Let Go Of Your Loaves Series

Let Go of Your Loaves

It was a beautiful day. Jesus had crossed over the sea of Galilee and the crowd discovering where he was going followed on foot, covering a distance of approximately 15 kilometres and Luke tells us in chapter 9:10 that they finally caught up with him in Bethsaida. And it was here on a hill overlooking the sea of Galilee that Christ began to teach the crowd, and after teaching his heart became filled with compassion as he looked around and realises that those who have gathered are probably hungry. Christ saw not only a spiritual need, but he saw the physical need as well.

Jesus was aware that if His preaching about love wasn't evidenced in his behaviour then he would be regarded as a hypocrite and rightly so. And so, as he looked around at the hungry crowd he didn't say "They need God," even though they did, instead he said, "They need lunch."

This is week 3 of our Miracles of Christ series and the Miracle we’ll be looking at this morning is the only miracle, aside from the resurrection included in all four gospels. And some people would say “Aha, that goes to prove the gospels are unreliable.” To the contrary, that just proves to me they are more reliable, and were four different accounts, not one copies account.

Most of you know that over the past couple of weeks Beulah Camp was happening, and there were at least 18 of us from Cornerstone there. But if you asked us for our recollections, you’d think we were at different events. Because there were things that some of us saw that others missed, and things some of us heard that others didn’t.

In this story there are three people that Christ interacts, and we are going to look at all three of them this morning.

John 6:5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?”

The first person that Jesus checks with is Phillip the Realist. Have you ever asked yourself why he asked Philip first. I mean other than the obvious answer, that Philip was right next to him. Here are a couple of suggestions. 1) This was Philip's old stomping ground. We are told in the book of John 1:44 Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.

And that makes sense, if you're looking for a good cheap meal you ask a local. Right? They're the ones who know where the best food and best deals are in this life. 2) Or maybe this was a faith check or an attitude check. Christ wanted to see how big Philip's faith was at this point. And good old Philip the practical said, John 6:7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”

Actually, in the original he said that it would take 200 Denarii to feed the crowd, and we are told that a denarii was the equivalent of a day’s wages and so Phil was planning on feeding 25 people for a day’s wage, which is fair.

Now don't give Philip a hard time, he was just responding to Christ's question with a statement. But he didn't answer the question which was “Philip, where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” Like he could have said, "Well you could try Saul's deli or Aaron's Bakery." Instead, he says, "Even if we were to go to McMalichi's and everyone ordered a McBagel, regular fries and a diet coke, it would still cost ten bucks a head off their value menu."

I remember when the value menu was 4.99 and better than that as a kid, McDonalds advertised that you could feed a family of four for under $4.00, that was 1972 that was in the States, but still, in Canada it was feed a family of four for five dollars and get change back.

At this point Philip could not see beyond the present day, he couldn't see beyond the cost. And that's typical of how most of us thing when we are confronted with a new project or goal.

When we are confronted with a new project our gut reaction is usually "How much is this going to cost?" Can we afford it? Can we do it with what we have, or what we can raise?"

When we first moved to Australia at one of our first church board meetings I quoted Mike Macintosh, a Pastor from San Diego California, and Macintosh said and I quote, "Money's not a problem, because Money's not an issue" profound right? In other words, if it's God's will to do something then the funding is God's problem. The problem was that from that point on whenever we needed to go ahead with a project if I was feeling the least bit cautious a guy on my board by the name of Nev Robbins would say "Denn remember; Money's not a problem, because Money's not an issue"