The Feeding of the Multitude (II)
(This is a sermon transcript, and may contain small inaccuracies.)
No doubt, many of us here have heard of George Mueller. He was known to be a man of prayer, and especially for the orphanages that he ran. More than 10,000 orphans were cared for through the ministry of this man of God, faithful man of God.
He often found himself without the necessary means to care for these orphans and threw himself completely on the mercy of God. Now he did plan, he planned, and he didn't leave everything to random chance. He did not presume on the providence of God, but he often, as we do, found himself beyond his means, beyond his abilities.
And one morning, the story is told in his biography that the plates and the cups and the bowls on the table at one of the orphanages were completely empty. There was no food in the pantry, no money to buy anything else. They were completely out.
The children were all standing there, as they often did, waiting for their morning meal before heading to school. When Mueller said something like this, and I quote, “children, you know, we must be in time for school.” You know, school had to march on, right? Meal or no meal. So he simply lifted up his hand, and he said this prayer, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.” Lord, we thank You for what You are going to give us to eat.
As soon as he finished praying, there was a knock on the door, and it was the baker, baker from the town there in Bristol. And he said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I just was afraid you wouldn't have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to be here this morning with some bread for you. So I got up at 2 a.m. and I baked some fresh bread, and here it is, and I brought it.” Mueller thanked the man, closed the door, and no sooner had he closed the door, there was another knock. This time it was the milkman.
The milkman announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and so he said he'd like to give the cans of fresh milk that were on his cart to the kids so that he could empty his wagon and make the necessary repairs. And of course, Mueller was happy to help him. Really a remarkable story of God's care, God's provision for those orphans and through Mueller, he trusted in the Lord. He trusted in God's gracious provision. But alas, we can't say the same thing concerning the disciples in this account that we have been studying together.
The story here in John 6 is in all four gospels, The Feeding of the Five Thousand Plus Women and Children. It's in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and here in John 6. And obviously, that means if all four of the gospel writers included it under inspiration, it must be central, it must be central, to the message about Jesus Christ, about His life. But what is it really about? What did Jesus intend to teach us through this dramatic miracle?
Well, there are a number of powerful lessons, and we didn't get to them last Lord's Day.
We're going to look at them today, Lord willing. But first, let us refresh our memory and remind ourselves of what we have learned last week. You remember Jesus is north in Israel.
He's up in Galilee. He's not in Jerusalem anymore. The other gospels tell us that just before this, Jesus had actually commissioned the 12 disciples to go through Galilee in pairs and to preach the gospel, to teach the Word of God, cast out demons, heal the sick, go in faith, trust God's provision. And they did it. They did it successfully. And they came back exuberant, sharing with Christ, reporting all that God had done through them. And they returned exhausted. They had been so laboring, they had been so traveling, that they had no time to eat, the gospel tells us. The crying need is food and rest. So Jesus seeks out for them a secluded place to rest, to be refreshed, to be rejuvenated. And so they got into a boat and they sailed across the lake called the Sea of Galilee. Now it's called the Sea of Tiberias because Herod built a town on the Lake of Galilee named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius. But it's all referring to the same place, the lake, the Sea of Galilee. It's more like a lake. And they seek a private place near the town of Bethsaida, where Philip was from. Not far from the place where Jesus cast out a legion of demons from a place nearby. But as you remember, before they could get their rest, there's a crowd chasing Him down. You see that in verse 2, that there was a great multitude going after Him. Thronging Him is a mass humanity. Verse 4 tells us, this is close to the time of Passover, so that means that many thousands of people in Galilee are heading south. And there would have been families all together.
Now men were the ones required to go, but most often they would have taken with them their wives and their children. Whole families that are moving south. And they had already heard that Jesus has been doing all these miraculous signs. And so He's already wildly popular. He's sort of the person that you talk about over dinner, around the campfire and the marketplace. “Have you heard? He did this and he did that.” “Have you heard? The lame people are healed, blind people can see, the deaf can hear.” “I know someone who had been a leper his whole life, and he went to Yeshua and now his skin is as youthful and unblemished as ever. And there was that demon-possessed person,” another would share. “And you remember, people were used to keeping away from him, and he was in chains, and now he's normal. And it's all because of Yeshua.” If nothing else, Jesus is the most excitement and entertainment they had in a long time.
Verse 10 tells us that there were about 5,000 ‘aner’, men, males. Matthew 14-21 uses the same word, but puts it this way, “there were about 5,000 men who ate, besides women and children.” And so, as I mentioned last time, a reasonable estimate, there would have been probably at that time, somewhere between 15,000 people, probably as many as 25,000 people. It is a huge crowd. Verse 5 says, “Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, “Where should we buy bread, so that these people may eat?’”
And looking at the parallel accounts in the Synoptic Gospel, Gospels, we gather that our Lord's question to Philip probably was asked just after He arrived in that secluded place. That's when He said, “Where shall we buy bread so that all these may have something to eat?” Because He wanted to test Philip. Later on, after the full day of healing and teaching, and He says some of the other things, Matthew 14 says He spent the day healing the sick, really healing the sick. Luke 9:11, it says that He spent the day speaking to them concerning the kingdom of God, salvation. Mark tells us He did what He did because He was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. His heart was moved for this multitude. His heart went out to the crowd. He goes out to them because of their suffering in this world. He goes out to them because of their desperate spiritual condition. That's our Savior.
As I mentioned last time as well, by now, John the Baptist had been beheaded. The Pharisees really aren't shepherds to them. The rabbis aren't helping them. And Jesus sees their spiritual desperation and desolation, the lostness. He teaches these several thousands of people for several hours in the day.
Just as an aside, can you imagine how powerful his voice must have been? Amazing. To stand outdoors and be heard clearly by over 20,000 people. A powerful, outdoor Speaker with significant projection. And it wasn't a 20-minute sermon. This is the entire day. The entire day. But the day wears on, and soon it's getting late. Likely the disciples are getting exasperated.
They're tired. They're hungry. They went to the secluded place. And you can imagine them looking at each other, wondering “when is the sermon going to end?” You've never done that, right? But, you know, they did, fickle people.
In the other Gospels, we read they actually tell Jesus, “send the crowd away so that they could buy food for themselves. Just send them away.” And what we see unfold here, underscores a test, raises a question that must be reckoned with. And here it is. Do you believe God is a God of abundant provision? Do you believe God is a God of abundant provision? That's what's being put in front of these disciples, starting with Philip, and that's what is being put in front of us this morning. John and the Synoptics tell us that Jesus is testing his disciples. What is He testing? He's testing their trust in him, their faith, their whole ministry idea, their endurance because they believe we've run out of time. The day is over. We've run out of energy. We are all tired. We are depleted, exhausted. We've run out of money, we've run out of strength, we've run out of everything and there isn't enough to feed these people. We've run out of food and everyone's stomach is running out of food.
So Jesus now tests the disciples by putting the problem back in their hands. He essentially says, as recorded in the other Gospels, “you give them something to eat, you feed them.” “You feed them.”
Earlier in the day, He turned to Philip, who is from the nearby Bethsaida, and He said, where should we buy food for the crowd? Knowing exactly what He's going to do eventually. Of course, He's not expecting Philip to say, “well, well, there's this great fishmonger who's really got this huge store” and he's not expecting Philip to do that, but He is testing.
He's testing. And Philip answered and said, well, 200 dinerai is not enough to buy all this food for these people. And a denarius was one day's wage, 200 denarii is 200 days of labor. It's about eight months' salary. It's a decent amount of money. And as I mentioned last time, the average salary here, if you take it to bring it forward, it's about 39/40,000, the amount of 39/40,000 dollars. So you divide that on a 15 dollar, you know, Happy Meal or McDonald's meal or, it will feed a fraction of these people. Fraction.
Now, Philip is mentioning the number, not to show the possibility, but rather the impossibility. And then later on, Andrew pipes up and he appears to have done a little bit of food reconnaissance. And according to Mark 6:38, it was Jesus who is the one Who instigates this.
He commands the disciples to go into the crowd and find out what they could take. Go search the crowd. See what might be available. And the only thing Andrew could find is some poor lad, ‘paidarion,’ a little boy, just a little boy, whose mother perhaps packed him a tiny lunch for the day. It wasn't much. It's barley bread, which is the cheapest, roughest, coarsest bread eaten by the poor. And then, ‘opsarion,’ which was a very, very tiny fish, like sardine-like fish. And again, Andrew seems to be saying, “well, this is what we've got, this is all we've got. What difference is it going to make? Look at this crowd. Twenty thousand plus people.”
And notice the disciples' starting point is negative. “What can two hundred denarii possibly do? What can five loaves and two fish possibly do? We can't meet this enormous need. We can't do anything about this.” Their perspective is negative. Their perspective is pessimistic. “We don't have enough power. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough food. We don't have enough resources. We don't have enough.” You see, their eyes are not on the ministry opportunity. Their eyes are not on Jesus. Not on the power of Jesus. And they've seen Him turn the water into wine and heal that boy 30 kilometers away with the word. Their eyes are on the circumstances. The needs appear bigger than the supply, and they are overwhelmed. This again intended to underscore the enormous size of the obstacle.
Look at vv. 10, what Jesus does. “Jesus said, ‘have the people sit down.’ Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated; likewise, also of the fish as much as they wanted.” Jesus now calls for organization, so that there will be no chaos, no stampede, nothing breaking out among such a huge, hungry, weary crowd. They were organized according to the other Gospels in groups of 50 and 100, and they're able to sit down because the Bible tells us there's grass. It's March-April, by the end of summer, in Israel, the grass is burnt off. The ground would have been hot, dry, stony. Too hot to sit on, often. And remember, when the Jewish people ate, they reclined. So you needed a soft, grassy area to do that. Well, apparently, this little boy surrendered his lunch, all that he had, to the Master. And that's really a lesson for us, isn't it? As we shall see.
So Jesus gave thanks, He blessed His father for the food that was given and provided. Jesus then gives to the disciples, the disciples to the group seated on the grass. Have you ever thought of it? How did this miracle happen? How did it unfold? How did this miracle manifest?
We're not really told the specifics. We could just use sanctified imagination. Did Jesus give some to each disciple? And then, as they gave it to each group, and kept dividing it to the group, more and more just was present, so that there was always some loaf in their hands, some fish in their hands? Or was it when they gave the loaves and fish to each group, as the group itself kept sharing it with each other, it kept multiplying and multiplying and multiplying? Or was it that each disciple came to Jesus with his makeshift reed basket and they came to Jesus and Jesus would break it? He breaks it in His hand and it's not smaller, in fact it doubles and then he keeps breaking and breaking and breaking to the wide eyes, speechless expression of the disciple standing in front of him. And likewise the fish pulling apart, this dry salted fish and not simply two, now it's four, now it's eight, now it's 16, it's 32 until the basket is full and the disciple heads to the group of 50 or 100. And then the next disciple comes and as each disciple comes and feeds each group there, Jesus stands breaking and breaking, dividing and dividing and market, as we said last Lord's Day, creating and creating.
Because these are fish that never swam, these are barley bread that was never planted. And this is not just a little snack, the text says at the end of verse 11, that they ate “as much as they wanted.”
And look at the plentiful surplus. Verses 12 and 13, “And when they were filled, He said to (the) disciples, ‘gather up the leftover pieces so that nothing will be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” Twelve baskets for twelve disciples, a basket for each disciple, more than enough for the laborers who are already exhausted, tired, and hungry. They gave themselves to the work, God supplied their need. God supplied their need.
The crowd, verse 14, saw this mass miracle and they decided, well, Jesus is the prophesied prophet, Deuteronomy 18-15, that Moses said is coming. And they wanted to seize Jesus and forcibly enthrone him. And remember, here you have a crowd of 5,000 men. I mean, that's a little army on their own, really. If you have someone who can do mass miracles, who can feed thousands, I mean, frankly, well, he's unstoppable militarily. The crowd saw the prophet but missed the Son and the reason he came. And as we saw last Lord's Day, they didn't want Him for hHm. They wanted Him for what He could do for them. And Jesus' response to this exploitation of His provision, end of verse 15, “withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.” Now then, what is the message in all of this? What is the message in all of this?
Why did John by the Holy Spirit record this? Why did the Spirit move Matthew as well as Mark and Luke and John? All of the Gospel writers, the only miracle by all four, unless we include the resurrection of our Lord.
Well, first of all, beloved, first of all and supremely, I believe that this passage is a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of our Lord's Person. It is a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of our Lord's Person. The one-of-a-kindness of our Lord's Person.
And how do we know that? For the simple reason that in our text, in verse 14, this miracle is called ‘semeion’, sign, a sign that points to something else. Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had done, they were saying, “this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world.” A sign, we've seen this before, a sign is a miracle with a message. It is a miracle with a spiritual end and purpose. Signs are miracles which lead to something out of and beyond themselves. The finger marks of God, valuable, not so much for what they are as for what they indicate of the grace and the power of the Doer. Specifically, a sign is a miracle by which the character and truth of any person or thing is known, a token, a proof.
It's a miracle with a message. And you remember that John tells us at the end of his Gospel that He recorded the particular signs that He did, that men might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the Living God, very God, a very God, “and that believing (they) might have life through His name” John 20: 30-31.
In this miracle, we have a lesson about the divine nature of Jesus Christ. The One Who is in the beginning, the Word, the Word which was with God, the Word which is God. This has been the issue throughout the last couple of chapters.
The question of the day is, who is this Man? Who is this Jesus? And in this miracle, and you will see the next one, we call them the two nature miracles.
This one, the feeding of the 5,000 plus women and children, and the one that we will see, Lord willing, the walking on the water, the answer to that question becomes even clearer. That this Jesus of Nazareth is not an ordinary man. He's not just a prophet.
He sent out the twelve, and He sent them out and gave them power, but nothing like this. In this miracle and the one that comes next, Jesus shows that He is unique. He doesn't fit in anybody else's category except God's.
You probably, if you are familiar a little bit with the Old Testament, you recognize shades of the story, the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 4. Turn with me there for a second. In 2 Kings 4, verse 42, and following, this is the ministry of Elisha, where we find a true miracle.
We read there, 2 Kings 4: 42, “Now a man came from Baal-shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, ‘Give them to the people, that they may eat.’ And his attendant said, ‘What, wiill I give this before one hundred men?’ But he said, ‘Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says Yahweh,’ ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’ So he gave it before them, and they ate, and had some left over according to the word of Yahweh.” This is recorded in Kings to illustrate what an incredible God we have. That Elisha was indeed the prophet of God. The great Old Testament prophet held up before the people of God, and these men there, the multitude that day would have known the story that the great Old Testament prophet Elisha had fed a hundred men with twenty loaves, and that qualifies as an incredible miracle, enough to be recorded in the text of Scripture to show that he was truly a true prophet of God, with true power from God. A hundred men with twenty loaves.
Jesus fed over 20,000 men, women, and children with five loaves. He was much greater, much greater. He was in a totally different category above even the greatest of all Testament prophets. Jesus is one of a kind. As we've learned already and we learn again, He was no one less than God the Son, God the Son. And so, though our Lord has moved with compassion upon men and their temporal need, though there was genuine, living, non-artificial response of His heart to valid physical need, there was something bigger, something larger, something more glorious at stake, and it was that our Lord sees this opportunity to declare to men that, though when they looked upon Him, all they saw was a humble Galilean peasant, when they did not accept His ministry, they could say, “is this not the carpenter's son?” “Are not His brothers and sisters with us?”
Yet, our Lord in this situation is demonstrating that He is something more than meets the eye when they look at His physical appearance, that He is none other than the mighty God who can create by an act of His own will. For that's precisely what He was doing, when their eyes were riveted upon Him.
He was creating bread and fish. The very God of whom it is said, back in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and God created all the dwellers of earth and sea. It is this very God who in the presence of these 20,000 plus people manifests creative power, and by the act of His own will, He multiplies the loaves and the fish.
And you know what? No efforts. No beads of sweat upon His brow.
None of the incantations of those magicians and those who by sleight of hand seek to dazzle and amaze people. And certainly nothing of the mesmerizing influence of those who in cahoots with demonic powers might perform that which appears miraculous. But here the Son of God, before the open sight of 20,000 riveted eyes, exerts creative power because He wants the people to know who He is.
He wants them to know Him for who He is and believe in His name. And oh my sinner friend, if you are here in our midst, what those thousands learned or should have learned that day on the shore, on the hill, slope near Bethsaida, that Jesus of Nazareth is God. And they had need of a Savior who was nothing less than God. A Savior full of compassion? Yes. A Savior who looked upon them as sheep with no shepherd? Yes. But a Savior who could perform no saving function toward them, if He were a mere man or created being. But who, because He is God indeed, very God of very God, can perform every saving function that needy sinners stand in need of desperately. He paid it all. He paid the infinite price that satisfies a God of infinite inflexible justice. And so the message of this miracle is first of all, that of constituting a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of His person.
Secondly, it is a striking illustration of the uniqueness of His work. A striking illustration of the uniqueness of his work, as we shall see after John records this incident. He records one other parallel incident, but then he gives us the lengthy discourse of our Lord, in which he calls himself the Bread of Life. Referring to this miracle, the Lord picks up on this miracle and then gives that amazing discourse in which he says, as surely as you ate the bread on that hill, as surely as that bread that was multiplied from My hands, you took and you bit into it and masticated it and swallowed it. He says, I am the bread come down from heaven. If a man will eat of me, he shall have everlasting life. And then he goes on to talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And when He says that it is His own flesh that He gives for the life of the world, what was our Lord doing in this miracle? According to his own subsequent discourse, He was giving us a striking illustration of His unique work on behalf of sinners.
As those with growling tummies and weakened bodies were nourished not by the sight of food, but by real eating, our Lord picks up upon the real eating and that sating of the appetite. And He says, the appetite of the soul cannot be met and satisfied in any other way by any other mean other than assimilation of Me and assimilation of me as crucified Savior for sinners. My flesh is the bread which I give for the life of the world, this bread that came down out of heaven.
Then He goes on to speak about eating His flesh and drinking His blood until people are utterly offended and they go away because in their crass materialistic relationship to His words, they did not see what He was seeking to convey to them. But oh may God give us eyes to see the striking illustration of the unique work of Jesus Christ. And again, my dear sinner friend who feels all the gnawing hunger pangs that a sinner feels when he doesn't have a seared conscience, when he allows himself enough time to think, those hunger pangs cannot be filled and satisfied with pleasure and things and human relationships.
It is Christ crucified who alone is food and drink to your soul. In this miracle, it is given to us the striking illustration of His unique work as the one in dying for sinners upon Calvary's Cross offers Himself as the Bread of Life.
But then thirdly, the message of this passage is not only one in which we have a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of His person, a striking illustration of the uniqueness of His work, but it also constitutes a demonstration of practical godliness, a demonstration of practical godliness. And I'm going to mention two aspects only. First of all, you see practical godliness in our Lord's concern for the whole man. Our Lord's concern for the whole man. Long before the people were hungry, Jesus was anticipating that hunger. In verse 3, Jesus went up on the mountain and there he was, sitting down with His disciples. Now, Passover, the feast of the Jews was near. “Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, ‘Where should we buy bread, so that these… may eat?’ And this He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was going to do.”
Our Lord anticipates this need. He is not insensitive to their need. He manifests concern for the whole man. Why? Because Jesus is the perfect image of the Father, and the Father who made us is concerned for the whole man.
We do not regard the body as some kind of unnecessary evil in which to house the real important part, the soul. No, no, that's a pagan concept. We regard the whole of our humanity, in spite of its fallenness, as that which is created by God, body and soul. When God created mankind, male and female in His image, He created a body, soul, entity. And God is committed, beloved, to the dignity of the body, that the redemptive work of Christ will not be complete for any one individual for whom He died until it is complete at the resurrection.
And we are to reflect the Lord Jesus and His concern for the whole man. But you say, is there not a relative priority? Yes. Yes. Mark tells us He saw a large crowd. He felt compassion for them in chapter 6 verse 34, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
What did He do? The first thing, He began to teach them many things. You see what He did?
Because our greatest need is to have our minds instructed concerning the great issues of life. That is why, by the grace of God, we seek not to preach a social gospel. We don't preach a social gospel. This is why, from this place, we will not take up specific social issues and hammer away at them week after week after week and month after month after month. This is why our prayers will not focus predominantly upon such issues. But having said that, we are not like our Lord unless we manifest concern for the whole man. Isn't that what we read in Scripture? 1 John 3: 17 and 18 “Whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” How about James 2:15, 16 and 17,
“If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, (well), ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” The whole man.
There's a lesson in The Feeding of the 5,000 about the compassionate character of our God. You see it here? You see Jesus' personal concern for their physical well-being as well?
Remember, Jesus was apparently the first one to think about the whole thing. He was because he's the one who asked Philip right after He saw the crowd start arriving, “what are we going to do to feed these people?” That's how God is. God is the one who provides everyone with all things. This reflects God's genuine concern for our needs, including our physical needs. Sometimes we're prone to think that God's only concern about our spiritual health, and He is, but He's not oblivious to our physical need.
He's concerned about meeting the physical needs, the basic needs that we have. Beloved, He made us two parts, both soul and body, and He's concerned about both. Now we don't always have enough for a time. You remember Deuteronomy 8, He tells us why by telling the Children of Israel there. There's a reason. There's a reason sometimes we may have seasons where we don't have enough. When you were in the wilderness, He tells them, I humbled your heart, and I didn't provide you with all that you needed because I wanted to test you to see what was in your heart, He tells them. And then He said, but I'm bringing you then, I gave you manna, sent you quail, and now I'm sending you into a good land filled with milk and honey where you will inhabit houses you didn't build and cities you didn't build.
Paul knew what it was to suffer leanness. In 2 Corinthians 11-27, he says, I have been in labor and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in starvation and thirst, often hungry, in cold, without enough clothing. And yet Paul can still say at the very end of Philippians, “my God (will supply), will fulfill all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:19. Beloved, God is compassionate. He's merciful. He's a merciful God, even when it comes to our physical needs. I don't know what your situation may be, the situation you find yourself in right now, but God is concerned. You need to know this. God is concerned. His own great heart beats with concern as our Lord's did when He was there that day.
We see another demonstration of practical godliness in His orderliness in feeding the multitude. His orderliness in feeding the multitude. The scripture tells us that God is not the author of confusion. Let all things be done, how? Decently and in order. First Corinthians 14, 40. And if anything marked the original creation, it was what? Order. Order. God spoke and it was so. God is a god of order. And so they sat down in groups of 50 and 100. It was all organized. God spoke and it was so. God saw and it was good. And here's the Creator in the sense He's creating bread and fish and He will not do it in the context of chaos and disorder.
Can you imagine the confusion if he's begun to multiply the bread and those nearest could grab it as the disciples scrambled to? I mean the horrible confusion, the stampede perhaps, the rush. And Jesus would have no part of a confused mob.
Confusion is the work of darkness, of error, of the devil. Orderliness reflects the image, the likeness of God perfectly reflected in our Lord Jesus.
A word to children. Why do mom and dad get on you and say, dear son, sweetie, we like you to keep your room tidy. We will not tolerate a messy room. We will not tolerate you going through the playroom and leaving it look like though Helene done her job in the playroom. Hurricane Helene. Why? You see, if your parents are doing it out of godly motives, this is their reason. They are trying to teach you that the God in whose image you were made is a God of order. And confusion, disarray, disorder are the results of the fall. And redemption always moves us in the direction of orderliness and structure. Remember the demoniac in all of his frenzy is restored to sanity in Mark 6 and he is found sitting, how? Clothed and in his right mind.
But then there is a fourth application from this account. It is an encouraging confirmation of a vital principle of the Christian life. It is an encouraging confirmation of a vital principle of the Christian life. Jesus had taught, no doubt, many of these same people, this has happened, I mean, by the time we get to this miracle, the Sermon on the Mount had taken place. Many other teachings of Jesus, he had taught, no doubt, many of these same people to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things, bread, food, clothing, nature's necessities. We call them, will be added unto you. Seek first the kingdom. God will never be debtor to you in temporal basic needs. And here are people, granted a mixed multitude, overall, we're told, fickle, who followed him because of the signs, soon afterwards, especially the discourse on the bread of life, many go back and walk with Him no more. But, no doubt, in their midst, there was a remnant, who felt that hearing the words of Jesus is such importance, that they ran away from the other issues to get there, to Bethsaida, where the boat landed, that they might attend upon the words of Christ. They were seeking first the kingdom, and what did they get for it? Thank God, they did not get what the disciples said, “send them away.” Send them away! That's what, in our hardness and insensitivity, at times, we may do, but never, never the Son of God.
When he beholds one of his children seeking first the kingdom of God, and in the pursuit of that kingdom, in his own life, his own family, his workplace, wherever he is, sees that person in a place of need, God will intervene, many times, in ways that we could never predict, and in ways that calculating disciples can never, ever figure out. Shall we go and buy? He says, no. See what is there in the midst.
This is a lesson about Christ's ability and desire to provide for our physical basic needs. He's more than able, more than capable. You see that here. Well, what need do you have, beloved? What need do you have today? What basic needs do you have? Think right now about your physical needs. Whether it's health, whether it's a job, whether it is whatever, think about that need. He's more than capable of meeting that need, and He will meet it in his way.
Never forget that. It may not be the way you planned. It may not be the way you hoped, but He will meet it. He will meet your needs because he's obligated Himself to do that. Let me say that again. He's obligated Himself to do that. He's promised. Did He not? Turn to Matthew 6.
Turn to Matthew 6. Matthew 6: 25. Our Lord Jesus said, “do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat, -Matthew 6:25 - or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing” And then he uses a couple of examples. He says, “look at the birds of the air, (that) they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” V. 26. Underline that. “Your heavenly Father feeds them.” He feeds them. Every single bird you see flying around, your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they? If God feeds them, is He not going to feed you? Verse 27 “And which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his life span?” “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow;
they do not toil, nor do they spin,” (v. 28) “yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.” (v. 29) And notice what he says in verse 30, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!” If God closes the wild grass with the flowers that are so radiant and beautiful, do you think He can't clothe you? Do you think He can't take care of you? In verse 31, “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’” “For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (v. 32) “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness - the spiritual priorities of life- and all these things will be added to you.” (v.33) And He's promised to do it. Philippians 4:19, right? God will supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Oh, sure, there may be lean times, difficult times like there was for the Old Testament people when He tests the heart, He tests my heart and yours to see what's in it, but He will provide.
Listen, God's own character is on the line. Why do I say that? Because now we are His children. He's our Father. You see it? Remember when we studied in Ephesians, the end of Ephesians 2, we're told that we are now members of God's household. We're members of God's household. So God has obligated Himself to care for us. Maybe you never thought of this text in this light, but look at 1 Timothy 5:8. And remember, as you look at 1 Timothy 5:8, that we're part of God's household. Verse 8, “if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” God, in a sense, has put His own reputation on the line by taking up the responsibility of us as His children, and He keeps His word. He is perfectly righteous, and he will provide for His children. He is our father. He is our father. Your father knows what you need before you even ask him, Jesus said. There is a lesson in faith.
When you have physical needs, what do you do first? What do you do first? Do you put your trust in? Where do you put your trust? Are we like the disciples? Send them away. Two hundred in our eyes would not be enough. Do we put our confidence immediately in our own plans? In our own schemes? In our own devices? In our own puny resources? Perhaps in other human beings? Let me call so and so, they will bail me out. Or do we put our confidence in the Lord? Do we really doubt that Christ can provide for us and our families when He can feed 20,000 plus with two sardines and five meager loaves of bread? You may be right now going through hardship, maybe without work, in some cases not enough work. Whatever it is you're going through, don't lose your confidence in God. Don't go to your own scheming. And in the waiting, don't lose heart and say, well, I've waited for this long, God didn't come through, therefore, I need to take matters into my own hands. Yes, work, work hard, work harder to get a job than if you had a job, but don't put your confidence in yourself or your contacts or your resume, put your confidence in Christ. He's more than able to provide for you and your family in His way, in His time, and He will. Believe in Him.
Finally, there's one last lesson. This passage is a forceful illustration of a vital principle of Christian ministry. This passage is a forceful illustration of a vital principle of Christian ministry and how it has spoken to my own heart, beloved, as I reflected upon it.
And what is this principle? He commanded the disciples to do for the multitude what they couldn't do. But what they failed to see is that, that command was really a demand upon Himself. They failed to see that that command was a demand upon himself really. He said, “You give them to eat” Mark 6:37. And they did. They did. With bread that was multiplied in his hands. And He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them, Mark tells us. He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them. When we see in scripture what we who are in the ministry are to do, we know something of our own sheer utter limitations, insufficiency, our own resources of mind, of spirit, the dearth of our own experience of God and the knowledge of His ways. And we hear the word coming. “Give them to eat.” “Feed my sheep.” “Feed my lamb.” “Tend my flock.” What do we do? Cry out with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Lord, all I’ve got is five loaves of bread and two fish. But what are these? Among so many. How can I, Lord, fulfill the task that You've commanded me to do? The very principle is, when he commands it, that very command is meant to drive us back to Him to say, Lord, oh Lord, if I am meant to do what You've commanded, You must give me what I need to do it. Because I can't. I can't.
Had they done that, he himself knew what he was going to do. I believe the same miracle would have been performed and they would have been a wonderful example of the pattern of faith. Oh, whatever that ministry is that you're involved in, child of God, as a father to your children, as a mother to your children, as an employee in a place where you long to be a witness, as a Sunday school teacher, as a fellow classmate, you look at the demands of Christ upon you and you say, Lord, I have no power to fulfill them.
Then those disciples could have fed 20,000 people on their own. That's right. But Christ has the power. Go to Him. Go to Him. Turn to Him. Lord, what You command, You will give to your believing disciple. Lord, I come empty handed, but your hands are full. Your hands are creative hands.Nail pierced hands are creative hands, joined to a compassionate heart.
Lord, Lord, for the sake of my children, for the sake of the needy people at my work, in my school, in my workplace, those needy people around me, Lord, give me what I need that I may give to them the bread without which they will starve to death. One small boy, the lad in John 6:9, a little boy, as Andrew describes him, made his resources available to Christ. That was all that was there. Just two small sardines, five little loaves of barley bread, small, ordinary, nothing really, but from that boy's willingness to let Jesus use him, Jesus fed a huge crowd.
I think there's a remarkable analogy there, a remarkable lesson in consecration, that Jesus can do the same thing with us. We don't offer Him much, do we? We don't... Do any of us offer Him anything, really? We're nothing. We're less than two sardines and five loaves of bread, but if we're willing to put the little resources we have in His marvelous hands, if we're willing to, as it were, place ourselves in His hands, He can bless us and break us and can use us in ways far beyond our own ability. Reminds me of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, but we have this treasure in what? Earthen vessels. Earthen vessels? The treasure of the Gospel, Christ is the Gospel, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That's what he says, we're like clay pots, frail, fragile clay pots.
Why? Why? So that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We don't have much to offer Christ, but the amazing thing about the power of our Lord is that He could take nothing and use it for something. What a forceful illustration of this vital principle of Christian ministry. And let me say this in closing, what is true of an individual in ministry is true of a church. And may the spirit of this principle, will pervade our life as a church together. We're called to be light as a church. In our corporate identity, we're called to love one another, to bear with one another, to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. We're called upon to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. All of those demands are really impossible with what we've got in our hands or in our own pockets. But the things impossible with men are possible with God.
And may we be ever coming to our blessed Savior and saying and crying out, “Lord, what you've commanded, give.” What you've commanded, give. And as I pass it on to others, it will be an attestation, not of my own cleverness, but of Your power that men may know that You are in the midst of this people here. In this body of Christ.
Let's pray:
Oh, our Father, we do thank You for our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, God incarnate, God our Savior. We thank You for all that He is as God, all that He has manifested Himself to be, the one and only Savior of sinners, the bread that has come down from heaven. We thank you that He is our perfect pattern of life. We thank you that He has shown us in His own life, that those who seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness will have all of these things added. We thank You that He has set for us this great pattern of ministry. As we see unfold in this passage, write these things, these truths upon our hearts, that we may not only be thrilled and fascinated as we relive the amazing account of His mighty works, but that gazing upon Him, we shall be transformed into His likeness from one stage of glory to another even by the Lord the Spirit. And, Father, we pray for those who are still trying to meet the need and satisfy the hunger of their souls with the, really the husks of this world, the junk. Oh, give them such a sight of Christ today, that they may feed upon Him in feeding, find true satisfaction alone in Him. Seal, then, Your word to our hearts, and dismiss us with your blessing resting upon us.
We ask this in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen.
He often found himself without the necessary means to care for these orphans and threw himself completely on the mercy of God. Now he did plan, he planned, and he didn't leave everything to random chance. He did not presume on the providence of God, but he often, as we do, found himself beyond his means, beyond his abilities.
And one morning, the story is told in his biography that the plates and the cups and the bowls on the table at one of the orphanages were completely empty. There was no food in the pantry, no money to buy anything else. They were completely out.
The children were all standing there, as they often did, waiting for their morning meal before heading to school. When Mueller said something like this, and I quote, “children, you know, we must be in time for school.” You know, school had to march on, right? Meal or no meal. So he simply lifted up his hand, and he said this prayer, “Dear Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat.” Lord, we thank You for what You are going to give us to eat.
As soon as he finished praying, there was a knock on the door, and it was the baker, baker from the town there in Bristol. And he said, “Mr. Mueller, I couldn't sleep last night. Somehow I just was afraid you wouldn't have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to be here this morning with some bread for you. So I got up at 2 a.m. and I baked some fresh bread, and here it is, and I brought it.” Mueller thanked the man, closed the door, and no sooner had he closed the door, there was another knock. This time it was the milkman.
The milkman announced that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the orphanage, and so he said he'd like to give the cans of fresh milk that were on his cart to the kids so that he could empty his wagon and make the necessary repairs. And of course, Mueller was happy to help him. Really a remarkable story of God's care, God's provision for those orphans and through Mueller, he trusted in the Lord. He trusted in God's gracious provision. But alas, we can't say the same thing concerning the disciples in this account that we have been studying together.
The story here in John 6 is in all four gospels, The Feeding of the Five Thousand Plus Women and Children. It's in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and here in John 6. And obviously, that means if all four of the gospel writers included it under inspiration, it must be central, it must be central, to the message about Jesus Christ, about His life. But what is it really about? What did Jesus intend to teach us through this dramatic miracle?
Well, there are a number of powerful lessons, and we didn't get to them last Lord's Day.
We're going to look at them today, Lord willing. But first, let us refresh our memory and remind ourselves of what we have learned last week. You remember Jesus is north in Israel.
He's up in Galilee. He's not in Jerusalem anymore. The other gospels tell us that just before this, Jesus had actually commissioned the 12 disciples to go through Galilee in pairs and to preach the gospel, to teach the Word of God, cast out demons, heal the sick, go in faith, trust God's provision. And they did it. They did it successfully. And they came back exuberant, sharing with Christ, reporting all that God had done through them. And they returned exhausted. They had been so laboring, they had been so traveling, that they had no time to eat, the gospel tells us. The crying need is food and rest. So Jesus seeks out for them a secluded place to rest, to be refreshed, to be rejuvenated. And so they got into a boat and they sailed across the lake called the Sea of Galilee. Now it's called the Sea of Tiberias because Herod built a town on the Lake of Galilee named after the Roman Emperor Tiberius. But it's all referring to the same place, the lake, the Sea of Galilee. It's more like a lake. And they seek a private place near the town of Bethsaida, where Philip was from. Not far from the place where Jesus cast out a legion of demons from a place nearby. But as you remember, before they could get their rest, there's a crowd chasing Him down. You see that in verse 2, that there was a great multitude going after Him. Thronging Him is a mass humanity. Verse 4 tells us, this is close to the time of Passover, so that means that many thousands of people in Galilee are heading south. And there would have been families all together.
Now men were the ones required to go, but most often they would have taken with them their wives and their children. Whole families that are moving south. And they had already heard that Jesus has been doing all these miraculous signs. And so He's already wildly popular. He's sort of the person that you talk about over dinner, around the campfire and the marketplace. “Have you heard? He did this and he did that.” “Have you heard? The lame people are healed, blind people can see, the deaf can hear.” “I know someone who had been a leper his whole life, and he went to Yeshua and now his skin is as youthful and unblemished as ever. And there was that demon-possessed person,” another would share. “And you remember, people were used to keeping away from him, and he was in chains, and now he's normal. And it's all because of Yeshua.” If nothing else, Jesus is the most excitement and entertainment they had in a long time.
Verse 10 tells us that there were about 5,000 ‘aner’, men, males. Matthew 14-21 uses the same word, but puts it this way, “there were about 5,000 men who ate, besides women and children.” And so, as I mentioned last time, a reasonable estimate, there would have been probably at that time, somewhere between 15,000 people, probably as many as 25,000 people. It is a huge crowd. Verse 5 says, “Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes, and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, “Where should we buy bread, so that these people may eat?’”
And looking at the parallel accounts in the Synoptic Gospel, Gospels, we gather that our Lord's question to Philip probably was asked just after He arrived in that secluded place. That's when He said, “Where shall we buy bread so that all these may have something to eat?” Because He wanted to test Philip. Later on, after the full day of healing and teaching, and He says some of the other things, Matthew 14 says He spent the day healing the sick, really healing the sick. Luke 9:11, it says that He spent the day speaking to them concerning the kingdom of God, salvation. Mark tells us He did what He did because He was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. His heart was moved for this multitude. His heart went out to the crowd. He goes out to them because of their suffering in this world. He goes out to them because of their desperate spiritual condition. That's our Savior.
As I mentioned last time as well, by now, John the Baptist had been beheaded. The Pharisees really aren't shepherds to them. The rabbis aren't helping them. And Jesus sees their spiritual desperation and desolation, the lostness. He teaches these several thousands of people for several hours in the day.
Just as an aside, can you imagine how powerful his voice must have been? Amazing. To stand outdoors and be heard clearly by over 20,000 people. A powerful, outdoor Speaker with significant projection. And it wasn't a 20-minute sermon. This is the entire day. The entire day. But the day wears on, and soon it's getting late. Likely the disciples are getting exasperated.
They're tired. They're hungry. They went to the secluded place. And you can imagine them looking at each other, wondering “when is the sermon going to end?” You've never done that, right? But, you know, they did, fickle people.
In the other Gospels, we read they actually tell Jesus, “send the crowd away so that they could buy food for themselves. Just send them away.” And what we see unfold here, underscores a test, raises a question that must be reckoned with. And here it is. Do you believe God is a God of abundant provision? Do you believe God is a God of abundant provision? That's what's being put in front of these disciples, starting with Philip, and that's what is being put in front of us this morning. John and the Synoptics tell us that Jesus is testing his disciples. What is He testing? He's testing their trust in him, their faith, their whole ministry idea, their endurance because they believe we've run out of time. The day is over. We've run out of energy. We are all tired. We are depleted, exhausted. We've run out of money, we've run out of strength, we've run out of everything and there isn't enough to feed these people. We've run out of food and everyone's stomach is running out of food.
So Jesus now tests the disciples by putting the problem back in their hands. He essentially says, as recorded in the other Gospels, “you give them something to eat, you feed them.” “You feed them.”
Earlier in the day, He turned to Philip, who is from the nearby Bethsaida, and He said, where should we buy food for the crowd? Knowing exactly what He's going to do eventually. Of course, He's not expecting Philip to say, “well, well, there's this great fishmonger who's really got this huge store” and he's not expecting Philip to do that, but He is testing.
He's testing. And Philip answered and said, well, 200 dinerai is not enough to buy all this food for these people. And a denarius was one day's wage, 200 denarii is 200 days of labor. It's about eight months' salary. It's a decent amount of money. And as I mentioned last time, the average salary here, if you take it to bring it forward, it's about 39/40,000, the amount of 39/40,000 dollars. So you divide that on a 15 dollar, you know, Happy Meal or McDonald's meal or, it will feed a fraction of these people. Fraction.
Now, Philip is mentioning the number, not to show the possibility, but rather the impossibility. And then later on, Andrew pipes up and he appears to have done a little bit of food reconnaissance. And according to Mark 6:38, it was Jesus who is the one Who instigates this.
He commands the disciples to go into the crowd and find out what they could take. Go search the crowd. See what might be available. And the only thing Andrew could find is some poor lad, ‘paidarion,’ a little boy, just a little boy, whose mother perhaps packed him a tiny lunch for the day. It wasn't much. It's barley bread, which is the cheapest, roughest, coarsest bread eaten by the poor. And then, ‘opsarion,’ which was a very, very tiny fish, like sardine-like fish. And again, Andrew seems to be saying, “well, this is what we've got, this is all we've got. What difference is it going to make? Look at this crowd. Twenty thousand plus people.”
And notice the disciples' starting point is negative. “What can two hundred denarii possibly do? What can five loaves and two fish possibly do? We can't meet this enormous need. We can't do anything about this.” Their perspective is negative. Their perspective is pessimistic. “We don't have enough power. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough food. We don't have enough resources. We don't have enough.” You see, their eyes are not on the ministry opportunity. Their eyes are not on Jesus. Not on the power of Jesus. And they've seen Him turn the water into wine and heal that boy 30 kilometers away with the word. Their eyes are on the circumstances. The needs appear bigger than the supply, and they are overwhelmed. This again intended to underscore the enormous size of the obstacle.
Look at vv. 10, what Jesus does. “Jesus said, ‘have the people sit down.’ Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated; likewise, also of the fish as much as they wanted.” Jesus now calls for organization, so that there will be no chaos, no stampede, nothing breaking out among such a huge, hungry, weary crowd. They were organized according to the other Gospels in groups of 50 and 100, and they're able to sit down because the Bible tells us there's grass. It's March-April, by the end of summer, in Israel, the grass is burnt off. The ground would have been hot, dry, stony. Too hot to sit on, often. And remember, when the Jewish people ate, they reclined. So you needed a soft, grassy area to do that. Well, apparently, this little boy surrendered his lunch, all that he had, to the Master. And that's really a lesson for us, isn't it? As we shall see.
So Jesus gave thanks, He blessed His father for the food that was given and provided. Jesus then gives to the disciples, the disciples to the group seated on the grass. Have you ever thought of it? How did this miracle happen? How did it unfold? How did this miracle manifest?
We're not really told the specifics. We could just use sanctified imagination. Did Jesus give some to each disciple? And then, as they gave it to each group, and kept dividing it to the group, more and more just was present, so that there was always some loaf in their hands, some fish in their hands? Or was it when they gave the loaves and fish to each group, as the group itself kept sharing it with each other, it kept multiplying and multiplying and multiplying? Or was it that each disciple came to Jesus with his makeshift reed basket and they came to Jesus and Jesus would break it? He breaks it in His hand and it's not smaller, in fact it doubles and then he keeps breaking and breaking and breaking to the wide eyes, speechless expression of the disciple standing in front of him. And likewise the fish pulling apart, this dry salted fish and not simply two, now it's four, now it's eight, now it's 16, it's 32 until the basket is full and the disciple heads to the group of 50 or 100. And then the next disciple comes and as each disciple comes and feeds each group there, Jesus stands breaking and breaking, dividing and dividing and market, as we said last Lord's Day, creating and creating.
Because these are fish that never swam, these are barley bread that was never planted. And this is not just a little snack, the text says at the end of verse 11, that they ate “as much as they wanted.”
And look at the plentiful surplus. Verses 12 and 13, “And when they were filled, He said to (the) disciples, ‘gather up the leftover pieces so that nothing will be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.” Twelve baskets for twelve disciples, a basket for each disciple, more than enough for the laborers who are already exhausted, tired, and hungry. They gave themselves to the work, God supplied their need. God supplied their need.
The crowd, verse 14, saw this mass miracle and they decided, well, Jesus is the prophesied prophet, Deuteronomy 18-15, that Moses said is coming. And they wanted to seize Jesus and forcibly enthrone him. And remember, here you have a crowd of 5,000 men. I mean, that's a little army on their own, really. If you have someone who can do mass miracles, who can feed thousands, I mean, frankly, well, he's unstoppable militarily. The crowd saw the prophet but missed the Son and the reason he came. And as we saw last Lord's Day, they didn't want Him for hHm. They wanted Him for what He could do for them. And Jesus' response to this exploitation of His provision, end of verse 15, “withdrew again to the mountain by himself alone.” Now then, what is the message in all of this? What is the message in all of this?
Why did John by the Holy Spirit record this? Why did the Spirit move Matthew as well as Mark and Luke and John? All of the Gospel writers, the only miracle by all four, unless we include the resurrection of our Lord.
Well, first of all, beloved, first of all and supremely, I believe that this passage is a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of our Lord's Person. It is a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of our Lord's Person. The one-of-a-kindness of our Lord's Person.
And how do we know that? For the simple reason that in our text, in verse 14, this miracle is called ‘semeion’, sign, a sign that points to something else. Therefore, when the people saw the sign which he had done, they were saying, “this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world.” A sign, we've seen this before, a sign is a miracle with a message. It is a miracle with a spiritual end and purpose. Signs are miracles which lead to something out of and beyond themselves. The finger marks of God, valuable, not so much for what they are as for what they indicate of the grace and the power of the Doer. Specifically, a sign is a miracle by which the character and truth of any person or thing is known, a token, a proof.
It's a miracle with a message. And you remember that John tells us at the end of his Gospel that He recorded the particular signs that He did, that men might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of the Living God, very God, a very God, “and that believing (they) might have life through His name” John 20: 30-31.
In this miracle, we have a lesson about the divine nature of Jesus Christ. The One Who is in the beginning, the Word, the Word which was with God, the Word which is God. This has been the issue throughout the last couple of chapters.
The question of the day is, who is this Man? Who is this Jesus? And in this miracle, and you will see the next one, we call them the two nature miracles.
This one, the feeding of the 5,000 plus women and children, and the one that we will see, Lord willing, the walking on the water, the answer to that question becomes even clearer. That this Jesus of Nazareth is not an ordinary man. He's not just a prophet.
He sent out the twelve, and He sent them out and gave them power, but nothing like this. In this miracle and the one that comes next, Jesus shows that He is unique. He doesn't fit in anybody else's category except God's.
You probably, if you are familiar a little bit with the Old Testament, you recognize shades of the story, the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 4. Turn with me there for a second. In 2 Kings 4, verse 42, and following, this is the ministry of Elisha, where we find a true miracle.
We read there, 2 Kings 4: 42, “Now a man came from Baal-shalisha, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, ‘Give them to the people, that they may eat.’ And his attendant said, ‘What, wiill I give this before one hundred men?’ But he said, ‘Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says Yahweh,’ ‘They shall eat and have some left over.’ So he gave it before them, and they ate, and had some left over according to the word of Yahweh.” This is recorded in Kings to illustrate what an incredible God we have. That Elisha was indeed the prophet of God. The great Old Testament prophet held up before the people of God, and these men there, the multitude that day would have known the story that the great Old Testament prophet Elisha had fed a hundred men with twenty loaves, and that qualifies as an incredible miracle, enough to be recorded in the text of Scripture to show that he was truly a true prophet of God, with true power from God. A hundred men with twenty loaves.
Jesus fed over 20,000 men, women, and children with five loaves. He was much greater, much greater. He was in a totally different category above even the greatest of all Testament prophets. Jesus is one of a kind. As we've learned already and we learn again, He was no one less than God the Son, God the Son. And so, though our Lord has moved with compassion upon men and their temporal need, though there was genuine, living, non-artificial response of His heart to valid physical need, there was something bigger, something larger, something more glorious at stake, and it was that our Lord sees this opportunity to declare to men that, though when they looked upon Him, all they saw was a humble Galilean peasant, when they did not accept His ministry, they could say, “is this not the carpenter's son?” “Are not His brothers and sisters with us?”
Yet, our Lord in this situation is demonstrating that He is something more than meets the eye when they look at His physical appearance, that He is none other than the mighty God who can create by an act of His own will. For that's precisely what He was doing, when their eyes were riveted upon Him.
He was creating bread and fish. The very God of whom it is said, back in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and God created all the dwellers of earth and sea. It is this very God who in the presence of these 20,000 plus people manifests creative power, and by the act of His own will, He multiplies the loaves and the fish.
And you know what? No efforts. No beads of sweat upon His brow.
None of the incantations of those magicians and those who by sleight of hand seek to dazzle and amaze people. And certainly nothing of the mesmerizing influence of those who in cahoots with demonic powers might perform that which appears miraculous. But here the Son of God, before the open sight of 20,000 riveted eyes, exerts creative power because He wants the people to know who He is.
He wants them to know Him for who He is and believe in His name. And oh my sinner friend, if you are here in our midst, what those thousands learned or should have learned that day on the shore, on the hill, slope near Bethsaida, that Jesus of Nazareth is God. And they had need of a Savior who was nothing less than God. A Savior full of compassion? Yes. A Savior who looked upon them as sheep with no shepherd? Yes. But a Savior who could perform no saving function toward them, if He were a mere man or created being. But who, because He is God indeed, very God of very God, can perform every saving function that needy sinners stand in need of desperately. He paid it all. He paid the infinite price that satisfies a God of infinite inflexible justice. And so the message of this miracle is first of all, that of constituting a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of His person.
Secondly, it is a striking illustration of the uniqueness of His work. A striking illustration of the uniqueness of his work, as we shall see after John records this incident. He records one other parallel incident, but then he gives us the lengthy discourse of our Lord, in which he calls himself the Bread of Life. Referring to this miracle, the Lord picks up on this miracle and then gives that amazing discourse in which he says, as surely as you ate the bread on that hill, as surely as that bread that was multiplied from My hands, you took and you bit into it and masticated it and swallowed it. He says, I am the bread come down from heaven. If a man will eat of me, he shall have everlasting life. And then he goes on to talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. And when He says that it is His own flesh that He gives for the life of the world, what was our Lord doing in this miracle? According to his own subsequent discourse, He was giving us a striking illustration of His unique work on behalf of sinners.
As those with growling tummies and weakened bodies were nourished not by the sight of food, but by real eating, our Lord picks up upon the real eating and that sating of the appetite. And He says, the appetite of the soul cannot be met and satisfied in any other way by any other mean other than assimilation of Me and assimilation of me as crucified Savior for sinners. My flesh is the bread which I give for the life of the world, this bread that came down out of heaven.
Then He goes on to speak about eating His flesh and drinking His blood until people are utterly offended and they go away because in their crass materialistic relationship to His words, they did not see what He was seeking to convey to them. But oh may God give us eyes to see the striking illustration of the unique work of Jesus Christ. And again, my dear sinner friend who feels all the gnawing hunger pangs that a sinner feels when he doesn't have a seared conscience, when he allows himself enough time to think, those hunger pangs cannot be filled and satisfied with pleasure and things and human relationships.
It is Christ crucified who alone is food and drink to your soul. In this miracle, it is given to us the striking illustration of His unique work as the one in dying for sinners upon Calvary's Cross offers Himself as the Bread of Life.
But then thirdly, the message of this passage is not only one in which we have a convincing declaration of the uniqueness of His person, a striking illustration of the uniqueness of His work, but it also constitutes a demonstration of practical godliness, a demonstration of practical godliness. And I'm going to mention two aspects only. First of all, you see practical godliness in our Lord's concern for the whole man. Our Lord's concern for the whole man. Long before the people were hungry, Jesus was anticipating that hunger. In verse 3, Jesus went up on the mountain and there he was, sitting down with His disciples. Now, Passover, the feast of the Jews was near. “Therefore Jesus, lifting up His eyes and seeing that a large crowd was coming to Him, said to Philip, ‘Where should we buy bread, so that these… may eat?’ And this He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was going to do.”
Our Lord anticipates this need. He is not insensitive to their need. He manifests concern for the whole man. Why? Because Jesus is the perfect image of the Father, and the Father who made us is concerned for the whole man.
We do not regard the body as some kind of unnecessary evil in which to house the real important part, the soul. No, no, that's a pagan concept. We regard the whole of our humanity, in spite of its fallenness, as that which is created by God, body and soul. When God created mankind, male and female in His image, He created a body, soul, entity. And God is committed, beloved, to the dignity of the body, that the redemptive work of Christ will not be complete for any one individual for whom He died until it is complete at the resurrection.
And we are to reflect the Lord Jesus and His concern for the whole man. But you say, is there not a relative priority? Yes. Yes. Mark tells us He saw a large crowd. He felt compassion for them in chapter 6 verse 34, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
What did He do? The first thing, He began to teach them many things. You see what He did?
Because our greatest need is to have our minds instructed concerning the great issues of life. That is why, by the grace of God, we seek not to preach a social gospel. We don't preach a social gospel. This is why, from this place, we will not take up specific social issues and hammer away at them week after week after week and month after month after month. This is why our prayers will not focus predominantly upon such issues. But having said that, we are not like our Lord unless we manifest concern for the whole man. Isn't that what we read in Scripture? 1 John 3: 17 and 18 “Whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” How about James 2:15, 16 and 17,
“If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, (well), ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” The whole man.
There's a lesson in The Feeding of the 5,000 about the compassionate character of our God. You see it here? You see Jesus' personal concern for their physical well-being as well?
Remember, Jesus was apparently the first one to think about the whole thing. He was because he's the one who asked Philip right after He saw the crowd start arriving, “what are we going to do to feed these people?” That's how God is. God is the one who provides everyone with all things. This reflects God's genuine concern for our needs, including our physical needs. Sometimes we're prone to think that God's only concern about our spiritual health, and He is, but He's not oblivious to our physical need.
He's concerned about meeting the physical needs, the basic needs that we have. Beloved, He made us two parts, both soul and body, and He's concerned about both. Now we don't always have enough for a time. You remember Deuteronomy 8, He tells us why by telling the Children of Israel there. There's a reason. There's a reason sometimes we may have seasons where we don't have enough. When you were in the wilderness, He tells them, I humbled your heart, and I didn't provide you with all that you needed because I wanted to test you to see what was in your heart, He tells them. And then He said, but I'm bringing you then, I gave you manna, sent you quail, and now I'm sending you into a good land filled with milk and honey where you will inhabit houses you didn't build and cities you didn't build.
Paul knew what it was to suffer leanness. In 2 Corinthians 11-27, he says, I have been in labor and hardship, in many sleepless nights, in starvation and thirst, often hungry, in cold, without enough clothing. And yet Paul can still say at the very end of Philippians, “my God (will supply), will fulfill all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:19. Beloved, God is compassionate. He's merciful. He's a merciful God, even when it comes to our physical needs. I don't know what your situation may be, the situation you find yourself in right now, but God is concerned. You need to know this. God is concerned. His own great heart beats with concern as our Lord's did when He was there that day.
We see another demonstration of practical godliness in His orderliness in feeding the multitude. His orderliness in feeding the multitude. The scripture tells us that God is not the author of confusion. Let all things be done, how? Decently and in order. First Corinthians 14, 40. And if anything marked the original creation, it was what? Order. Order. God spoke and it was so. God is a god of order. And so they sat down in groups of 50 and 100. It was all organized. God spoke and it was so. God saw and it was good. And here's the Creator in the sense He's creating bread and fish and He will not do it in the context of chaos and disorder.
Can you imagine the confusion if he's begun to multiply the bread and those nearest could grab it as the disciples scrambled to? I mean the horrible confusion, the stampede perhaps, the rush. And Jesus would have no part of a confused mob.
Confusion is the work of darkness, of error, of the devil. Orderliness reflects the image, the likeness of God perfectly reflected in our Lord Jesus.
A word to children. Why do mom and dad get on you and say, dear son, sweetie, we like you to keep your room tidy. We will not tolerate a messy room. We will not tolerate you going through the playroom and leaving it look like though Helene done her job in the playroom. Hurricane Helene. Why? You see, if your parents are doing it out of godly motives, this is their reason. They are trying to teach you that the God in whose image you were made is a God of order. And confusion, disarray, disorder are the results of the fall. And redemption always moves us in the direction of orderliness and structure. Remember the demoniac in all of his frenzy is restored to sanity in Mark 6 and he is found sitting, how? Clothed and in his right mind.
But then there is a fourth application from this account. It is an encouraging confirmation of a vital principle of the Christian life. It is an encouraging confirmation of a vital principle of the Christian life. Jesus had taught, no doubt, many of these same people, this has happened, I mean, by the time we get to this miracle, the Sermon on the Mount had taken place. Many other teachings of Jesus, he had taught, no doubt, many of these same people to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all other things, bread, food, clothing, nature's necessities. We call them, will be added unto you. Seek first the kingdom. God will never be debtor to you in temporal basic needs. And here are people, granted a mixed multitude, overall, we're told, fickle, who followed him because of the signs, soon afterwards, especially the discourse on the bread of life, many go back and walk with Him no more. But, no doubt, in their midst, there was a remnant, who felt that hearing the words of Jesus is such importance, that they ran away from the other issues to get there, to Bethsaida, where the boat landed, that they might attend upon the words of Christ. They were seeking first the kingdom, and what did they get for it? Thank God, they did not get what the disciples said, “send them away.” Send them away! That's what, in our hardness and insensitivity, at times, we may do, but never, never the Son of God.
When he beholds one of his children seeking first the kingdom of God, and in the pursuit of that kingdom, in his own life, his own family, his workplace, wherever he is, sees that person in a place of need, God will intervene, many times, in ways that we could never predict, and in ways that calculating disciples can never, ever figure out. Shall we go and buy? He says, no. See what is there in the midst.
This is a lesson about Christ's ability and desire to provide for our physical basic needs. He's more than able, more than capable. You see that here. Well, what need do you have, beloved? What need do you have today? What basic needs do you have? Think right now about your physical needs. Whether it's health, whether it's a job, whether it is whatever, think about that need. He's more than capable of meeting that need, and He will meet it in his way.
Never forget that. It may not be the way you planned. It may not be the way you hoped, but He will meet it. He will meet your needs because he's obligated Himself to do that. Let me say that again. He's obligated Himself to do that. He's promised. Did He not? Turn to Matthew 6.
Turn to Matthew 6. Matthew 6: 25. Our Lord Jesus said, “do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat, -Matthew 6:25 - or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing” And then he uses a couple of examples. He says, “look at the birds of the air, (that) they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” V. 26. Underline that. “Your heavenly Father feeds them.” He feeds them. Every single bird you see flying around, your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth more than they? If God feeds them, is He not going to feed you? Verse 27 “And which of you by worrying can add a single cubit to his life span?” “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow;
they do not toil, nor do they spin,” (v. 28) “yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.” (v. 29) And notice what he says in verse 30, “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!” If God closes the wild grass with the flowers that are so radiant and beautiful, do you think He can't clothe you? Do you think He can't take care of you? In verse 31, “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’” “For all these things the Gentiles eagerly seek; for your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.” (v. 32) “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness - the spiritual priorities of life- and all these things will be added to you.” (v.33) And He's promised to do it. Philippians 4:19, right? God will supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Oh, sure, there may be lean times, difficult times like there was for the Old Testament people when He tests the heart, He tests my heart and yours to see what's in it, but He will provide.
Listen, God's own character is on the line. Why do I say that? Because now we are His children. He's our Father. You see it? Remember when we studied in Ephesians, the end of Ephesians 2, we're told that we are now members of God's household. We're members of God's household. So God has obligated Himself to care for us. Maybe you never thought of this text in this light, but look at 1 Timothy 5:8. And remember, as you look at 1 Timothy 5:8, that we're part of God's household. Verse 8, “if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” God, in a sense, has put His own reputation on the line by taking up the responsibility of us as His children, and He keeps His word. He is perfectly righteous, and he will provide for His children. He is our father. He is our father. Your father knows what you need before you even ask him, Jesus said. There is a lesson in faith.
When you have physical needs, what do you do first? What do you do first? Do you put your trust in? Where do you put your trust? Are we like the disciples? Send them away. Two hundred in our eyes would not be enough. Do we put our confidence immediately in our own plans? In our own schemes? In our own devices? In our own puny resources? Perhaps in other human beings? Let me call so and so, they will bail me out. Or do we put our confidence in the Lord? Do we really doubt that Christ can provide for us and our families when He can feed 20,000 plus with two sardines and five meager loaves of bread? You may be right now going through hardship, maybe without work, in some cases not enough work. Whatever it is you're going through, don't lose your confidence in God. Don't go to your own scheming. And in the waiting, don't lose heart and say, well, I've waited for this long, God didn't come through, therefore, I need to take matters into my own hands. Yes, work, work hard, work harder to get a job than if you had a job, but don't put your confidence in yourself or your contacts or your resume, put your confidence in Christ. He's more than able to provide for you and your family in His way, in His time, and He will. Believe in Him.
Finally, there's one last lesson. This passage is a forceful illustration of a vital principle of Christian ministry. This passage is a forceful illustration of a vital principle of Christian ministry and how it has spoken to my own heart, beloved, as I reflected upon it.
And what is this principle? He commanded the disciples to do for the multitude what they couldn't do. But what they failed to see is that, that command was really a demand upon Himself. They failed to see that that command was a demand upon himself really. He said, “You give them to eat” Mark 6:37. And they did. They did. With bread that was multiplied in his hands. And He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them, Mark tells us. He kept giving them to the disciples to set before them. When we see in scripture what we who are in the ministry are to do, we know something of our own sheer utter limitations, insufficiency, our own resources of mind, of spirit, the dearth of our own experience of God and the knowledge of His ways. And we hear the word coming. “Give them to eat.” “Feed my sheep.” “Feed my lamb.” “Tend my flock.” What do we do? Cry out with Paul, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Lord, all I’ve got is five loaves of bread and two fish. But what are these? Among so many. How can I, Lord, fulfill the task that You've commanded me to do? The very principle is, when he commands it, that very command is meant to drive us back to Him to say, Lord, oh Lord, if I am meant to do what You've commanded, You must give me what I need to do it. Because I can't. I can't.
Had they done that, he himself knew what he was going to do. I believe the same miracle would have been performed and they would have been a wonderful example of the pattern of faith. Oh, whatever that ministry is that you're involved in, child of God, as a father to your children, as a mother to your children, as an employee in a place where you long to be a witness, as a Sunday school teacher, as a fellow classmate, you look at the demands of Christ upon you and you say, Lord, I have no power to fulfill them.
Then those disciples could have fed 20,000 people on their own. That's right. But Christ has the power. Go to Him. Go to Him. Turn to Him. Lord, what You command, You will give to your believing disciple. Lord, I come empty handed, but your hands are full. Your hands are creative hands.Nail pierced hands are creative hands, joined to a compassionate heart.
Lord, Lord, for the sake of my children, for the sake of the needy people at my work, in my school, in my workplace, those needy people around me, Lord, give me what I need that I may give to them the bread without which they will starve to death. One small boy, the lad in John 6:9, a little boy, as Andrew describes him, made his resources available to Christ. That was all that was there. Just two small sardines, five little loaves of barley bread, small, ordinary, nothing really, but from that boy's willingness to let Jesus use him, Jesus fed a huge crowd.
I think there's a remarkable analogy there, a remarkable lesson in consecration, that Jesus can do the same thing with us. We don't offer Him much, do we? We don't... Do any of us offer Him anything, really? We're nothing. We're less than two sardines and five loaves of bread, but if we're willing to put the little resources we have in His marvelous hands, if we're willing to, as it were, place ourselves in His hands, He can bless us and break us and can use us in ways far beyond our own ability. Reminds me of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 7, but we have this treasure in what? Earthen vessels. Earthen vessels? The treasure of the Gospel, Christ is the Gospel, we have this treasure in earthen vessels. That's what he says, we're like clay pots, frail, fragile clay pots.
Why? Why? So that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We don't have much to offer Christ, but the amazing thing about the power of our Lord is that He could take nothing and use it for something. What a forceful illustration of this vital principle of Christian ministry. And let me say this in closing, what is true of an individual in ministry is true of a church. And may the spirit of this principle, will pervade our life as a church together. We're called to be light as a church. In our corporate identity, we're called to love one another, to bear with one another, to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. We're called upon to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. All of those demands are really impossible with what we've got in our hands or in our own pockets. But the things impossible with men are possible with God.
And may we be ever coming to our blessed Savior and saying and crying out, “Lord, what you've commanded, give.” What you've commanded, give. And as I pass it on to others, it will be an attestation, not of my own cleverness, but of Your power that men may know that You are in the midst of this people here. In this body of Christ.
Let's pray:
Oh, our Father, we do thank You for our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son, God incarnate, God our Savior. We thank You for all that He is as God, all that He has manifested Himself to be, the one and only Savior of sinners, the bread that has come down from heaven. We thank you that He is our perfect pattern of life. We thank you that He has shown us in His own life, that those who seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness will have all of these things added. We thank You that He has set for us this great pattern of ministry. As we see unfold in this passage, write these things, these truths upon our hearts, that we may not only be thrilled and fascinated as we relive the amazing account of His mighty works, but that gazing upon Him, we shall be transformed into His likeness from one stage of glory to another even by the Lord the Spirit. And, Father, we pray for those who are still trying to meet the need and satisfy the hunger of their souls with the, really the husks of this world, the junk. Oh, give them such a sight of Christ today, that they may feed upon Him in feeding, find true satisfaction alone in Him. Seal, then, Your word to our hearts, and dismiss us with your blessing resting upon us.
We ask this in Jesus' name and for His glory. Amen.
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