Feeding The Five Thousand
John 6:1-13
: Pastor Dan Turpin westcoastchurch.com
Objective Sentence: Everyone can receive a miracle in their lives by understanding the principles that Jesus taught when feeding the five thousand.
Introduction: Tommy Barnett: In the midst of impossible situations I have just kept saying, “There’s got to be a miracle in the house!” And God comes through—sometimes in ways I could never have imagined.
Pastor Dan: Somehow, Someway, by some set of supernatural circumstances and by some miracle means I am going to come out on top.
#1. Impossibilities test our ability to trust (Jn. 6:5-6 Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He
said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” 6 But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would
do)
A. C. S. Lewis: God, who foresaw your tribulation, has especially armed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.
1. Faith grows strong through the stress of endurance
a. Pastor Dan: Pressure reveals leaks (Plumbing)
b. James 1:2-5
c. Mary Case: No pressure no diamonds. Chinese Proverb: The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor the man
perfected without trials.
d. Deut. 8:3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to
you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that
comes from the mouth of the Lord.
e. John of the Cross: In tribulation, immediately draw near to God with trust, and you will receive strength, enlightenment and
instruction.
f. Malachi 3:10 Bring in the tithes and prove me
g. Napoleon Bonaparte: Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
2. Trials reveal the strength and weakness of character
(Romans 5:1-8 and not only that but we glory in tribulation)
a. John 6:6 Jesus said this to prove him
b. Isaac Newton: Trials are medicines which our gracious and wise Physician prescribes because we need them; and he
proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires. Let us trust his skill and thank him for his
prescription.
c. Henry Ward Beecher: Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things
d. Psalms 139:2-4 Test me Oh God…
e. Author Unknown: A faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted
f. Ps. 66:10, 12 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined. You have caused men to ride over
our heads; we went through fire and through water; but You brought us out to rich abundance
g. 1 Thess. 2:4 God tests our heart Gen. 22:1-17 Abraham
h. Watchman Nee: We must not allow difficulties to shut us out from God, but rather we must take advantage of them by
using trials to shut us in with Him.
#2. There is already a miracle in God’s mind for every need you have of Him (Jn. 6:6 This He said to test Him for He already knew
what he would do )
A. Oswald Chambers: 2 Peter 1:2-4 We are made partakers of the divine nature, receiving and sharing God’s nature through His
promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is
the habit of recognizing God’s provision for us. God will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will
only obey Him (Philippians 4:19).
1. God knows what you need before you ask
a. Matthew 6:8 God knows your need before you ask E. Stanley Jones: If God already knows what we need before we ask
then why does He require that we ask Him for things. He requires that we ask so that we may learn to trust Him. Pastor
Dan: One of our big problems, even in prayer, is that we attempt to center God our lives around God instead of centering
our lives around God. God knows about your and my needs and has promised to supply them according to his riches in
glory by Christ. The higher purpose of prayer is friendship with God,which is better and greater than the sum total of his
abundant riches.
b. Watchman Nee: Necessity is the foundation for miracles. Great difficulties are meant only to force us out of ourselves into
reliance on Him. When there is no way forward or back, then God is able. He has a plan. So do not fear impossibilities;
c. Phil. 4:19 God shall supply all your need
d. Phil. 2:13 For God is working in your giving you desire and the power to do what pleases Him.
e. Watchman Nee: You would like to have light in order to read and there is a reading lamp on the table beside you. What do
you do? Do you watch it intently to see if the light will come on? Do you take a cloth and polish the bulb? No, you turn it on.
You turn your attention to the source of power, and when you have taken the action there, the light comes on. Dwell always
upon what God has done in Christ, and let Him take care of what He will do in you.
2. God knows what He is doing (Jn. 6:6 He knew what he would do)
a. David Ben Gurion: Anyone who doesn't believe in miracles isn't a realist.
b. Mark 16:17 these signs shall follow them that believe
c. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5 for my speech and my preaching…
e. Pastor Dan: God did not command us to understand everything He allows us to encounter in life, He simply requires that we
trust Him in and through every situation we encounter in life.
f. Proverbs 3:5-8
#3. When God desires to do something big he reaches for someone small (John 6:9 a kid has 5 loaves and 2 fish)
A. Helen Keller: I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great
and noble.
1. Little things count (Rocky Herald)
a. John 6:9 Pastor Dan: An unnamed and seemingly insignificant boy (insignificant as far as him being capable of contributing
anything important towards the needs of that multitude) offers a seemingly irrelevant gift (in view of the vast number of hungry
people). And yet, the Lord used that insignificant boy who gave an irrelevant gift to meet the needs of a multitude. When the
smallest of people offer to God what they are capable of giving—great things happen.
b. Luke 16:10 Amplified Bible: He who is faithful in a very little thing, is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest and
unjust in a very little thing, is dishonest and unjust also in much.
c. Luke 16:10 Message Bible: If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things; If you’re a crook in small things,
you’ll be a crook in bug things. If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store. No worker can
serve two bosses: He’ll either hate the first and love the second or adore the first and despise the second. You can’t serve
both God and the bank.
d. Blaise Pascal: Do little things as if they were great, because of the majesty of the Lord Jesus Christ, who dwells in you; and
do great things as if they were little and easy, because of His omnipotence.
e. Cassiodorus: He is invited to do great things who receives small things greatly.
f. Gideon Judges 6:15-16; 1 Peter 5:5-8 humble yourself
g. Luke 16:10 Eerdman’s: We have the broad rule, upon which God will decide the soul’s future, laid down. If the man or
woman has been faithful in his or her administration of the comparatively unimportant goods of earth, it is clear that he or she
can be entrusted with the far more important things which belong to the world to come.
h. Ralph Duncan: The less that God has to work with the more that He can do with it. Compare the feeding of the 5000 with
the feeding of the 4000:
** Feeding of the 4000
Matthew 15:32-39—7 loaves and few little fish
There was less people to feed 4000 but they had more to feed the multitude with 7 loaves and a few little fish—but they
had less left over 7 baskets.
** Feeding the 5000
John 6:1-14 There were 5000 men in the group and they had 5 loaves and 2 fish to feed them with. When it was all over
there were 12 baskets left. When feeding 5000 he had less to work with but ends up with more left over.
B. Luke 16:10 Eerdman; The Law of Inward Growth: The Lord of our nature knew that it was “in humanity” to do any act more
readily and easily the second time than the first, the third than the second, and so on continually; that every disposition, faculty, principle, grows by exercise. This is true in the physical, the mental, and also in the spiritual sphere. It applies to acts of
submission, of obedience, of courage, of service. One who is faithful to-day will find it a simpler and easier thing to be faithful to- morrow. He that is faithful in that which is least will, in the natural order of spiritual things, be faithful also in much. Of course, the
converse of this is equally true.
1. God uses little people
a. David 1 Samuel 17:1-54
b. Daniel Chapters 1 and 2
c. John Henry Newman: To take up the cross of Christ is no great action that is done once and for all; it consists in the
continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.
d. Francois Fenelon: It is only by fidelity in little things that a true and constant love of God can be distinguished from a passing
fervor of spirit.
e. Thomas Jefferson: He or she does most in God’s great world who does best in his or her own little world.
g. 1 Samuel 10:20-24 Saul started out as a big little person and ended up as a little big person 1 Samuel 15:17.
h. 2 Chronicles 26:5 Uzziah prospered until he became strong and then he fell and was cursed with leprosy 2 Chronicles 26:16
i. Monica Baldwin: What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the
closest possible intimacy with God.
j. Pastor Dan: God uses little people, those who see themselves insignificant in their own eyes, but who can see God as big
and all powerful—they are those who will work through their weaknesses and accomplish something relevant through
their faith in the power of God.
k. 2 Kings 5:1-15 Naaman the syrian general
#4 God meets our needs when our attention is focused on the needs of others (John 6:5 and 13 Jesus saw a great multitude…
twelve baskets left over )
A. F.F. Bosworth: It is impossible for a farmer to have faith for a harvest until the seed has been planted. Henry D. Thoreau:
Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seek has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you
have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.
1. Jesus asked for no more than they had but he would accept nothing less (Ralph Duncan)
a. Proverbs 11:23-24 Scatter and yet increases
b. John Bunyan: There was a man and they called him mad; the more he gave the more he had.
c. Pastor Dan: Jesus blesses, breaks, multiplies and uses what give to Him. He then returns more to us than we originally
gave so we will learn to trust His ability to supply our John 6:13 Twelve baskets left
d. Watchman Nee: The divine almightiness is content to confine itself to our capacity. The oil of God’s Spirit flows according to
the measure that people prepare for God. Divine blessing is subject to the limits of human channels. We do not have the
power to obtain anything more than God has given, but we do have the option taking less.
e. Haggai 1:2-9 this is your time to build
B. Persian Proverb: Every man and woman goes down to his death bearing in his hands only that which he or she has given away
1. You get back what you gave when you give what you got (John 6:13)
a. Pastor Dan: There were 12 baskets of fish and bread left over after the multitude had eaten. The Lord returned to the one
who gave to him exactly what he had given—multiplied over and over again. We reap what we sow and much
more Galatians 6:6-9
b. Luke 6:38 give and it will be given
c. 1 Samuel 2:20-21 Hannah gives a son and receives 5 children
d. Ann Wigmore; Sprouting Book: At the foundation of the living foods concept is the seed. Filled with nutrients needed by the
growing plant, and suffused with vital enzymes, seeds are the very core of life. All the energy and life of a plant goes toward
making seeds. When air, water, and a suitable temperature are provided, a miracle begins—the seeds begins to sprout, and
an incredible flow energy is released.
e. 1 Kings 17:8-16 The widow gives her last supper from the meal barrel and is blessed with enough food to get them
through the famine.
Invitation and Closing: William Jennings Bryan: Some skeptics say, “Oh, the miracles. I can't accept miracles.” One may drop a brown seed in the black soil and up comes a green shoot. You let it grow and by and by you pull up its root and find it red. You cut the root and it has a white heart. Can anyone tell how this comes about—how brown cast into black results in green and then red and white? Yet you eat your radish without troubling your mind over miracles. Men are not distressed by miracles in the dining room—they reserve them all for religion! Mark 9:23 All things are possible to Him or Her who believes.
