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The Feeding of the Five Thousand
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What do Taylor Swift and Jesus have in common? Find out this and more as Ps Wei Yi shares about Jesus feeding the 5,000. What really took place and who did Jesus show Himself to be?
What do Taylor Swift and Jesus have in common? Find out this and more as Pastor Wei E shares about Jesus feeding the 5,000. What really took place and who did Jesus show himself to be.
SPEAKER_01Earlier this year, Taylor Swift came to perform in our sunny little island for just six days, right? And she managed to draw over 368,000 people. 368,000 fans came to watch her perform live, right? And many of whom were from our neighboring countries. They were flying in from overseas just to catch her, right? And Swifties have their reasons for this craze. I'm sure they love her primarily for her music. They feel connected to her lyrics. They love their musical style. And perhaps to them, she has become such a musical and cultural icon that you have to ask, how can you not like her? In his time on earth, Jesus was likewise able to draw a crowd. He wasn't a pop star, he wasn't going around holding concerts. But likewise, people would travel great distances just to get to him. They were primarily drawn to him because of the miracles he was performing everywhere he went. Everywhere he went, he was healing the sick and he was performing signs. And this morning we have come to the iconic passage, the iconic story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Right? Besides the resurrection, this is the only miracle that has been recorded through all four Gospels. So it clearly has a huge significance in revealing who Jesus is. And he has a huge place in the Gospels for us this morning. And by the end of this miracle in verse 14 of today's passage, people were basically thinking, How can you not follow this man? And that may sound like a wonderful thing for Jesus, right? So many people now wanting to follow him. And yet he took the opportunity to challenge their enthusiasm. And he challenged them on two fronts. First was their perception of who Jesus is, and the second was their response to his miraculous signs. Jesus challenged the people, challenged them on how they saw him, and challenged them on their response to him. And these are the two same challenges confronting us this morning as we look at the feeding of the 5,000.
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SPEAKER_01So the first challenge is this who do we think Jesus is? And what was he actually doing? And so let's go through the the story found in John 6. In verse 1 and 2, after this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Verse 2 says, a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Clearly, there is something special about Jesus. Everywhere he went, the healed, the the sick were being healed. The blind could see, the lame could walk. They saw that he had power from on high and he was performing miraculous signs. And they wanted more of it. They saw the signs and they wanted more of the miracles. And so they were going after him from place to flip from place to place. Next we find Jesus going up on the mountain. There he sat with his disciples. And we are told that now it's the Passover. In verse 4, the feast of the Jews was at hand. And lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him. At this point, it actually seems Jesus was trying to get away from the crowd. He wanted some private time. And private time with his disciples. So he was getting away from the crowd. He was going up the hill, hoping that they were kind of just stay down and all, right? But the crowd still came. So he taught them and he healed the sick among them. And this took a while because in the blink of an eye, evening came and it was time for dinner. At this point, they were in the wilderness, right? So there was no shop around, they couldn't just go and tap out food. There's no grab, no food panda delivery. And so they were panicking, right? How to get food for them? And even if they had a restaurant somewhere to go, how are they going to pay for so much food? There was just no way. They did not have the money nor the means. And so in verses 8 and 9, uh we learn that one of Jesus' disciples, Andrew, tells Jesus that there is a boy with five body loaves and two fish. But what are they for so many?
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SPEAKER_01Five body loaves and two fish. What are they for so many? But Jesus was unfazed by the measly amount of food. He asked the disciples to start getting the crowd ready, right? Get them seated because we're gonna serve dinner. And so in verse 10, Jesus said, have the people sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, and the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. And here is uh one of the mind-blowing details that not quite captured in the Gospel of John, but captured elsewhere in Matthew. Right in Matthew chapter 14, verse 21, we are told that there were 5,000 men, not including the women and the children. Right? So potentially we are looking at somewhere around in the neighborhood of 15,000 people, actually. Right? 5,000 men, not including men and children. And so the total number present would have been a lot more than just 5,000. They have to feed about uh about 15,000 people with just a little bit of food. But in from verse 11 onwards, we see Jesus performing the sign. Um he took the loaves, he gave thanks, and he distributed to those who were seated. So also the fish as much as they wanted. Verse 12 When they had eaten their fuel, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. Right, scripture tells us they didn't just eat a little bit, a little bit, like kind of our communal wafer, just a little bit. Right? I mean, even if they had taken only a little bit, you will still wouldn't have enough to go around, right? But they ate as much as they wanted. They had their fill. They were satisfied. Here is a story about Jesus providing miraculously and abundantly so much that they collected twelve basketfuls of left over. And so let's pause here and think for a moment. What was Jesus doing here with this miracle? What was Jesus doing? Right? On the basic level, Jesus met the immediate need of the crowd. Right? Um, they were literally physically hungry. And so Jesus met that very basic need. Um so we see that Jesus' compassion for the crowd wasn't just uh did not just go out to teaching or to healing the sick, but his compassion for them was demonstrated in feeding them. And of course, God has the power to multiply what little we have for the needs of the people.
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SPEAKER_01Jesus provides the physical bread we need for sustenance, and he from time to time will provide for our other needs as well. Right? Some of us have actually witnessed this power at work, right? Our parish goes to mission big goes on mission trips to Nikki Nikki, uh, and we have been doing so for the for, I don't know, I think almost a decade or for the last many years. Um part of what we do is uh offer glasses for the villagers who cannot see well. I remember there was a particular year when uh I think I think still still early on, you know, we still wasn't sure how many people were actually come for our uh medical mission. Uh there was a particular year we didn't anticipate such a large group of people needing glasses, right? So what I've heard is that though those who were stationed at the glasses, they were kind of a bit uh panicky. They did the math uh and and and they realized, yeah, in the end they will be they will be short. By the third day, I I don't they don't didn't didn't think there will be enough glasses, right? But they entrusted the situation to God. So he just kept serving, just kept you know giving out glasses, or auntie, you need this, okay, uh Uncle come take this. You know, they just kept you know giving and just trusting the Lord in the whole process. And by the end of the work, not only did they give a pair of glasses to those who needed one, they had leftover. You know, and to this story is a reminder that God multiplies even today, so that so that the needs of people can be met. But that's one layer of this story, right? There's a deeper level to what he was doing. And the people actually caught on. In verse 14, uh, it says this when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. They actually caught on, right? In verse 4 of John 6, John mentions that this happened during the Passover feast. And that was not an accident.
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SPEAKER_01The Passover, of course, would uh conjure up uh memory memories of of their history, uh their history of being freed from Egypt, from slavery, right? Um and then uh tying all together with Moses and the manna that comes from heaven and all. Right? So when Jesus miraculously provided enough bread for all, every Jew that day who saw this miracle saw the link to Moses and the providence of manna from heaven. They saw the sign that Jesus is the promised prophet found in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse 15, right, where it says the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like Moses from among you. They saw that Jesus had power, that he is the promised prophet, that he is in fact the long-awaited Messiah, the great liberator who comes in power to go against Rome and to set Israel free. Right? And they're not wrong. They caught on to at least uh part of the truth, and so we see that the bigger point of this miracle is to point people to the identity of Jesus, to to tell us who he is, and he is no ordinary man, he is the Messiah. But it is at this point that things start to fall apart, right? And there were really two glaring problems with how the crowd perceived Jesus. And we just read the the first problem uh in verse 15 of our passage today, right? Verse 15 it says this perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force, to seize him, right, to grab him and and to make him king. Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. They were literally gonna seize him, right? They were not gonna give him a choice, they were gonna force him to be their king, put them as the head to lead the charge against the Roman rulers, they were gonna make Jesus revolt for them. And that was a huge misunderstanding of God, uh of God and what God will do through the Christ. And so that's the first problem, right? They they were seeing, they perceived partially rightly that Jesus is the Messiah, but they misunderstood what Jesus was meant to do, right? And that was the first issue. And the second issue is found later on in John 6, um, when the next day the crowd actually came back to Jesus, they were still chasing after him, right? And very quickly in verses uh 26 and 27, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly I say to you, you are seeking me. Not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Not because you saw signs, but you ate your the your fill of the loaves. In verse 27, he says, Do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which is the Son of Man, which the Son of Man will give to you. And so this was their second issue. They were still merely chasing the signs. They were chasing the miracles, they were grasping for more and more bread. If they saw the sign, they completely missed what the sign was pointing to. Right? They completely missed the whole point of these miracles or the miracles that that Jesus has performed thus far.
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SPEAKER_01They chased physical bread. When Jesus tells them when they really need what they really need is spiritual bread. Jesus is not here to give them bread. Jesus is the bread.
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SPEAKER_01He tells them that if they understood the signs, they would know what God, the Father, is doing in all the miraculous signs that he was performing. And do the work of the Father by believing in him. Right, to follow him and to trust him, uh, to trust that he is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. Right? So there were these two issues. One is they wanted to forcefully make him king, and second is they were still just chasing and chasing the miracles, chasing the signs, and not really following after the person. Right? In other words, they saw a profitability in following Jesus. Right? Jesus was simply useful. Right? They saw that there was a usefulness in this Christ, there was some material profit in this powerful man. So, you know, let's force him to be our king and our liberator. Let's ask him and make him act on our behalf for our benefit, for our provision. And it is still quite rampant today, right? People can use the Christian faith and can use the name of Jesus for their political agenda to run campaigns, to win elections. Right? Others have used Jesus in modern times to support revolutions, to support liberations, sometimes to the point of violence, to support social action. And often uh in doing so they make the spiritual issue of sin and salvation secondary because the primary cause of Christ is to simply liberate people. So let's not talk about sin, let's not talk about salvation. Others, um, some preachers especially will look at this passage and just see one small part. They ate as much as they wanted and built a theology that claims that God will give you as much as you want if you ask Him. So continue chasing the signs. Something precisely uh Jesus was uh admonishing them for, right? Stop chasing signs. But preachers today will tell you go on, chase the signs. Ask for bread, but ask for more than just bread. Ask for health, ask for wealth, and ask God for more and more of these signs while altogether missing the points and missing the person behind the signs. And so even today, many misunderstand who Jesus really is, and what his works are really about. Right? We get excited about Jesus today, but more so with what we think he can do for us materially, and less so about following him. And so that is the first challenge from today's passage. Who do we think Jesus is? Who is Jesus to us? What do we think he is really doing with these signs? The point of John 6 then is to point us to Jesus as the bread of life, not as the giver of bread, but the bread of life himself. And only in believing, only in surrendering and following him will we find everlasting satisfaction. And so, with that in mind, let's come back to the miracle again. And how do we read this miracle of the feeding of the 5,000? Right? In short, it is the sign of the kingdom of God breaking into our world, into our lives, shaping the way we live today.
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SPEAKER_01Most, if not all, of Jesus' miracles is about the in-breaking of God's kingdom into our broken world and our sinful lives. We tend to think that miracles are primarily a sign of God's power, of Jesus' power. And there is truth in that, right? The fact that he can perform miracles show that he is indeed powerful, right? But we think miracles are primarily about his power, his sure naked power. And um what we are seeing here is that that is not the main focus.
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SPEAKER_01If the main point of miracles was to show you how great or how powerful he was, then honestly Jesus could have done a much better job. Right? I mean in the Old Testament, we see the ten plagues, we see God sending locals and uh hails, hillstones, storms, and so many things that were so awesome. Right? We see the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, we see God sending birds to feed uh Elijah, right? You'll be really a cool sight if he sends like 10,000 crows down to feed the the 15,000 people, right? Um if the point was to show that Jesus is indeed powerful, honestly he could have done a better job. And he could have given much better than just some bread and fish. He could have caused a feast to literally rain down from heaven or to sprout from the ground. And someone puts it put it this way: if the if we think that that's the main point, to show that Jesus is powerful, to show Jesus' power, then we will think of miracles as merely a suspension of the natural order. Right? Whenever God does a miracle, he is intervening in our world. So he intervenes in our physical loss, he suspends it temporarily and creates the miracle. But if we think of Jesus, uh sorry, if we think of the miracles as primarily signs and signs of the kingdom of God, then Jesus is not temporarily suspending the natural order as much as he is restoring it. Right? He comes into our broken world with with all the chaos, the entropy, the the the everything just going away. Right? And he seeks to restore that order, even the physical order. Right? And so this is a sign of God's kingdom breaking into our fallen world, where God restores the world to what he intended it to be before the fall. And it is taking place now in the person of Jesus Christ, who comes and heals the sick, to make the blind see, to make the lame walk, to fill the stomachs of the hungry. It is taking place in the person of Jesus Christ, who has come to save the world. And so this miracle, as with many of Jesus' other miracles, is really more about the kingdom of God coming and renewing the whole of creation, restoring us so that we may we may become the new creation. And and when you think about this feeling of the 5,000, then we see that Jesus does something incredible and profound. We see something else going on, right? And that issues the second challenge for us, right? If the the first the first challenge for us this morning is what do we think of Jesus? Who is he actually to us? Right, and what was he actually doing? When we get that right, Jesus issues a second challenge to us, and that's really our part in all this that's happening, our response to God's uh miracles to in Jesus. In verses 5 and 6, um there's this astounding thing that Jesus does. He said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat? Right? Jesus in this Gospel, at least he he makes it uh the disciples' problems, right? He takes the initiative and says, Philip, where are we gonna buy bread for all these people? Verse 6 tells us this. He said this to test him. For he himself knew what he would do. Let me ask you a question. Did Jesus need Philip to solve the problem? No, right? Jesus didn't need Philip to. In fact, he knew that Jesus, uh he knew that Philip would have no answer to him. And so he didn't need Philip for ideas, he didn't need Philip for solutions. He already knew what he would do. So why did he ask Philip in the first place? Partly because actually Philip was uh from from the area, he grew up in the area, right? But more importantly, it was to test him, right? To push him to see that the issue at hand is not a physical issue, or rather, to see the issue at hand not through a physical lens, but through a spiritual lens, right? To see that it is indeed possible with Jesus, the Son of Man, who comes with power from on high. And what he is doing here is essentially he is involving his disciples in what he was going to do in his kingdom work. Um that my daughter Sage is a little bit more grown up, uh a little bit more dexterous, uh, not always tripping herself and falling down uh so much all the time. Um we've been trying to involve her in doing some of the chores uh at home. Right? Sometimes I'll ask her to pass something to my wife Beth, or or sometimes Beth will get her to keep something, get her to keep her toys or some some utensils, right? Um with Sage, a task that takes about five seconds can become a three-minute ordeal of us just telling her repeatedly and with increasing volume and frustration, right? Something so simple, and she just takes her time to do everything else, right? Walks towards mommy, and then suddenly go go to turn to the left, play some toy, put the thing down on the floor. Um it is so frustrating, right? Um there's so many times where I feel I I can just do it myself now. Why want you to ask her? Just get it over and done with, right? And I catch myself and I I persevere in guiding, uh I mean I say I say guiding in a very loose sense, in guiding sage along, right? Um and the the the truth is that actually God doesn't need us. We are kind of like sage. Um we're not just fumbling around, right? We are just making mistakes all the time. We are kind of going wayward, we just want to do our own thing, we we don't listen um to what God has to say sometimes. Um sometimes, and the frustrating thing with Sage is I think she she actually understands what we are asking her, right? But she just refuses to follow, right? And we are the same, right? We understand what God is asking us, but sometimes we just refuse to follow. God doesn't need us, and yet he chooses us, right? He calls all of us to his task. When you pray in the Lord's Prayer, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. We are invoking ourselves, we are praying that we will become the means of answering that prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven. And so Jesus, through his miracles, he especially in the feeding of the 5000, he reveals himself as the Son of God, the bread of life. He reveals the nature of the kingdom of God to us that He will He will provide and that He will restore. Not so that we'll be spectators of His work, not so that we'll stand on the sideline and just marvel at what He is doing, but so that we will be co-workers with Him. To become channels of His grace and power to the world. And what Jesus is doing with Philip is simply this to first, to the first step to becoming a channel of his power is to recognize that we are in fact powerless. We are in fact powerless to do anything. And it's even more interesting that this whole feeling of the 5,000 involves taking the lunch from a little boy, right? And only in the Gospel of John we find this small, tiny little detail that the boy had five barley loaves. Right? Barley loaves were very common for people who were very poor at the time. These were people who really had nothing, and all they could afford is to make small little cakes of barley bread. This boy did not have much, he came from a very low socioeconomic status. No one would have paid him any attention. Can you imagine out there 5,000 men, more women and children around? Like who will take notice of this little boy? But Jesus knew what he would do. Jesus knew what he would do. In testing his disciples, you know, we find out that Andrew found this boy with the barley loaves and fish, um, barely enough for one. And he offered it to Jesus. What a beautiful picture that is. Many of us feel we have nothing much to offer to God. And in the sense that it's that is an accurate assessment of ourselves. We are broken, we are powerless, we are poor. When we recognize that we are indeed powerless, that is when we can submit to a God who is all powerful, whose power is all sufficient, and who involves us by working with what we have and then working through us to meet the needs of the world and to point the people to Christ. We are not going to be like Taylor Swift. We don't have the popularity, we don't have the cultural power. We cannot draw crowds like pop stars. But we can offer what little we have to Jesus for him to take it, for him to multiply, and for him to use it in order that he may draw people to himself. We offer what we have so that Jesus can use it to draw people to himself. And this takes courage, right? It takes courage to step up and to offer all that we have, just like the poor boy who steps up to offer what little he had. And so it may be that God is calling you to serve in a particular ministry in church, or maybe to start something in your family at home, or to start something in your workplace, right? Um, so that you may demonstrate Jesus in your life, so that you can you can you know gather fellow Christians to pray, to do something. It may be that God is calling some of you to to give money to help the poor and needy, or to spend some time in mission and outreach. Whether it is a day somewhere in Singapore, or whether it is a week, a month, a year, somewhere overseas. It may be that God is calling all of us, and I think God is really calling all of us in in uh in many different ways to offer what we have to Him. We may not have much, and we may in fact be powerless. Jesus says that it is okay because He is powerful, He is all sufficient, and He can use what we have for the work He has called us to. And so Jesus' test of Philip is the same test for us today. For us to see with spiritual eyes uh that um this is the reality of Christ, that he has the power to work through us. Um often we are afraid, often we get bogged down by worries, by concerns. Often we think things are impossible, right? Um in the Gospel of John, people were constantly questioning Jesus. Right? The Jewish leader, Jewish leaders in John 2 questioned, it has taken 46 years to build this temple. And will you raise it up in three days? Nicodemus asked Jesus in John 3, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? The Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 asked Jesus, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with. And the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? In John 6, verse 7, in today's passage, Philip says, 200 days worth of wages will not be enough to buy bread for these people. 200 days of wages will not be enough. How is any of this possible? Jesus says that in him all things are possible. So, church, you know, today this is a challenge for us. How do we see Jesus in our lives? Who is he to us? What is he doing in our lives and in the lives of the people around us today? What is he really doing? And will we do the work of the Father and believe in Jesus? Right? Not to chase after signs, not to chase after personal gains per se, but to surrender ourselves to God, to Jesus, to believe in him who is able to make the impossible possible, right? And then to just simply live in obedience to the will of the Father. Will we let him use us to be his co-workers and to be his agents of restoration in this broken world?
SPEAKER_00We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about each Christian church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.