Greater Satisfaction Series

Introduction

Good morning. Please open your Bibles to John 6.

How many of you are hungry, like right now? I realize that’s an awful way to start a sermon. Probably every professor of preaching that’s ever lived is rolling over in his grave right now, because now all you are going to be thinking about is where you’re going to go for lunch after this. But I’m serious. Raise your hand if you are hungry, right now.

Keep your hand raised if you’ve eaten in the last 24 hours, but you are still hungry.

Keep your hand raised if you had breakfast this morning— like two hours ago, but now you’re hungry again?

Wow.

While scientists say that is is possible to go without food for 3 or 4 weeks, most of us don’t go 3 or 4 hours between meals. Our bodies typically signal hunger within three hours of our last meal. So whether your last meal was at a gourmet restaurant or from the drive thru at McDonald’s, you are still going to get hungry again.

Well, as we continue our series called Greater Love, we are going to look at what is probably the best-known of Jesus’ miracles: the feeding of the five thousand. And we are going to see how it is about so much more than just free food. In John’s gospel especially, Jesus uses this miracle to teach us a crucial truth: every good thing in this world— food, drink, wealth, material possessions, sex, influence, fame, ability, friendships, health— every good thing— can only provide limited satisfaction. But the blessings that come from Jesus provide eternal satisfaction.

Psalm 16:11

Christian Standard Bible Psalm 16

11 You reveal the path of life to me; ? in your presence is abundant joy; ? at your right hand are eternal pleasures.

So how can we experience this greater satisfaction? How can we feel this eternal pleasure? The answer is in John 6. Let’s pray together, and then we will dive in.

I.  The Great Sign

Let’s start by looking at the miracle itself. The Feeding of the 5,000 is the only one of Jesus’ miracles that is mentioned in all four gospels. Interestingly, the word “miracle” is almost never used in the gospels. Instead, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and especially John preferred the word “sign.” A sign is something that points to something else, and you’re going to see in just a minute what Jesus was pointing to when He fed the five thousand. Let’s look at verses 4-14 together:

4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. 5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

This is a familiar story for most of you, but there are a couple of things I want to bring out that maybe you haven’t noticed before. The first is that John is the only one of the four gospels that connects the feeding of the 5000 to Passover (v. 4). Now, those of you that were at our “Messiah in the Passover” event this past Thursday probably have a greater appreciation for what a big deal Passover was. It commemorated the Jews’ deliverance from bondage in Egypt. For four hundred years the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt. God raised up a deliverer. What was his name? Right. Moses. Through Moses, God performed many miraculous signs. The ten plagues. Crossing the Red Sea. Water from the rock. And, especially significant for our story today, providing manna— bread from heaven—for all the Israelites as they journeyed through the desert on their way to the Promised Land.