Our Lord Can Do A Lot With A Little

The Lord can do a lot with a little

John 6:1-13

Slide

Good morning,

I am glad that you made it out today for our family Sunday.

It is always a blessing when our families get to be together and worship together.

Today is going to be a little different.

Instead of a sermon, we are going to have more of a story.

A story that I hope will help us to realize that even when we think we have only a little to offer, God can do amazing things with it when we offer it to Him.

Now before we get into our story, I want to ask you a question.

Playdoh

How many of you have ever played with Playdoh?

The easiest thing I used to make with Playdoh was pancakes. They were easy to do.

I need someone who can make me a stack of pancakes with playdoh.

(Have a 4th or 5th grader come up and give them just a little bit of playdoh to work with)

When you only have a little bit of something, it is hard to do a lot with it isn’t it?

Sometimes we feel that we have hardly anything to offer anyone.

Maybe we feel we are too young, so we can’t do anything.

Maybe we feel we too few skills, so we aren’t valuable.

Maybe we feel we just have too little to offer and you can’t do much when you only have a little.

While that may be true for us, that is not true for the Lord.

This morning, we are going to learn that

Our Lord can do a lot with a little.

Slide

I am going to invite all of our powerzone kids to come up this morning as Dawn Mollo comes up and reads the story we are going to look at today from “The Jesus Storybook Bible.”

Slide

Dawn reads Bible story

Bible story slides

Wow, that is amazing.

Jesus did a whole lot with not very much at all.

Thanks for reading that for us Dawn.

This morning, I want us to stop and take a look at the boy who gave these 5 loaves and 2 fish that Jesus used to feed this huge crowd.

It is my hope that as we look at this boy, we will realize that no matter who we are or what little we have, when we offer it to Jesus, he can really do a lot with it.

Now there is a bit more detail given in the Jesus storybook Bible than an actual translation about this boy.

The only place we find mention of this boy in Scripture is in John 6:8-9

After Jesus told the disciples to see what they had, this is what it says.

John 6:8-9

Slide

8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

So the only thing it tells us on the surface is that this boy had 5 small Barley loaves and 2 small fish.

But we can discern a few other things about this boy from what is said here as well.

Barley Loaves = Poor

First, it tells us that the loaves he had were Barley loaves.

That tells us he was probably poor, or from a poor family.

Barley bread was more common for those who were poor while bread made with wheat was more common for those with more money.

So this boy was probably poor.

He is probably there alone

Second, he is probably there alone.

The text doesn’t say, “here is a man or a woman with a son who has five barley loaves and 2 fish,” it only says “here is a boy…”

You would think that if he was there with parents, they would have been the ones offering up what they brought as a family if that was the case. The boy probably wouldn’t even have this food if he was with his family, his parents would.

So, this boy was probably there alone.

Now what would this boy who is poor be doing out there alone with 5 small barley loaves and 2 fish?

Kids helped support family

Well, we know that in the society at that time, the whole family usually helped out in supporting the family. Everyone had responsibilities. We saw Joseph and his brothers taking care of the flocks in their family.

It would be normal, especially in a poor family for this boy to be helping out the family in some way.

Sea of Galilee

We also know that this whole scene is taking place on a hillside by the Sea of Galilee.

This story begins in

John 6:1-3 - Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. 3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.