GIVE YE THEM TO EAT
Setting: Tired, Looking for rest, Followed by the crowd) Jesus comes out and begins to teach.
Its late, They haven’t eaten, they haven’t had any private time with Jesus, They’re tired.
When you’re tired and hungry and emotionally drained it’s easy to be a little cranky, calloused, indifferent and even a little selfish.
The disciples come and tell Jesus, it’s late time for ministry is passed, send the people into town to get food for themselves.
* sometimes we can cover selfish motives with religious sentiment.
*Jesus said: They do not need to depart you give them something to eat
(Sometimes we can be guilty of being nothing more than religious well wishers, kind of like what James said: Depart be ye warmed and filled, we wish you well, I’ll mention you in my prayers.
That’s called dead faith).
we cannot be true disciples of Jesus with this dead faith, He wouldn’t allow it then and he doesn’t allow it now.
True faith does more than acknowledge the problem it becomes part of the solution.
A. The disciples saw the problem, but they did not see themselves in the solution.
Out of every 100 who see the problem, only one will actually become part of the solution.
Give ye them to eat
Jesus made them responsible for the problem.
That’s where we’re at today, we are responsible, we are the light, and the salt.]
If there is no light where I am then it’s because my light is hid, if there is nothing being flavored where I am it’s become I am not being salt.
How many loaves have ye go and see.
Before we can do anything we must take inventory, we must know what we have.
Like the widow in 2Ki 4 She needed a miracle to get her out of debt, the first requirement was to take inventory, (what have you in your house go and see).
We may have had a great experience, a great compassion, a great love, a great anointing but what do we have now?
What I had doesn’t help anybody, it’s what I have now that can be used for the masters service.
Thy handmaiden hath nothing save a little pot of oil
We have five loaves and two fishes
This is where the miracle starts, with what we have no matter how small or how little it is, All God requires is for us to take what we have and give it to him.
It’s not our responsibility to make the bread, or multiply it, only to bring it to Jesus
Too many times we feel like Andrew in John 6:9 who said (what are they among so many).
If we are not careful we can allow the immensity of the task to keep us from doing anything.
Multitudes of Christians look at the greatness of the needs of humanity and then they look at what they have (or I should say, what they don’t have) and based upon what they do not have they excuse themselves from doing anything.
God never ask us what we don’t have,
God already knows what we don’t have but what God does is call our attention to what we do have.
What we have is where our responsibility starts
They did eat
I love that phrase, (they did eat) they did (eat) What that means is while we are excusing ourselves for not witnessing, and not sharing Jesus because we are believe no body wants to hear it. (There are multitudes who are hungry and who will eat, when they are offered the bread of life. (Not religion, not church, not philosophies not traditions, but the bread from heaven Jesus Christ).
We find this same thought repeated in John 4:10
Jesus said to her: If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
(That means that Jesus who knew the heart of this woman, said that If she knew the gift of God she would have asked for the living water)
It wasn’t that she didn’t want it, it wasn’t that she wasn’t interested (It was that she hadn’t heard the good news yet).
When she heard and had knowledge of the gift of God she received living water.
Till they were filled
First of all: this shows us that God meats every need of humanity, physical spiritual emotional, only God can fill every need.
Then Secondly:
This very often describes the church, we have eaten and we are full, we have become full, satisfied, satisfied to know that we are saved, going to heaven,
Unfortunately many times this same satisfaction begins to produce in us indifference, wastefulness, and we begin to take this great salvation for granted and we actually become neglectful of the precious promises and like that crowd on that day, crumbs or fragments of that precious bread was ignored, brushed aside.
Fragments: leftovers, unused, neglected, wasted, uneaten.
Jesus said Gather up the fragments:
Jesus saw something valuable in every crumb ( I don’t mean to call people crumbs, but I do want to make an application here) There are many that society has overlooked and disdained and counted off, and just swept away as useless.
The warning for us is that we the church must not be guilty of this same thing
That none be lost:
Lost (Destroyed, wasted, perish.)
2 Peter 3:9 Says: The Lord is not willing that any should perish or (be lost) but that all should come to repentance or (be saved).
The good news for us is this
You don’t have to be a theologian, you don’t have to have a degree or be a pastor or teacher, or evangelist, all you have to do is be willing to gather up the fragments of the bread and take them to them. (Just be willing to share your crumbs).
What to you may seem so small and insignificant is the difference between life and death for someone who is starving.
One of the greatest revelations concerning the crumbs is that the same power that is in the loaf is in the crumbs
Remember the woman who came to Jesus her daughter was demon possessed, The Lord said it is not meet to take the childrens bread and to give it to the dogs, she said truth Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs that fall from the childrens table.
What this woman was saying in essence was (Give the children the loaf just give me the crumbs)
Jesus said: For this saying the devil is gone out of your daughter.
There is enough power in the crumbs to set the demoniac free, to deliver the drug addict, to heal the sick.
Let me say it another way: One drop of his blood is enough to make the vilest sinner clean, one drop of his blood can deliver the drug addict, set the homosexual free, open blind eyes, unstop deaf ears.
One drop of his blood is enough to raise the dead.
Jesus said: They need not depart (Give ye them to eat).
This means (we have what the world needs) we must make it available to them.
Jesus gave the bread and the fishes to the disciples and the disciples gave it to the people.
In closing ( If we are going to give life to the world) we must have a personal intimate relationship with the one who is life.
We must spend time in the presence of Jesus, then we will be able to give them the bread of life.
