[The thoughts here are extracted and adapted from Tom Holladay’s sermon on The Lesson of the Loaves.]
The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of the Lord that is recorded in all 4 Gospels.
• This is really unusual when you think of all the miracles that Jesus performed in 3½ years of ministry.
• Each of the gospel writers has something to say about this miracle feeding that perhaps the others might have omitted in their telling of the story.
• When they are all put together, an interesting story begins to unfold before us.
What we do not usually take note of is the lesson Jesus wants us to learn from the miracle.
• Is there something that Jesus wants us to learn? Was it just a miracle to feed the crowd?
• Verse 5 tells us Jesus asked Philip a question: “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” And verse 6 says, “He asked this only to test him, for He already had in mind what He was going to do.”
Jesus wanted to challenge the disciples. He wanted to teach them something.
• There were 5000 men in the crowd (v.10). It means there were probably 5000 women, maybe 5000 kids. This was a huge crowd of over 15,000.
• It was getting towards evening. According to the accounts in Matthew (14), Mark (6) and Luke (9), the disciples were getting worried. This is a remote place and the people need to eat.
• Someone got to tell Jesus to stop talking and send the people to the nearby villages and buy themselves something to eat.
And then we saw Jesus turning to Philip and asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
• He saw this as an opportunity to teach His disciples, and us today, the way God works.
• The disciples and the crowd eventually saw one of the most memorable miracles in Jesus’ ministry.
Lesson ONE: The Yardstick Lesson - Do not measure a problem according to your own abilities.
Don’t measure it according to your own abilities. That is the wrong measuring stick.
• Anytime you face a problem, you tend to feel small next to the problem.
• Don’t look at the problem from your own abilities. That’s what the disciples did. That’s what Philip did.
• And then he did what we all do in that circumstance - he panicked! John 6:7 “Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
• Don’t be ridiculous! What are you talking about? This is an impossible situation!
You don’t need to even count the people. For a crowd of over 10,000, one glance is enough to tell you, you have too many people.
• One glance is enough to tell you that there isn’t any ‘hawker centres’ within sight.
• That was what Philip immediately sees. It was impossible.
Jesus loves impossible situations. He is the Son of God. Impossible circumstances do not bother Him.
• Jesus heals those who cannot be healed. He raised the dead. He delivered those who are demon-possessed.
• Some of us may be in an ‘impossible’ situation right now. God allows us to be in impossible situations - circumstances that come into our life that we don’t have any control over.
Why does God allow these things to happen?
• We don’t have all the answers, but at least Jesus gives us a reason here - He did this to test Philip, to test the disciples.
• The Lord wants us to put our trust in Him, not in ourselves; to put your trust in what He can do, not what you can do.
Jesus allowed His disciples to struggle with the problem BEFORE He worked the miracle.
• Has that ever happened to you? Or does God always give you the answer right away. No.
• He allows us to struggle with the problem. He stretches our faith. He challenges us to trust Him, even when we cannot figure out the solution to our problem.
Why does He do that? Why doesn’t He give me the answer straight away? Why doesn’t He simply solve my problem?
• He does not, because He is giving us a test.
• When God tests us it is not to grade us. It is to grow us.
• God does not need to grade us. God knows our hearts already. He knows every answer you would write down on the test. He knows everything you would think. He knows us already.
So why does He test us? Because it impacts our hearts; it grows us.
• When we come out on the other side of the test, we learned something, we have grown. Our faith is strengthened; our understanding of God is deepened. We have changed.
> God puts us in impossible situations to stretch our undeveloped faith.
> God puts us in impossible situations to help us understand that there is always hope, even in impossible situations.
> God puts us in impossible situations to show His love. He cares enough to educate you.
• When finally we see God’s answer, we see how He loved us all through the difficult times.
So do not measure a problem according to your own abilities.
• Go home this week and think about the difficulties you’re facing today.
• Write down on a piece of paper the problems you have that you CANNOT do about - something that you worry about, something that hurts you, something that is not in your control.
• Then take the piece of paper and give it to God, and say, “God, I need Your strength! God, help me!” You can say a lot more, but if not, just say, “God! Help me!” Sometimes the shortest prayers are the best prayers.
When you and I do that, we are saying, “I am not measuring this just according to what I can do but I am measuring it according to what YOU can do.”
• It is amazing to see the answers that come, when we learn to “let go and let God do His part”.
• In impossible situation, God wants us to connect with Him. That is why He allows it. He wants us to connect with Him.
THE QUICKEST ANSWER
A group of engineering students who were given the problem, “How long should a 1 kg beef roast stay in a 160-degree oven for the centre to reach a temperature of 65 degrees?” They had to do these projects at school.
One kid did this series of experiments. Another kid went out and bought a roast, an oven, a thermometer and a watch. Another one got out a spreadsheet and did all these mathematical calculations on the conductivity of roast and figured it all out.
But the kid who got the quickest answer was the kid who picked up the phone and called his mom: “How do you cook a roast beef?”
We need to consult God.
Saddleback church teaching pastor, Tom Holladay says, “The most important and biggest questions of life are often not figured out logically. They are discovered relationally.” When you talk to God, you will figure out the answer.
• The reason God allows impossible circumstances in our lives is to remind us of the fact that He is there. We can turn to Him.
• Talk to Jesus, and ask Him for help. Learn to trust Him; don’t look at your own abilities.
Lesson TWO: The Scales Lesson – Little in the hands of Jesus becomes much.
There is a second lesson in the feeding of the 5000 - the Scales Lesson – little in the hands of Jesus becomes much.
Andrew came back to Jesus and said, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish…” (6:9)
• If he had just said this first half of this sentence, he would well be the hero of faith in this story.
• He would have been the disciple who came to Jesus and said, “Look! Five loaves! Two fish! You can do it, Jesus! I’ve seen what You can do in the past!”
But he didn’t stop there. Andrew went on to say, “But what good is that with this huge crowd?” It means they are of little or no use in this situation.
• That’s all they’ve got – for 15,000 hungry stomachs. It just doesn’t make sense. The boy might as well keep those loaves and fish for himself.
We do the same in difficult situation, because we are pragmatists, we are realists. Things must make sense – human sense, that is.
• Philip says we do not have so much money. Andrew says we do not have so much food.
• Jesus wants them to learn, that with God nothing is impossible. He wants them to look to God in faith, and not look at their situation with sight. “We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor 5:7)
• No need is too great for God. Little in the hands of Jesus Christ becomes much.
Don’t limit God. You limit God when you decide that what you have is too little to make a difference – too little money, too little talent, too little time, too little of everything.
• You limit God when you keep what you have to yourself. You limit God when you decide in your mind that things will never change, when you decide in your mind that some things are just too big for God to accomplish.
• It is not that God cannot. It is we who have decided that God cannot.
• Actually, to put it simply, that is unbelief.
We have got this simple sentence that we sometimes play in our minds and we fill in the blank in different ways: “When I get more _______ then I’m going to ________.”
• When I get more time then I’m going to do ministry.
• When I get more energy then I’m going to spend time with my kids.
• When I get more money then I’m going to give like I’d really like to.
• When I get more confidence then I’m going to share Christ.
• When I get more experience then I’m going to serve God.
• There are all kinds of ways we fill that in. Let me tell you a secret about this – you will never have enough!
God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Eph 3:20)
• Look at what Jesus did with five loaves and two fish. He asked the disciples to get the people to sit down and then took the loaves and gave thanks.
• Imagine how the disciples must have felt. You have Jesus standing there giving thanks for the food – five loaves and two fish – in the midst of over 10,000 people.
• I am sure they were thinking, “This is really ridiculous! This thing is not going to work. People are going to fight for the bread and fish.”
• But that did not happen. Jesus started dividing the bread and fish, and then everyone is filled. There was more than enough for everyone.
This is the lesson. You and I – when we take what we have and give it to Jesus, it is more than enough to accomplish what He wants to do.
• No matter how small or insignificant you feel the gift is. God can use it to accomplish His purpose. Trust God with what little you have.
• He does not demand from us what we do not have. But He expects us to offer what we have.
• God can take our little and He can do more with it than we can ever imagine. It starts with us trusting Him.
• Will you trust Him? Will you offer Him the little you have?
