SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Since my son is not in the room this morning, I'm going to tell a story about him.
SPEAKER_01: So don't you go and tell him that I said this.
SPEAKER_01: When he was an infant, one of the main songs that I sang with him every single night was Day by Day.
SPEAKER_01: And as he grew up a little bit, I don't remember.
SPEAKER_01: We've got a video of this.
SPEAKER_01: He was probably two years old or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Whenever he would fall over and hurt himself, he would come running to mom or dad and say, Day by day, sing day by day.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that a perfect picture of what our Heavenly Father wants from us?
SPEAKER_01: It's for us to run to Him whenever there's a need, whenever there's a hurt, whenever there's a trial, whenever there's a pain.
SPEAKER_01: Trusting He's going to take care of us day by day.
SPEAKER_01: It is always going to be well.
SPEAKER_01: Because He's in control.
SPEAKER_01: And we can run to Him, trusting that He's going to take care of us.
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for those songs this morning, Webb.
SPEAKER_01: Please take your Bible with me to the Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm done with Matthew for a while.
SPEAKER_01: Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to refer to Matthew, though.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to spend a few weeks together in Matthew or in John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: See, there I go.
SPEAKER_01: It's in my brain.
SPEAKER_01: I can't get rid of it.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: This is just going to cover part of John chapter 6.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the month, I'm going to start a short series walking us through the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_01: Some lessons on walking through life when life doesn't make sense, when your world doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: And we've spent the last few weeks considering Scripture a little bit from a technical sense, kind of asking what do the references to earthquakes have to do with anything in our world?
SPEAKER_01: This morning I wanted to take a different route, and really, really a simple route.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at John chapter 6 in an account about a simple meal.
SPEAKER_01: It's the feeding of the 5,000.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the few miracles that is recorded in each of the four Gospels.
SPEAKER_01: So that little detail reveals, at the very least, that it was important for those first disciples and for the early church.
SPEAKER_01: But this miraculous account reveals far more than its importance to those first disciples.
SPEAKER_01: It declares that we should follow Jesus as God's promised prophet, who is himself the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this familiar story is difficult for us to hear with open ears and open hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Not because we don't believe it, in some way it's always an encouragement to us, but rather it's difficult because of its familiarity.
SPEAKER_01: But even though it's familiar, the Holy Spirit can still work in us through some new connection, some new thought, some new challenge to our faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so my intent this morning is to point out some significant lessons for us from this simple meal.
SPEAKER_01: Let's look at it together.
SPEAKER_01: John chapter 6, beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which later was known as the Sea of Tiberias.
SPEAKER_01: And a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus went up on a mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: Now the feast of the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
SPEAKER_01: And lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, Phil, where are we going to buy bread?
SPEAKER_01: We need to feed these people.
SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
SPEAKER_01: Philip answered him, 200 denarii, I would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.
SPEAKER_01: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.
SPEAKER_01: But what are these for so many?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Have the people sit down.
SPEAKER_01: Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, about five thousand in number.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.
SPEAKER_01: So also the fish, as much as they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost.
SPEAKER_01: So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.
SPEAKER_01: Now when the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.
SPEAKER_01: Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: In the Gospel of Matthew, we are told that Jesus withdrew to a desolate place.
SPEAKER_01: So this is this is in Gentile territory across the Sea of Galilee, across from Galilee itself, the disciples' home territory, across the sea to a region that was far less populated, far more desolate, far more lonely.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to get away.
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew tells us that this happened after Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been murdered by Herod.
SPEAKER_01: You remember that John the Baptist is Jesus' cousin.
SPEAKER_01: John's gospel here tells us that the time was near the Passover, placing it most likely around today.
SPEAKER_01: Most likely in early to mid-April.
SPEAKER_01: Just one year before the Lord Jesus went up to Jerusalem to offer himself as a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wanted time by himself.
SPEAKER_01: He'd been ministering to crowds.
SPEAKER_01: There were still large crowds following him, and he wanted to get away.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's not unusual.
SPEAKER_01: He regularly took time to recharge from the demands of ministry, spending time in prayer and solitude.
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, he crosses the Sea of Galilee to a very sparsely populated area.
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, John tells us that new grass is growing.
SPEAKER_01: It's springtime, there's fresh grass, making it a comfortable place of solitude.
SPEAKER_01: And if we think about that, just pause right there for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy for us to relate.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to relate to Jesus' circumstances, whether you are weighed down by life's stress.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the pressures at work, the pressures of family.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the burdens of health or the mourning the loss of a friend or a family member.
SPEAKER_01: We've all been in those places where the busyness of life just wears at you and wears you down and pushes down on you and you just need to crash.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If I asked you to raise your hand, if you understand what I'm talking about, every hand would probably go up.
SPEAKER_01: You want to get away.
SPEAKER_01: No people, no questions, just quiet.
SPEAKER_01: And so you go to your peaceful place with a good book.
SPEAKER_01: Or you go to your garage with those friendly tools.
SPEAKER_01: You escape on a walk.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you go to a little lake.
SPEAKER_01: And you're settled down and you're just beginning to experience that rest that you so desperately need.
SPEAKER_01: And then the phone rings.
SPEAKER_01: Or the kids knock on the door, or the grandkids knock on the door.
SPEAKER_01: Something interrupts your peace.
SPEAKER_01: You've been there, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's where Jesus was on this particular day.
SPEAKER_01: He went up on the mountainside in a desolate place, intending to get away.
SPEAKER_01: That's his quiet place.
SPEAKER_01: And then the crowds came, not just any crowds, John says, but large crowds, persistent crowds.
SPEAKER_01: And he says that these people are enamored with Jesus' healing ability.
SPEAKER_01: Picture a Benny Hinn conference with thousands of people full of excitement, curiosity, and hope.
SPEAKER_01: The difference is that in this situation there is real healing with Jesus, as this is not some prosperity preacher, but the great physician himself.
SPEAKER_01: And that points us to an important lesson: that this passage of Scripture should confront our faith intentions.
SPEAKER_01: See, these people were religious consumers.
SPEAKER_01: If you came this morning because you expected to hear good music, you came as a consumer.
SPEAKER_01: If you came to hear a short sermon, sorry, you're out of luck.
SPEAKER_01: If you come because of one thing or another that might vary from church to church, you're a consumer.
SPEAKER_01: These people were seeking out Jesus because they wanted to see and experience the excitement of his healing, of his power.
SPEAKER_01: They enjoyed what he provided.
SPEAKER_01: Now we should first notice something that Matthew points out in his record of this account.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Matthew 14, if you want to read it later.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew says that Jesus saw all of these crowds and he responded with compassion.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but when I'm interrupted in my time alone, my first reaction is often groaning.
SPEAKER_01: Followed by complaining.
SPEAKER_01: Followed by a not so kind response to the person or people interrupting.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not alone, right?
SPEAKER_01: Please tell me I'm not alone.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder if the disciples weren't thinking of these large crowds and just inwardly saying, Oh no, here they come again.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't, of course.
SPEAKER_01: We don't see him back away further into the wilderness, away from the crowds.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, Matthew tells us that Jesus had compassion on the people because he saw them as shepherdless sheep.
SPEAKER_01: He worked then to meet those needs, even though the intentions of the people following him were questionable.
SPEAKER_01: They're following him for what they can get out of him, and he nevertheless responds with kindness and compassion and service to them.
SPEAKER_01: But in John's Gospel, this isn't so much about Jesus' compassion as it is about Jesus himself.
SPEAKER_01: Because in John's gospel, the way this works in the flow of his text is to show us who Jesus is in the fulfillment of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And this takes us back to the end of chapter 2.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of John chapter 2, people believed in Jesus because of his miracles.
SPEAKER_01: When they saw the signs that he was doing, John chapter 2, verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: People believed in Jesus because of his miracles in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: But it was not a full-fledged faith.
SPEAKER_01: John tells us there that Jesus himself did not believe in them.
SPEAKER_01: That is, he knew that they did not entrust themselves fully to him only as much as they would get something out of him.
SPEAKER_01: Their faith was only in a man used by God in extraordinary ways, not in Jesus as the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted miracles.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: They did not want Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: God dwelling among us.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same situation in John 6.
SPEAKER_01: John tells us that they were following Jesus because of the miracles he was doing on the sick in verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: So we can surmise that there's likely a mix of people, maybe very similar to our gathering today.
SPEAKER_01: There were probably some who were on the road to genuine faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Some who were curious, genuinely curious, what's going on with this guy?
SPEAKER_01: Who is he?
SPEAKER_01: But the majority of the crowds in the Gospel of John were there to see the show.
SPEAKER_01: What would happen if Jesus appeared today and miraculously fed thousands of people at the Alaris Center?
SPEAKER_01: Just all by himself.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I give you a pretty good idea of what would happen.
SPEAKER_01: It would be all over Facebook, all over Twitter, all over Instagram, all over Snapchat and TikTok, drawing both old people and young people.
SPEAKER_01: Immediately following that, the television and newspaper stations would be there.
SPEAKER_01: There would very quickly be Hollywood people wanting a movie based off of the event, and most likely even before that, a reality television show wanting to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: People are no different today.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus would cause a stir.
SPEAKER_01: And people would be curious, some for legitimate, faithful reasons, but many for all the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_01: And those who follow with genuine faith are continually tempted to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: For example, are you ever tempted to center your prayers on yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Our faith is tested, isn't it, when life doesn't meet our expectations.
SPEAKER_01: We're happy to worship, to study, to pray, to gather together when it pleases us, when it fits our schedule, when it doesn't cause a strain, when it benefits us.
SPEAKER_01: But ask me to prioritize those things in the midst of a busy life, and I start to get grumpy.
SPEAKER_01: And it suddenly loses its priority level bit by bit by bit.
SPEAKER_01: We're tempted, aren't we, to follow Jesus obediently when things are going well, when we get the benefits that we feel like we should receive from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But when we don't seem to perceive those benefits coming as we ought to, then we begin to doubt, we become discouraged, and maybe even we start to drift away.
SPEAKER_01: Most people in John's Gospel were following Jesus for the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_01: But let's not be too quick to point our fingers at all of the people in John's Gospel following for the wrong reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, it ought to make us use this as an opportunity to gauge our intentions.
SPEAKER_01: The Sunday after Easter is always a fascinating Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna be here?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you here?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you following Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you reading your Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you gathering with people for fellowship and study?
SPEAKER_01: Why is that significant to you?
SPEAKER_01: If you don't do that, what does that say about you and your heart and your intentions?
SPEAKER_01: Now, we often miss the fact that Jesus wasn't caught off guard by this.
SPEAKER_01: Did you notice that when we were reading it?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus himself knew what he would do.
SPEAKER_01: He knew all along what would happen, and he knew all along exactly how he would address the situation.
SPEAKER_01: To sit down and eat a meal together.
SPEAKER_01: And he knew exactly how he would meet their needs.
SPEAKER_01: But he asks Philip, hey, Phil, where are we gonna buy bread so that these people can have a lunch?
SPEAKER_01: And then it says, he said this to test him.
SPEAKER_01: My friends, here is the second lesson that Jesus sometimes tests his followers.
SPEAKER_01: It's a difficult lesson following upon questioning our intentions, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: The Gospels recount that there were 5,000 men that day.
SPEAKER_01: Following the pattern of the time, counts like this didn't include women and children.
SPEAKER_01: So allowing for women and children would probably easily get us to 8,000 to 10,000, maybe even more people.
SPEAKER_01: So it's not really the feeding of the 5,000, it's feeding of the 5,000 men plus women and children.
SPEAKER_01: As if 5,000 isn't a big enough number, don't limit your brain to that.
SPEAKER_01: This is a far bigger miracle than that little headline over this section in your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus asked Philip, Where can we buy bread for these five to ten thousand people?
SPEAKER_01: Now it may be that Jesus asked Philip because they were near Bethsaida, Philip's hometown.
SPEAKER_01: Philip would know where all of the bakeries are.
SPEAKER_01: He would know all of the places to buy some bread.
SPEAKER_01: He would understand all of those details and know instantly it is impossible to find that much food.
SPEAKER_01: Especially at the last minute.
SPEAKER_01: So Philip needs to trust Jesus to do something that only God can do.
SPEAKER_01: God, where are you gonna give us food out in the middle of nowhere?
SPEAKER_01: How in the world can you give us meat when we're out in the desert?
SPEAKER_01: How can you give us water in this desert area?
SPEAKER_01: And God says, let me watch you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna open up this rock and pour out a river for you.
SPEAKER_01: This small band of wandering disciples is not wealthy.
SPEAKER_01: Not wealthy at all.
SPEAKER_01: But Philip is very practical, and he responds with a budget in mind.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, even if we had 200 denarii, maybe they did, we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Even if we had 200 denarii, that would not be enough food for everyone to have one bite, much less have a full meal.
SPEAKER_01: Put that in perspective, 200 denarii is about six months of your wages.
SPEAKER_01: For the common laborer, it's about six months' wages.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_01: But that much money would barely give everyone a bite.
SPEAKER_01: So Philip's mind attempts to calculate on the spot how much they would need to feed, let's just say, 8,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: Let's use that as a middle point.
SPEAKER_01: How much money, Jesus, would we need to feed 8,000 people right now?
SPEAKER_01: You give everyone a quarter of a pound.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the meat in the middle of your sandwich that you buy after lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Just that much.
SPEAKER_01: That's 2,000 pounds of food for 8,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: John goes further than that.
SPEAKER_01: He says they didn't just have a little bit, they had enough to be satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: However much that was.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about a massive amount of food for a massive amount of people.
SPEAKER_01: So is Jesus testing Philip's diligence?
SPEAKER_01: Is he testing his trust?
SPEAKER_01: Or is he testing his belief in the miraculous?
SPEAKER_01: Those are all good questions.
SPEAKER_01: But John doesn't tell us because it's implied.
SPEAKER_01: What John's doing here is he's showing us how Jesus is a new Moses carrying out a new Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: How do we know that?
SPEAKER_01: We know that because of Old Testament parallels.
SPEAKER_01: Another passage of Scripture may help us in Exodus chapter 16, verse 4.
SPEAKER_01: God says to Moses, Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: We're going to test you.
SPEAKER_01: Test whether they will walk in my law or not.
SPEAKER_01: In this similar passage, God speaks about miraculously providing bread and testing the faith and obedience of his people.
SPEAKER_01: Philip has already chosen to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And now Jesus is using this moment of miraculous provision to test his disciples' faith and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, that suggests that he may test our faith and obedience.
SPEAKER_01: Now, testing doesn't imply that there's an expectation to fail.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes going through school, we get that feeling, don't we, that we have to take a test and the teacher just expects us to fail.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what is always happening in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: God is often testing for refinement and for strengthening.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe also to weed out those who are not genuine.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you read on in John chapter 6, at the end of it, it leads exactly to that, where Jesus displays his power in this way of feeding people miraculously, and at the end, some leave him because they are not genuine followers.
SPEAKER_01: But in Philip's case, it was the testing for refinement and strengthening.
SPEAKER_01: And we should not be surprised if God similarly tests our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when we consider that day on the hillside, one of the surprising elements is Andrew, Peter's brother.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_01: One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, Lord, there's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.
SPEAKER_01: Every time we see Andrew in the Gospels, he is always bringing someone to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Just as he does here.
SPEAKER_01: Philip was concerned about feeding eight thousand people.
SPEAKER_01: Andrew was concerned with finding some food.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, all I can find is a few loaves and a few fish.
SPEAKER_01: But this challenges our human expectations to trust that God may provide from unexpected sources.
SPEAKER_01: The young boy had five small barley loaves and a couple of fish.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not an extravagant meal, in case you were confused by that.
SPEAKER_01: In the style of the time, these are most likely smoked or pickled fish, much like we might consider sardines or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Small fish that perhaps were used even as a condiment for the barley loaves.
SPEAKER_01: Barley was the cheap grain, and it was considered the food for the poor.
SPEAKER_01: It was coarser and less tasty than higher quality and more expensive wheat bread.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Philo, a Jewish philosopher who lived just before Jesus, said it was doubtful whether barley bread was even beneficial as food.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote, and I quote, it was suited for irrational animals and men in unhappy circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I want for lunch.
SPEAKER_01: And yet it was a staple food for most poor people.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps this was the boy's lunch.
SPEAKER_01: It may be that he was a servant and he was carrying the lunch of a poor family.
SPEAKER_01: And so now notice Andrew's comment in verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: But what are they for so many?
SPEAKER_01: I can't do this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't have any training.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have what it takes to do this in the Lord's service.
SPEAKER_01: I I can't.
SPEAKER_01: What am I for?
SPEAKER_01: We've all been there, haven't we?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe there's a tone behind this comment that we can't hear.
SPEAKER_01: The disciples are up on the hill with Jesus, seeing thousands of people gathering around them, sitting down on the fresh grass, and they know that they don't have the financial resources to feed the crowd, but they know that Jesus is expecting them to do it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And all that Andrew can find is this young boy with his small lunch.
SPEAKER_01: And if six months' wages could not feed everyone with one small bite, this little lunch wouldn't even give every person a crumb.
SPEAKER_01: So we might even imagine an incredulous kind of tone.
SPEAKER_01: What good's this gonna do?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I found this, but I don't know what you can do with that.
SPEAKER_01: Not much.
SPEAKER_01: But God often uses the unexpected to challenge our faith and demonstrate his grace and his abundant provision.
SPEAKER_01: He used ravens to bring food to Elijah in 1 Kings 17.
SPEAKER_01: Why would we be surprised that he uses a young boy's lunch?
SPEAKER_01: What about us makes us doubt God's provision in unexpected ways?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's our our our Western American work ethic.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But there's something about us that makes us doubt whether or not God can actually meet a need.
SPEAKER_01: What is it that makes us doubt whether or not God can actually soothe and comfort a hurting heart?
SPEAKER_01: What actually makes us doubt whether or not God can save someone who's mired in sin for their whole life?
SPEAKER_01: What makes us doubt that God that God would never be able to turn Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: into a faith-filled community?
SPEAKER_01: We need to remember that God is outside of time and creation.
SPEAKER_01: He's not limited by our time.
SPEAKER_01: He's not limited even by our world.
SPEAKER_01: He is never intimidated by the size of our problems.
SPEAKER_01: The seemingly impossible hurdles in front of us never daunt him.
SPEAKER_01: I tried hurdles once in high school.
SPEAKER_01: Once?
SPEAKER_01: After falling flat on my face, I said, no, thanks.
SPEAKER_01: I was intimidated.
SPEAKER_01: God is never intimidated by our hurdles.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus taught the disciples, and he's teaching us, that no matter how little we have or how much we have to offer, he will use it for his purposes and he will accomplish his ends through those aspects.
SPEAKER_01: That should encourage us not to hold back and say, God can't use me or God can't use what I have, but to all the more be encouraged to bring it and lay it before the Lord to say, Lord, this is all I have, but I know that you will use it.
SPEAKER_01: So we should all be able to be bold and confident that the Lord will use us in whatever resources he has given us when we submit them to his use, whether for service to him, service to his people, or even in boldness and witnessing, or in counsel or in comfort to those who are hurting.
SPEAKER_01: One boy gave up his lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Just think if he had not given up his lunch.
SPEAKER_01: Just think about whether that boy would say, Yeah, no, Jesus, I'm sorry, this, this, this is, I haven't eaten, I haven't eaten today, and this is my only lunch today, my only food today.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we would never have seen the disciples hand out the food.
SPEAKER_01: We have never had this account where people were fed that day.
SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't see Jesus in the demonstration as the bread of life giving food in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: None of that would be in our Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, little in the hands of the Lord is enough.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me rephrase that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not right.
SPEAKER_01: Little in the hands of the Lord is more than enough.
SPEAKER_01: Whether the little is some uneducated, smelly fisherman right off the boat, that's Peter, a rejected tax collector, Matthew, or a young boy.
SPEAKER_01: Whether the little is money, food, time, energy, age, wisdom, knowledge, whatever it might be, God can do great things with a little given willingly to him.
SPEAKER_01: The true capacity for anything is not found in you.
SPEAKER_01: The true capacity is found in the one to whom you give it.
SPEAKER_01: We ought to be challenged to raise our expectations, to trust that God can and does work in unexpected ways.
SPEAKER_01: So powerful is Jesus that the leftovers, the leftovers were gathered together in twelve baskets.
SPEAKER_01: Don't get all wrapped up in the number 12, that's just the number that the disciples could carry.
SPEAKER_01: But it also points to God's ability to feed all of his people, does it not?
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's all of his people in the Sinai Desert, whether it's all of his people in the wilderness across the Sea of Galilee, whether it's barren North Dakota or frozen Minnesota.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is your bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: Do you trust him?
SPEAKER_01: Andrew brought the boy to Jesus expecting very little.
SPEAKER_01: And yet everyone ate their fill.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think this was just a quarter pound sandwich.
SPEAKER_01: They ate their fill.
SPEAKER_01: Until they were saying, yeah, no, no, thanks.
SPEAKER_01: I can't eat anymore.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus, what Jesus created at the moment far outweighed 200 denarii or 2,000 pounds of food.
SPEAKER_01: It was more significant than any of them could imagine because the miracle was not the food.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle was the presence of the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle pointed to Jesus and his significance, which John highlights throughout the entire book.
SPEAKER_01: And understanding that leads us to another lesson.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one.
SPEAKER_01: He is the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Notice verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, This is indeed the definite article, the prophet who is to come into the world.
SPEAKER_01: Now these are culturally and biblically literate people.
SPEAKER_01: They understood that the culture expected God to send a prophet at any moment, and they understood that that prophet would be a great prophet.
SPEAKER_01: You can look in your gospel records and you can find that they asked John the Baptist, Are you the prophet?
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Ah, no, it's not me.
SPEAKER_01: They understood their Bibles, and they understood that their Bibles said that Scripture talked about this.
SPEAKER_01: There are a couple of important passages here.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is one that the crowd may not have grasped the allusion to this passage immediately, but the story would have been known.
SPEAKER_01: It's found in 2 Kings chapter 4, beginning around verse 35 or so.
SPEAKER_01: A man came to the prophet Elisha, offering him as a gift from God the first fruits of his harvest.
SPEAKER_01: And that offering was twenty barley loaves.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty barley loaves and some fresh grain in a sack.
SPEAKER_01: And there were a hundred men with Elisha.
SPEAKER_01: Sort of like a seminary for prophets.
SPEAKER_01: And Elisha told his servant, using the exact same Greek word that's used for this boy in this passage.
SPEAKER_01: He told his servant to take this food and to feed the men who were with Elisha.
SPEAKER_01: And the servant responded, listen carefully to this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what the servant said.
SPEAKER_01: How can I set this, this meager amount before a hundred men?
SPEAKER_01: Elisha responded with, Give it to the men that they may eat.
SPEAKER_01: For here's the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: They shall eat and have some left.
SPEAKER_01: And they did.
SPEAKER_01: And there was some left.
SPEAKER_01: Elisha fed the prophets, but what Jesus did is far more significant.
SPEAKER_01: The miracles are similar, similar in details, but Jesus feeding 8,000 people is exponentially greater.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is therefore the greater prophet.
SPEAKER_01: However, another passage would have been more familiar to the people of Jesus' day, and that comes from the pen of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Inscribing this near the time of his death when he would hand over the reins of leadership to Joshua.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote in Deuteronomy chapter 18: the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you.
SPEAKER_01: He'll be from your brothers.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_01: I will raise up a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them everything that I command.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prophecy that the people would have had at the forefront of their thinking that day on the mountainside as they realized what just happened.
SPEAKER_01: They believed they were witnessing the fulfillment of Moses' prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prophet who is to come into the world.
SPEAKER_01: They believed they were witnessing the fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, they were convinced, was the promised prophet, and they were right.
SPEAKER_01: They were right.
SPEAKER_01: God promised them one who would speak God's very words.
SPEAKER_01: Here is one who, like Moses, gave them bread in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: They did not expect God to send his very Son.
SPEAKER_01: The Word, as John mentions in John chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God embodied in Jesus, is the fulfillment of that ancient prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: And that leads us to the last verse of this section and the final lesson for us.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy, we must see him for who he is.
SPEAKER_01: We must hear him with open words, open ears, and respond to him with soft hearts.
SPEAKER_01: But we must know the danger then of incorrectly responding to God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: We'll hear more about this in a couple of weeks as we look at a section later on in this chapter.
SPEAKER_01: But notice what John records in John 6, 15.
SPEAKER_01: Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
SPEAKER_01: See, the crowds are combining biblical and cultural expectations.
SPEAKER_01: They're merging them together and trying to force Jesus to fit their perception of the moment.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted a new Moses for a new Exodus out of Rome in authority.
SPEAKER_01: And they wanted and expected a king.
SPEAKER_01: And so they merged their religious and their political expectations and attempted to seize Jesus and force him to be what they wanted him to be.
SPEAKER_01: The language behind John's words here, to take him by force, means just that, to seize him.
SPEAKER_01: It's a word used in guerrilla warfare, to take an enemy and seize him for your own purposes.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted Jesus to become, to be forced to be their political messiah in response to his gracious and miraculous provision of a meal.
SPEAKER_01: And that tells us they missed the truth about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They tried to use Jesus for their own ends and their own benefit.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't understand what had just happened, but never mind that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's take him and make him king anyway.
SPEAKER_01: What greater way to convince people that he can be our king and that he feeds everybody?
SPEAKER_01: Just think we don't have to go to work anymore.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to go to the grocery store.
SPEAKER_01: You see, they wanted to manipulate Jesus to fit their dreams for the moment.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter five, the response to Jesus' healing was a desire to kill him.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter six, the response is to make him a political hero.
SPEAKER_01: The scriptures repeatedly show us that sinful people often incorrectly respond to God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a danger that we face too.
SPEAKER_01: You woke up this morning because of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: You took your last breath because of God's grace.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we just go on about our days as though that's just the normal everyday thing that happens.
SPEAKER_01: Ought we not rather to say, Lord, thank you for this day that you've given me?
SPEAKER_01: And to say thank you for this daily bread and this daily breath.
SPEAKER_01: Help me to make of it what you will, not what I will.
SPEAKER_01: The miracle on the mountainside teaches us that Jesus is the bread of life.
SPEAKER_01: What did Jesus say?
SPEAKER_01: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_01: And here is the word that proceeds from the mouth of God incarnate.
SPEAKER_01: Moses giving ancient Israel manna in the wilderness was just a prelude to Jesus providing bread on the mountainside.
SPEAKER_01: And that, in and of itself, is a prelude to Jesus giving us himself through his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' provision of food pointed to Jesus as the bread from heaven who would give his life for all who believe in him.
SPEAKER_01: And we must be careful to not fall into the trap of responding incorrectly.
SPEAKER_01: Because we can find ourselves caught up in very similar things, thinking that, oh, special grace is found in communion, in baptism, in Bible reading, in fellowship, and singing.
SPEAKER_01: I get special grace for singing the parts to the hymns.
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Please do more of it.
SPEAKER_01: But there's no special grace in it.
SPEAKER_01: We get caught up thinking that, oh, there's special grace and provision and power, and we become wrapped up in processes and politics and policies and prophecy and nationalism and natural events, and yet we miss Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The correct response is to see and receive Jesus as God has revealed him.
SPEAKER_01: How has God revealed him?
SPEAKER_01: Just as we saw him on the mountaintop in all of his glory, where the Father said, This is my beloved son.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to him.
SPEAKER_01: For he is the true bread come down from heaven that will feed your soul.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, cause us to trust you implicitly, entirely, to walk with you and to obey you, to listen to you and to feed upon your word, so that we might be drawn to love you with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and with all of our strength.
SPEAKER_01: Not for the food that fills our stomachs, not not for the benefits that we might receive, whatever they are, but because you are the Lord God Almighty, whom we love and we worship and we adore.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name and for his praise.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.