OPEN: An English teacher and her class were studying well known Proverbs. One day she gave them a test to see well they were understanding what she taught. She would state the first half of a proverb and then asked the students to come up with the rest of what it said. These were some of the answers that the teacher got from her students on that quiz:
It’s always darkest before... Daylight Savings Time.
Never underestimate the power of… termites.
Don’t bite the hand that … looks dirty.
If you lie down with dogs, you’ll… stink in the morning.
An idle mind is… the best way to relax.
A penny saved is… not much.
Two’s company, three’s… the Musketeers.
Children should be seen and not… spanked or grounded.
If at first you don’t succeed… get new batteries.
When the blind leadeth the blind… get out of the way.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and… you have to blow your nose.
APPLY: Even though the students in that class had studied those parables for several days they still had trouble with the right answers.
And even when Jesus’ disciples had been with Him for several months they still had trouble with getting their answer right.
During the time they’d been with Jesus, His disciples had watched Him as He had…
• healed a Leper – Mat 8:1
• healed the servant of a Roman centurion– Mat 8:5
• healed Peter’s mother in law – Mat 8:14
• and He’d also healed numerous people who’d evil spirits and various diseases – Mt 8:16
and they had even seen him
• raise a girl from the dead – Mat 9:25
They’d seen all of this.
They’d seen His power up close and personal.
But now it’s late in the day – they’re on a hill out in the middle of no-place - and they’ve got a bunch of hungry people on their hands. The disciples are practical men, and they suggest to Jesus that He send the people home so they can get something to eat.
It’s then that Jesus says the most unusual thing to them:
He says: "They do not need to go away. YOU give them something to eat." Matthew 14:16
Well, that would seem like a practical solution… except for two things
1. There are 5000 MEN (besides and women and children) in this crowd
2. And they don’t have anywhere near enough food on hand to feed that many people
The Gospel of Mark tells us another part of the conversation. When Jesus says that they should feed the crowd, “they said to him, ‘That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?" Mark 6:37
Now, the Gospel of John gives us another insight into this story. It says that Jesus had been speaking to Philip when he was telling them that they should feed the crowds. And John 6:6 says “He asked this only to TEST him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.”
This was a test!!!
When I got to looking at all the miracles Jesus had done to that point I suddenly realized what was going on. Up until this point in time… Jesus had been doing all the work.
He taught the people
He healed people
He raised people from the dead
And the disciples pretty much were along for the ride.
But now… it’s test time.
It was like that teacher who set the stage, by citing the first part of the parables to her class, and then expected them to fill in the blanks.
In the same way, Jesus has set the stage for His disciples.
He’s given them an impossible situation
He has confronted them with nearly 15,000 hungry people (5000 men, plus women and children) and He tells His disciples to feed them.
TEST QUESTION: How are YOU going to feed them?
And… how do they answer?
We don’t have enough money - "ehhhh! wrong answer"
We ONLY have 2 fish & 5 loaves - "ehhhh! wrong answer"
Well, if those are the wrong answers… what’s the right answer?
The right answer: give Jesus what you have and let Him deal with the solution
ILLUS: One man once observed that
If God wants 7 - and you can give him 3 - He’ll add 4.
If you give Him 4, He’ll add 3.
No matter what you give Him, He is capable of adding or subtracting whatever He needs to, to get whatever He desires.
Hebrews 11:6 says – “… without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that HE REWARDS THOSE WHO EARNESTLY SEEK HIM.
If we earnestly seek His involvement in our plans, and we have nothing much to bring to the table, He fills in the gaps. His strength makes up for our weaknesses. That is the essence of faith.
Now, as I was studying this passage, 3 things occurred to me (there may be more to learn, but these were they things that spoke to me) :
1st – God desires to stretch our faith.
God wants us to mature in our faith and in order to get us to do that He often puts us in situations where there is NO way we could EVER possibly do what He’s asked on our own
That’s what Jesus is doing with the Disciples in this feeding of the 5000. He had put them into a situation they could only accomplish if God did a miracle.
Hudson Taylor said,
"Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith."
If we could do it all by ourselves… what need would we have for God?
ILLUS: We’ve recently begun a “Stewardship Campaign” here at church. We’ve had Gary Edwards come and help us organize ourselves with a goal of raising money to be able to do our ministry here more effectively. What impressed us about Mr. Edwards program was the emphasis on faith, prayer and ministry. But there was one aspect of the program that caused us to back up and do some thinking.
He’d introduced the concept of “pledge cards” where people would submit a signed card with what they felt God was leading them to commit to our ministry over the next 3 years. We decided we were uncomfortable with that concept, so we have removed it from the program.
But now, there’s a problem. Gary Edwards has done this stewardship program in over 100 churches and he knows that it works the way it’s designed. But once you take out an element like the “pledge cards” the result is no longer assured. Gary considered the needs of our congregation and knew that if we did it the way he set it out for us, our congregation could raise $500,000.
But the result would have been based on our faithfulness and our efforts. Not necessarily those of God. When the Elders and I met to discuss the program and the dropping of the pledge cards… we also came to the conclusion that $500,000 would really be enough to meet the objectives we felt this church wanted to attain. In order to do that, we’d really need to raise $1 million
There was no way our little church could come up with that much. Then we decided “Wait a minute! If God’s in this… why not swing for the wall? Why not set the goal high?” Because that’s what faith is all about - trusting God to do something we can’t do on our own.
So we’re going to swing for the wall… we’re going to stretch our faith. Because unless there’s an element of risk in our decision there’s no need for faith.
The 2nd lesson I discovered in this story of the feeding of the 5000 was that Jesus’ objective was not to feed the 5000 (repeat).
If that was all He had in mind, He could have sent them home.
They didn’t need Him to get food.
They could have gotten their groceries somewhere else.
When Churches don’t understand this, they can fall into the trap of forgetting why they exist.
ILLUS: From the early 1900’s through the 1960’s there was a powerful church in Manhattan. It was called Broadway Presbyterian Church and they were committed to reaching out to people for Christ, and they used every tool they could to get that done… including food kitchens.
But from the 60’s to the 1990’s a subtle change began to take place. In the soup kitchens, prayers were not offered over meals because they were afraid that they’d offend the poor. They no longer tried to convince the homeless to turn to God and to repent of their past sins.
Over time they found that the same people were coming through the lines year after year and there was no change taking place in their lives. The church gradually slipped from a membership of 1000 people down to 120 and a once mighty congregation sat with a nearly empty building.
Now here’s my point. AND listen to me carefully because I don’t want you to misunderstand what I’m saying here:
The church does not exist to feed the poor, or to take care of the needy
The church exists to serve Jesus Christ and bring people to salvation
BUT if the church serves Jesus Christ, IT WILL feed the poor and take care of the needy.
ILLUS: Recently on Sermoncentral (the website where I post my sermons) there was a survey
They wanted a response to this question: “Is your church focused on feeding the hungry?”
I said “no”
We DO feed the hungry… we DO reach out to people who are struggling, but our FOCUS is on serving Jesus Christ
ILLUS: The last congregation I served was in a community where the local hospital was struggling financially. In a Board Meeting it was suggested that we take some of the church’s tithe and give it to the hospital.
I said “no.”
I said that if they wanted to put offering plates out in the foyer and ask the congregation to voluntarily give money toward this cause, that would be ok. But to take money dedicated to the cause of Jesus Christ and give it to even a worthy social cause was not why we existed (it made a few on the Board fairly upset).
But that’s what’s happened to the Red Cross and the YMCA. They’re both great organizations, but they started out as Christian outreaches and have devolved into social groups. They lost their focus and thus they lost their original reason to exist.
If our center of attention ever gets off of Jesus and becomes focused on good works without Him being at the center, we’ll have lost our very reason to exist. We exist as a church to serve Jesus Christ and to give Him glory.
That was the purpose of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000: to glorify Jesus and build faith in God.
3rd Lesson I saw in the feeding of the 5000 was this: Jesus asked His disciples to be His PARTNERS in this miracle.
Remember – up until this time – Jesus had been doing all the work. But now He tells His disciples: YOU do it – YOU give them something to eat.
And how much food do the disciples come up with? (5 loaves, 2 fishes)
And it wasn’t even their food. It was the lunch of a small boy in the crowd!
They need a catering service, and they hand a Jesus a sack lunch!
But Jesus is NOT offended by that He takes what they give Him … and He blesses it.
Matthew 14 says that “He directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he GAVE THANKS and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.” Matthew 14:19
When everybody had had their fill, they collected the fragments they ended up with 12 baskets full of food.
Jesus took what the disciples gave Him and He multiplied it.
Why did He do that? Why did He ask the disciples to come up with the food?
He didn’t need their food. He didn’t need the 5 loaves or the 2 fish. He was Jesus!
All He needed to do was slap His hands and the food would have fallen from the sky… complete with table service.
Why then did He do it the way He did? He did it that way because He wanted His disciples to be His partners in ministry.
A Godly faith should challenge us to do as much as we can for Jesus.
You look around this church, and you’ll see men and women of faith investing themselves in ministry for Jesus. Everything from the food pantry, to the prayer ministry, to visiting the Nursing Homes, to preparing food for funeral dinners.
These folks realize that you don’t have to be a preacher to be servant of God.
They realize that they are a priesthood of believers.
And they know that this congregation is so invested in that kind of thinking that they don’t have to ask my permission (or anyone else’s) to get into ministry. In fact, they know that the leadership here will do everything we can to enable them to do even more.
They have realized the privilege God has given them to allow them to be His partners.
Now, if you’re not serving Jesus Christ yet… understand that you will never mature in your faith until you find ways of ministering for Him inside or outside the church building.
Bill Hybels once said “I would never want to reach out someday with a soft, uncallused hand -- a hand never dirtied by serving and shake the nail-pierced hand of Jesus.”
One last thing:
When God tests your faith...
When He challenges you to do more than you’ve ever done with your life... you should realize what a great opportunity He’s given you.
In my own life, I have discovered that the hardest tests have lead to my greatest testimonies. In fact, that’s one of the beauties of the English language: His TESTS lead to our TESTIMONIES.
The times when I’ve been most challenged has given me some of my greatest stories. And I tell them over and over and over again… just ask my kids.
God’s tests lead to realization that God really wants to use me, and that I have value and purpose in His service. And that’s the effect the miracle of the 5000 had on Jesus’ disciples.
Did you realize that this is the ONLY MIRACLE recorded in all 4 gospels. No other miracle has that honor. But this one did. This event was such a turning point in their lives that it became one of their greatest testimonies.
There’s an old Hymn that goes
“Give of your best to the Master; Give Him first place in your heart.
Give Him first place in your service; Consecrate every part.
Give, and to you will be given;
God His beloved Son gave.
Gratefully seeking to serve Him,
Give Him the best that you have.
Give of your best to the Master; naught else is worthy His love.
He gave Himself for your ransom, gave up His glory above.
Laid down His life without murmur, you from sin’s ruin to save.
Give Him your heart’s adoration; give Him the best that you have.
Give of your best to the Master;
Give of the strength of your youth.
Clad in salvation’s full armor,
Join in the battle for truth.”
