weariness and our heavy burdens and find rest your yoke is easy your burden is light so now god i pray by the time we leave this sanctuary we're reconnected back to you and we leave out of here lighter than when we walked in in the name of jesus we pray let every heart say amen come on and give god praise give god praise while we're praising god for the blood also help me thank god that that same blood has been covering our first lady for all of these years come on and help me celebrate lady brie come on God bless you and we pray you feel the love today you deserve it you deserve it you deserve it you love on all of us you take care of God's house you take care of our house and I'm grateful to celebrate a queen today in her own right a butterfly in her own right

43:34 Lady Britt and we thank God for her and I thank God for the VOG taking leadership that's what you saw honoring her help me thank God for Voices of Genesis brother libert twigs and the leaders of vog thank you so so much for taking the time to celebrate your director and y'all this mass choir came up in here to sing today help me celebrate our music ministry so many times we walk in heavy but don't they sing us right where we need to be it don't take long to get there either amen i want to thank the music ministry i want to thank lady breeze mom my mother and love help me celebrate mama sullivan talk about a queen talk about a queen she is that and lady breeze says all the time my mama is just the best human being I know and I agree with her you just a special human being and we thank God for you don't we fellowship we all blessed because of our mother and so so grateful for each and every one of you I want to say thank you to you grab your Bibles I want to pause and just say we're not we're in a new series taste of Chicago everybody's a taste of Chicago listen this is a series for the big backs and if you live in Chicago you know this is a foodie city isn't it some of y'all don't know what to do sitting up here looking at this Italian beef behind me we don't really eat deep dish that's for the tourists take us to I mean we do but we don't we go to Italian fiesta beggars y'all ain't think I know now I've been here seven years.

45:20 Nah, I don't know. There's some others I'm forgetting the name, but we do deep dish when our visitors come. We do it every now and then. But you see, our popcorn, we got the best of everything in Chicago, don't we? Just the best. Nobody does hot dogs like us. And so even though we love, yeah, yeah, in this full piece, fried hard salt and pepper with the mild sauce you know i don't know what your heralds is but as for me in my house take me to 35th and i'm all right 35th in indiana and i'm all right i'm straight amen amen i know by 87th and the wild 100s and somebody say 71st i know but you know so you'll be shocked how much food shows up in the bible and so all this summer the messages will be around food and i want to just pause and celebrate Ashley Cheeks for the beautiful stage decor that you see she was in here when I walked in she was by herself putting this floor down making sure things were right and later on Miss Pauline came and helped her out but just two black sisters made all this look this good and I want to celebrate them thank you Ashley for your work thank you Miss Pauline and then in the back you can't see it but they laid it out for Lady Bree.

46:50 That's Miss Josundra Polk. I want to thank you, Miss Josundra. Thank you. I love you, lady. She's such a queen and such a beautiful spirit. Miss Josundra singing in the choir. I want to say thank you. People ain't got to do nothing for you. You know, the old I get, I get why Reverend Evans and Mama Lou used to say that so much. Folk don't have to do anything. And so the fact that y'all are loving on Lady Bree today in advance, even before we raise the love offering anything whatever you do for us and for lady brie thank you in advance because we know you don't have to do anything so on behalf of my boo uh thank you for loving on her because she deserves that amen amen so so let's get into this word i'll share some more things later but i feel like preaching and i want to be helpful to the house today john chapter 6 verse 6 john chapter 6 verse six john chapter six verse eight john chapter six verse eight i know i said six you know fellowship will tell you when you're wrong too you said six i know what i said and i'm telling you i was wrong john chapter six verse eight through ten let's read out of the king james version one of his disciples jesus disciples andrew simon peter's brother said to him there's a lad here there's a boy here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes and then andrew said but what is this he basically said but but what are we going to do with this when we have so many people to feed and then jesus said verse 10 make the men sit down now there was much grass in the place so the men sat down numbered about 5 000 now that's not counting women and children according to some some of the synoptic gospels it says it was just 5 000 men but if you add up the women and children scholars believe that number could have gone as high as 15 to 20 000 it was just about 5 000 men

48:59 some of the synoptic writers read make the men sit down that's what i want to talk today about make the men sit down you may be seated make the men sit down early in the sermon we know when you see the word men in the bible usually they would say men and it means people but today i want to just use that language right out of the king james version for a reason yes make the people sit down but more specifically today i want to focus in on make the men sit down come on tell your neighbor and say, make the men sit down. at eight o'clock service one of our most faithful members nicknamed nene was in church today and i was kind of shocked and last week i learned she was in church last week as well a couple of days ago her brother who took on extra shifts to make more money for the family worked 13 or 14 days straight.

50:05 And while at work around that 13th day, dropped and collapsed from a massive heart attack and died, he was 35 years old. 35 years old. That rocked me because that's my age. It rocked me because he's just way too young. it would seem to be passing like that of a massive heart attack 35 it just did something to me and next saturday nene who was like his sister mom as she describes they're going to memphis to bury robert taylor in memphis celebrate his life passed at 35 from a massive heart attack and just Ironically, it was during a time where he took on extra work to try to make some extra money for his family. And then last week, I couldn't leave this church before news got to me that just stunned me into stillness and silence.

51:13 Learning about the sudden passing of our beloved brother, funeral director, Spencer Leak Jr. The Leek and Son Funeral Home led us just February and into March. All of the services of Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson, they took care of the Jackson family, but the dignity of which they displayed was not unique just to the Jackson family. Leek and Son's Funeral Home always, down through the years, over 90 years in our community, have covered black families when they didn't have enough resources to bury their families four generations are still running that funeral home the late ar leaks was spencer's grandfather his father was spencer leek senior who's still alive 89 years old and spencer leek jr dies of a massive heart attack last Sunday morning at 56 years old. When they first told me Spencer Leake passed, immediately, unfortunately, I thought they're talking about his father. They have to be talking about his father. And what shocked me was they said, no, it's the junior. It's junior.

52:29 It's the one who's 56. His son just started working for the funeral home, Spencer Leake III, a couple of weeks ago. And a few days before Spencer Leake Jr. passed, he put on his own social media page a picture of him in the hospital with an IV in his right arm and his caption read, y'all are trying to take your funeral director out. and i just i had to sit with those deaths this week um another leader in our community over the restaurant chemistry lost his life unfortunately and suddenly because of a mass shooting on the south side this week and another brother was killed as well five others were injured it's just that suddenly for me that that suddenly our our brothers are leaving here 56 that's too soon our brothers leaving here 35 they just feels too soon leaders people that we need in our communities leaving it and i don't believe god caused it but listen i do believe god can use this moment i don't believe god calls it don't over spiritually but god needed his best flowers for no keep all that talk to soothe yourself i don't need that we don't need that i don't believe god calls that hear my theology i believe that although they pass god can use it god can use their passing to somehow awaken us to give us a gentle spiritual reminder that you don't know how much time you have but with the time you have we've got to care for ourselves protect ourselves to make sure we are around to be here to see our sons and our daughters and our great our grands and our great grands by taking better care of ourselves i want you to hear god's word coming out the text to you today men women boys and girls get somewhere and sit down some of us unfortunately do so much that

54:43 we harm ourselves Kirk Byron Jones and his book calls it self-violence he wrote a book called addicted to hurry and in that book he unpacks that some of our schedules are us committing self-violence to ourselves because you have everybody on your calendar except you it's just self-violence for your plate to be that full and think you're supposed to honor everything that you and others have put on your plate you got to learn how to put some stuff in a to-go plate and how to take some stuff to another day and not try to solve it all and do it all I want to talk to the brothers in here today because we will end up leaving this world prematurely if we don't listen to the words of Jesus, who in the middle of the feeding of the 5,000 looks out and says, I need y'all to go sit down. Because somewhere along life's journey, we started to conflate and confuse our productivity with our identity.

55:48 We started to conflate and confuse our doing with our being. But your being is more important than your doing. Who you are is still more important than what you do. but the culture and our trauma from slavery i told you two weeks ago made us feel like if we're not producing if we're not working if we're not proving our worth through our actions that we're not worthy at all sisters don't just look at us like we're making this up because if a brother wanted to date you and he told you i'm in between jobs it won't be long before he's in between dates because many of you don't have energy for people who don't already have it together and this newer generation god help us millennials and gen z they demand so much from the brother so early on talking about if he takes you to a certain date you would never date him again well i would have never dated lady brie again because our first lunch when the day our first lunch was at jason's And if she had judged me off Jason's deli, she would have never made it to RPM Steak and Joe's Steak.

57:00 Oh, okay. Oh, y'all. but we add pressure on the men to have it all together come already pre-packaged, pre-polished and then the brothers take on all that pressure to show up and be the provider to show up and stunt like we got it together to purport, to present like we are the superheroes of the family when the truth is we're exhausted we're depleted and we need to do what jesus said go sit down brothers i'm talking to us today sisters you can get in on this if you want to but brothers we got to love ourselves enough to take better care of ourselves brothers before the year is over where's your doctor's visit before before the summer is over where's your physical after you get to a certain age you have to check your prostate after a certain age you got to check to make sure that your your blood sugar levels are in a certain place your hypertension is in order your cholesterol is in order you got to make sure you go to therapy and i know your granddaddy didn't go to therapy and your daddy didn't go to therapy and the toxic masculinity that we sometimes dive in and lean in says i don't want nobody telling me how to run my house how to run my life but hey Jesus is a wonderful counselor and he knows how to put counselors in your path and the bible says there's safety in the multitude of counselors which means we ought to lean in for advice and mediation to help us think through the hard things of life because if you don't go get the help you need and if you don't take the break you need life has its own way of breaking you and if you don't go to therapy and find healthy ways to soothe the sorrow to soothe the trauma to deal with the weight to carry the pressure then what we do is we self soothe and we self medicate and we try to drink it away and we try to smoke it away and we try to

59:11 eat it away and we sex it away and we spend it away and we church it away but it's some stuff church can't fix it's some stuff Jack Daniels can't fix it's some stuff Cush Loud and Reggie can't fix it's some stuff that weed and liquor and women and sex and all of these intimate connections ain't gonna fix and I'm here to help you listen in to the voice of God to tell you that you've got to love yourself enough to prioritize your wellness not just that your soul prospers but that your body is healthy, that your mind is centered, and that your soul can be at rest. Can I find some brothers who know in this room I am talking some real talk. The weight is real, but God is too. The weight is real, but you're prioritizing your health is too. And I want you to be around here as long as you can.

1:00:06 And hey, we may pass at 50. We may pass in our 30s, but at least let's not add to the reasons why we leave this world prematurely. we shall live and not die. and some of our unhealthy ways don't just land us in in graves it lands us in jails because you never learn how to manage your anger and you never learn that sometimes being weak is being strong sometime to lose the fight and just walk away is a sign of masculinity and strength but here we are in chicago where we get in gangs because we think that affirms our masculinity and we don't have community at home or at the church like we should so we get unhealthy community because that affirms our identity and our masculinity and i feel strong because i got a i got the glock on me try me if you want to pull up on me if you want to brother that ain't what makes you indomitable that's not what makes you strong anybody can carry a gun but what makes you strong is when you grab this weapon and you got the word in your heart and you got education in your mind and you got Jesus in your heart when you walk out the door with Jesus in your heart education in your mind and the word in your spirit there is no weapon formed against you that will ever I wish I had a church up in here Make the men sit down.

1:01:51 Make the people sit down. When I'm on an airplane, there are times where the pilot will announce right before takeoff, you must be seated. and it's not just the passengers even those who are flight attendants have to go sit down too because just because you're in charge don't mean that turbulence won't affect you too All of us have to sit down and buckle in because we don't know when turbulence hits. And you know the most annoying thing for me, Keena on the plane, you know what's most annoying to me, Rags, Ms. Waltering, you know the most annoying thing to me on the plane is when we hit so much turbulence that the pilot won't let the flight attendants bring us our drinks. oh they just you talking about tear my spirit there was an irritation i cannot describe to you we can't drink our juice because you bumping through the air but the pilot knows that even those who are in charge deserve to make it safely to landing too and i know you the boss i know you run it i know all the family members come to you but but but life will life so turbulently sometimes that it doesn't matter what your position is it doesn't matter how many degrees you have it doesn't matter how much money is in your bank account at some point we all have to be seated so that we have a safe takeoff and a safe landing what if i told you your elevation is dependent upon your ability to sit down God can only take you as high as he can trust you to rest because if I lift you too high too soon you will kill yourself but until you prove that you know how to sit down

1:04:01 and you know how to stop and you know how to pause then God says that's a person I can trust with elevation because it don't get lighter when you go higher. everybody preaches to the people that are struggling and suffering but i don't hear enough messages to the people who are at the heights of success some of us in this room you are where you prayed to be making more money than you've ever desired to make your marriage is happy your family is prospering you are at the top of your game and you are in the heaviest season of your life and everybody thinks you're winning on the outside but because there's things that are not managed well on the inside you can be winning and losing at the same time go on and touch your neighbor and say sit down sit down sit down there is a book by watchman knee chinese pastor who ended up losing his life for standing for the faith watchman knee like a watchman on the wall watchman knee n-e-e you can look it up there's a book by watchman knee this chinese pastor was revered respected he was high in the culture because he stood for his faith was imprisoned for standing for the christian faith and ultimately died in prison standing for the christian faith before he died he wrote a number of books and one of the books is called sit walk stand and he talks about that this is the progression of Christian maturity he writes this based off of the book of Ephesians Ephesians chapter 2 verse 6 says that we are seated in heavenly places with Christ there goes the chapter on sit then Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 says walk worthy of the calling wherewith you've been called to walk in and there goes the chapter on walk then he writes the last chapter on stand that's Ephesians 6 11 that says put on the whole armor of God so that you may stand against the wiles or the devices and schemes of the devil but what's ironic about the book is he doesn't start with you walking

1:06:10 he doesn't start with you standing because you won't have the strength to walk you won't have the equilibrium to stand if you first don't embrace sitting he said the first call of every christian is to learn how to rest in what christ has already done for you he said you don't even have to sit down he said when you come to christ you've already been seated in heavenly places with christ because of what christ has already done for us some of y'all were confused a few minutes ago why y'all shouting about the blood because that's what he did for us living he loved me dying he saved me buried he carried my sins far away rising he justified me freed me forever one day he's coming back what a glorious day now tell me in all of those verses what did you do to save yourself absolutely nothing we're not saved because of our works we're saved because of the grace of God expressed through Jesus Christ and we've got to learn how to sit and what he's already done see we missed the shot on good Friday he said it is finished and some of you still keep living like you got something else to finish if he already finished it sit down and rest in what he's already finished he's not about to do a new thing he's already done a new thing he's just going to manifest what he's already done.

1:07:42 Preach y'all because the lamb was slain before the salvation, before the creation of the world. He already done it. You got to sit in it. I know why y'all can't say amen. You sitting there like huh? Because somebody lied to us and told us you got to show up and you got to do and you better be active and you got to, I'm going to serve eventually. but I need to sit immediately.

1:08:15 And I need to, are y'all listening to me? I've got to sit before I can walk and before I learn how to stand. And that's what's so amazing about this text today because we all know the feeding of the 5,000, but I wonder how many of us have honed in on the fact that right after Jesus said, y'all got some bread for these people? y'all got some y'all y'all y'all got some uh five red lobster biscuits anybody got some perch or whiting anybody got some jj's anybody got some docks that docks whiting blessed me last week i just my docks took bless me bless me in my house anybody got some docks if i got some jj's see i'm chicago for real now i don't know atlanta They be like, when you coming back? I don't know, man.

1:09:06 I don't know. I'm, I'm. Southside, bruh. Southside. Sí te hacen sentido la voz국esa climática muy buena Tomásfeld pressed contraonda Jesus said I'm praying for y'all.

1:09:33 Jesus said, y'all got anything you need? And they said, yeah, Andrew, Philip's brother spoke up and said, yeah, we got two pieces of fish, five loads of bread, barley loads, that's poor man's food. And he said, but what is this? And no wonder Jesus turned around and said, do me a favor, make the men sit down. That's what I need you to do. Make the men sit down. You ain't going to figure this out, so you just sit down. Now, if you go back to verse 3, you're going to see something interesting. before this miracle the bible says that jesus is seated with his disciples then in verse 10 he turns around and says now make the people sit down verse 3 jesus is seated with his disciples teaching on the mountainside uh being the uh new testament representation of moses on the mountain teaching seated with the disciples and then in verse 10 he turns around now now make everybody else sit down but isn't it interesting before he set others down he set first because if I learn how to sit in stillness that's the only way I'm qualified to stand and serve I can't stand and serve you till I learn how to sit still with myself.

1:10:45 then now the ones who've been seated are now the ones standing and can now look out in the others and say now all y'all please sit down that's not the first time jesus does that he gets on the boat in the storm in another book and and he's in the back of the boat and he takes a pillow and mark and he sleeps on the back of the boat and then just a few verses later he's on the front of the boat telling the storm peace be still now he's sleeping the back of the boat and then he stands and calms the storm on the front of the boat. Sleep in the back of the boat, calms the storm on the front of the boat. Sleep in the back of the boat, calms the storm on the front of the boat. Kirk Byron Jones in his book, Rest in the Storm, says, I believe that if he had never gone to sleep in the back of the boat, he would have never had the strength to calm the storm in the front of the boat because it's always the storm in you that needs to stop first before you can address the storm around you. Preach, y'all.

1:11:37 and some of us would never have the power to still a storm out there until we get still and deal with the storm within make the men sit down why why why here it is so jesus can free us so jesus can feed us so jesus can fill us so jesus can favor us so jesus can focus us come on y'all know I'm a bootleg professor so I'm gonna say it again till you got it write it down get it take your phone out write the notes copious notes let's do the doggone thing number one Jesus is trying to what free us number two Jesus is trying to what feed us number three Jesus is trying to what fill us number four Jesus is trying to what favor us and number five Jesus is trying to focus us verse 8 through 10 he said make the men sit down and Andrew talking about what is this with so few pieces of bread and fish what is this Jesus just just just do me this favor you I need the disciples make all of y'all sit down because you're not gonna figure out how to do this anyway so I want to free you from feeling the need to have to figure everything out I need you to sit down because I'm trying to free you from the illusion that you have all the answers.

1:13:00 I want you to sit down so I can free you from the stress you put on yourself to figure everything out. Because the only reason these two pieces of fish and five loaves of bread are going to multiply at all is because it's in his hands. And so what I put in his hands, I got to trust in his hands that he knows how to work it out in his hands. and while he's figuring it out, I'm going to go play my game station, go relax, go walk the lake because we lie every time we sing it. I put it all in his hands. No, you did not. You put some stuff in his hands but you know you're growing in your walk with God when you learn to put it all. My family, my health, my bills, my reputation, my children, my marriage, my ministry my anointing, my future my savings, my career I put it all and I know why y'all can't shout because this is not the way we live you think it's your hands that's going to fix it but can I find 15 people and I make 16 who can admit my hands fail me every time so since I can't fix it in my hands I might as well I surrender all all to Jesus I surrender all to him I freely give I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live I surrender all you know why I don't stress why pastoring hadn't aged me the way it could have I got a few gray hairs but it ain't aged me the way it could have you wanna know why because I put everything in the Lord's hands or the most difficult person in this church I put him in his hands you better you better hit me and I walk up to him how you doing everything alright you looking good how you feeling everything wonderful it's so good to see you today come here give me a hug

1:15:06 give me some sugar and I go home now Lord you know fix it before I hit him I want you to get him before I cuss him you know I can cuss and so since you know I can cuss I want you to get him Touch them, bless them, heal them, make them happy so they stop making others miserable. In the name of Jesus. You think I'm playing. Every hard decision I ever had to make in my life, I said, Lord, if it's for me, make it happen. If it's not for me, close the door. And if it's not for me, I just choose to believe you got something else better for me. Do you know the kind of sleep you get when you literally put it all in his hand? Free yourself. If it's for me, it'll happen. If it ain't for me, it ain't gonna happen. and I'm going to trust that it's going to work out one way or another.

1:16:00 It's going to either work out. he's trying to free you but then verse 10 and 11 reveals in your bible that he gives the disciples the food to disseminate it to the men and the bible says specifically that the only people verse 11 that got some of the food were those who were sat down and the disciples gave food to those who said You can't even eat with Jesus without sitting down first. Jesus, like some of my grandmamas, uh-uh, come in here and wash your hands and sit down. You trying to stand and eat. Go sit. You don't eat this kind of meal. Standing up. You relax in this. You savor this.

1:16:53 You chill in this. I cooked something good for you. I made a way out of no way for you. You ain't going to enjoy this on your feet. sit down and relax a while recline a minute savor what I'm cooking for you you can't even eat till you sit down and then if you think all Jesus wants to do is feed you you missing your blessing cause he don't just want to feed you number three he wants to fill you verse 12 verse 12 and when they were filled he said to the disciples gather up the fragments y'all I want you to lean up this deepest thing I'm about to say in seven years of pastoring lean up don't miss this deepest thing I ever said in seven years of pastoring I need you to let him fill you up because all of our worst mistakes happen when we're empty you ain't trifling you were just empty you ain't evil you were just empty but when you come to fellowship filling station you ought to come in here with a certain energy 1045 I'm praying for y'all 8 o'clock God at 115 is on fire I'm waiting on that oil to flow up in 1045 I'm waiting for the folk who can come and lift your hands and say fill me up Lord I didn't come to be entertained today I need you to fill me up with your power.

1:18:19 Fill me up with your power.