Loaves and Fishes
CCCAG May 13th, 2018
Scripture- John 6:1-13
Promise Keepers food line
In 1996 a bunch of guys packed ourselves into church vans and drove down to Indianapolis for a Promise Keepers event at was at that time the Indianapolis Superdome. The Superdome could hold over 68,000 people if you opened up the field for seating, and it was sold out as men from all over the country came to hear some of the biggest names in Christianity speak into their lives about being Godly men, husband, and fathers.
One of the things that impressed me is how the organizers of the event fed over 60,000 men. We had multiple food lines in which we picked up a box lunch and just found a place to sit outside and eat it. Inside the box lunch was a sandwich, a bag of chips, an apple and then we picked up a soda can or a water at the end of the tables.
As I was sitting there eating my lunch, I started to think about having to organize something like this. It’s just the way my brain works- I have to figure out how something like this can be pulled off.
In the goal of feeing 60000 men in 90 minutes
Someone had to buy the food months in advance on faith that they would have enough money
They had to find someone to make that many sandwiches. If I remember right it was Subway that made them. They would have had to have every single Subway restaurant in the city making sandwiches for 1000’s of employee hours to fulfill this order. I have no idea how many Subways there were in 1996, but today there are 20 in the greater Indianapolis area, which means if they did that today each restaurant would have to make 3,400 sandwiches.
In case you wonder what I do with my time during the week….I figure stuff like this out.
Someone had to fold the boxes
Someone had to bring the food from where it was prepared to the site.
Dozens of volunteers than had to pack the boxes
28 pallets containing 2400 cans of soda and water would have to be transported and kept cold and ready for lunch.
60,000 apples and various bags of chips.
Then the cleanup. That would be monstrous in it self keeping the garbage and recycling separate.
Yet it went through without a hitch because of great leadership within the PK organization.
Keep this in mind the planning it took and the logistics necessary to pull this off of this as we study today’s scripture.
Sometimes we look at the historical accounts in the bible and think that God organizes things on the fly instead of seeing God’s sovereign plan at work within the confines of a story.
This event from John 6 is certainly miraculous. Jesus takes a poor boys lunch and uses it to feed 5000 men, and if you consider the woman and children that were most certainly there, the number increases to probably 20-25,000 people.
I want to take a few of the people involved in this story and a few points within this biblical account this morning and help you see how God uses seemingly unrelated details to unfold His will in this instance.
Because If we can see His hand in this story, we can trust it for our lives.
Prayer
I. Phillip
A. Phillip shows us God’s sovereignty and plan
The disciples were not picked at random. It wasn’t like Jesus grabbed the first 12 guys he knew or saw and made them disciples. The disciples were chosen in eternity past to be the men who would take the Gospel to their known world.
Phillip was one of these men. When I was studying this account, I asked the question- why did Jesus ask Phillip how he was going to feed these people?
Phillips is not part of the inner circle of Peter, James, and John.
He isn’t an accountant like Matthew who probably could have tossed the number right off the top of his head.
Jesus didn’t ask Judas how much money they had if they could afford it.
He didn’t use it to teach doubting Thomas a lesson of faith.
He asked Phillip. Why?
It turns out that they are in the area of Bethsaida on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee- Phillips hometown. The majority of the disciples were from the Western side of Galilee, and he would have been their local expert in this area.
When Tammie and I moved here, the Phillipson’s (I know, appropriate for this part of the sermon) were our primary point of contact and our local area experts. We pestered them with dozens of emails asking about various things within the city prior to moving here, and even afterward- things like, “What the heck is this blue bag thing for garbage”- in Kenosha blue bags are only used for recycling, and then only put on the curb during certain days. You can laugh about that, but it was really hard for us city folk to wrap our mind around that is how we pay for Tri-County Sanitation to take care of our garbage.
Phillip would know everything about this area.
Phillip knows the local prices, where the Subways Sandwich shops are located (just kidding, it was Cousin’s subs back then), and could give a quick and accurate estimate on the sheer impossibility of feeding that many people.
God in His sovereignty made sure that Jesus had these particular men to be His disciples in order to maximize the effectiveness of the Gospel message getting out into the world at that time in history.
What does that mean for you and me?
God’s sovereignty is still at work. HE still calls and ensures that the right people are in the right place at the right time.
That means you are not in this church, in this area, in that place of employment by accident. You are part of God’s sovereign plan to see the Kingdom of God advance in this area.
We elevate the biblical apostles to a place we think we can never go. If you believe that you miss the point of God using these men and women and recording their lives for us to read about.
They were just like you and me.
Really if you look at it from a modern church planting perspective- you would never chose any of them to help you plant a church.
They had families, they had regular jobs, they had their own fear, doubt, and unbeliefs, and failed more than they succeeded during Christ’s time on this earth.
Yet God used them anyway. Right where they were. Despite their issues, despite their lack of faith, despite their fleshly desires for fame and personal ambition.
God used them.
If God can use these guys, men that our modern church would consider unfit for service in the Kingdom- what is your excuse for not serving God?
You are part of God’s plan. Say that with me- “I am part of God’s plan”
IF you simply believe that, prepare for God to open up heaven over your life. There is nothing more thrilling then seeing God work in your life and in the lives of those you touch.
The second point of this story I want to touch on today is
II. The Boy and his lunch
The story gives us a few hints about this boy-
I would imagine this boy was close enough to the disciples to hear Jesus’ question to Phillip. This boy made sure he had a front row seat to listen to Jesus.
HE probably had been waiting there all day, and made sure he had a good seat when Jesus finally landed on the beach and decided where he would teach from.
He was poor. Barley was the bread poor people ate. They didn’t get wonder bread, or even wheat bread. Wheat had trouble growing in the lowlands of Galilee while Barley sprouted up everywhere. So the poor would go out and pick Barley to make their bread.
The video we watched showed fish about the size of an average bluegill we would know today, but in the bible story we are talking something the size of a sardine.
So we have 5 small cakes of Barley, and two small sardines we assumed his mother packed for him to spend the day seeing Jesus teach.
The boy overheard the Rabbi talking to his friends and needing food for all these people. With a childlike faith, he tugs on Andrew’s robe and offers his lunch to Jesus.
I was thinking about this yesterday as I drove home from Black River. What did Andrew think when they are faced with this overwhelming and hungry crowd, and some boy offers up a small lunch.
I wonder how many times the boy had to tug on Andrew’s robe before Andrew even acknowledge him.
I wonder sometimes if there is a bit of sarcasm here in Andrew. After all, He is Peter’s brother and we know how sharp-tongued Peter was.
Yet, this child offering up the everything he had touched Jesus. There is something about childlike faith that stirs the heart of God.
This boy said, “Jesus, I don’t have a lot, but here it is.”
He wasn’t worried about people’s opinions- Jesus needed food so he gave.
HE wasn’t worried about being hungry himself- HE knew Jesus would take care of him.
The boy wasn’t afraid to take that leap of faith, because he knew he was safe in the arms of Jesus.
In Hayward, behind the National Fishing Hall of Fame there used to be a swimming dock on Lake Hayward that if you jumped off one side it was 4 feet deep, but if you jumped off the other side it was 8 feet deep.
After my mom died one of the pictures we found was me at 4 years old jumping off the deep side into my father’s arms, even though he couldn’t touch bottom either.
I have no memory of that, other than what we see in the picture, but I know I would have had to trust my dad a lot to take that risk and jump into water that was 5 feet over my head.
That’s the kind of faith being exhibited by this boy who give his meager lunch to Jesus. He makes that leap of faith and Jesus is blessed.
What does this simple act of faith show us today?
1. God doesn’t need a lot to work with, but He needs something
5 small barley cakes and 2 sardines would barely satisfy the hunger of this young boy, much less put any sort of dent in feeding 10s of thousands of people, yet God used it to show us something.
God can take your little bit and accomplish amazing things with it.
But if you are not willing to let go of your lunch and trust God, God cannot nor will not move.
Many of you are missing out of what God has for you because you have not trusted Him with what is precious to you.
Maybe you choose to worry instead of pray and trust
Maybe you need a financial breakthrough and you hold onto your money with two tight fists.
Maybe you worry about the future so you accumulate possessions and wealth.
Maybe God is waiting for you to take the closed fists that are holding onto the things of this world, and let go and Let him have it.
Let me address this with a little bit of deeper teaching this morning
A quick theological term- dispensation
A dispensation is simply a time period which defines how God choses to relate with humanity and the conditions that have to be met by humanity to please God. It’s not a perfect tool, but it’s a tool for us to further understand the how and why God does what He does.
Very quickly this is how a dispensational theologian would divide biblical history-
Prior to the first sin of Adam and Eve- they lived in the dispensation of innocence
After the fall of man to Noah, the dispensation of conscience
After Noah to Abraham the dispensation of government
Abraham to Moses was the dispensation of patriarchs
Moses through Jesus’s death was the dispensation of law
After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus to heaven, We now exist in the dispensation of grace
Listen closely- God has chosen, in this dispensation of grace, to relate to you and me through our faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Faith is the key to getting God’s attention. In relation to this story of a boy giving up his lunch, it means there has to be some sort of action on our part for God to move. That action involves faith.
God is so serious about this that Paul writes in Romans that
Romans 14:23b For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
You might say, “But I don’t understand how God can take my talent, treasure, or time and do anything for his Kingdom”
Your understanding of how God can use you or something you have is not required, because frankly if you knew it wouldn’t be a matter of faith.
This boy giving up his lunch had no idea how Jesus could use it. But he still gave it.
He just gave it, and his story is one of the most told stories in the whole bible. I hope that boy came to a saving faith in Jesus because I want to meet him in heaven. HE is on my visitation list in heaven.
III. The abundance
A. Reward of Faith
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
Jesus had a second goal in his feeding of these people. He was showing His disciples what he could do with a simple act of obedience and faith.
It isn’t so much what you give, it’s the heart attitude in which you give it.
Remember the widows 2 mites? Let me paraphrase the story- In the Gospels of Mark and Luke there is an account about Jesus sitting at the temple next to the offering box, looking at how much people put into it. The rich guys- people as rich as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet made a big show about emptying bags of coins that clinked loudly as they fell into the box, and after they sat down, an old widow slowly walked up and put 2 pennies into the box- her last two pennies.
Jesus didn’t say a thing about the overabundance of wealth poured in by the rich that was seen by everyone, but he said that this woman, by exercising faith in God, blessed God more than the two billionaires did.
Faith is the key.
This last Wednesday, we were studying Hebrews 11, and verse 6 says this about faith-
And 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.
One of the best lessons about faith I learned was from my previous pastor. I remember sitting in staff or board meeting with him and looking at the financial report and worrying about how we are going to pay the bills.
He asked us to go to prayer about it. After we prayed, he said we need to find some needy ministry and give to it.
I’m thinking, “Give what?” We have no money to give if we want to power to stay on and the staff to get paid.
I admit, sometimes faith is hard for me. I’m a guy that relies on science, facts, and proven methods to help hurt and sick people, and I’m being told that I have to just trust in the unseen and hope God hears us.
But Pastor Ron was right- His answer was always pray, then give. He said we need to exercise faith, because faith is what will bring God’s blessing into our situation.
And you know what- it always worked.
Jesus said this in Luke 6:38-
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
This verse was illustrated to the disciples by the gathering of 12 baskets of left overs, one for each of them. God giving them a basket of blessing to carry around to show them that if you give Him everything you have, you will always have enough, and even more so you can share if with others.
We are going to end today with communion. Communion celebrates a God that gave all that He had, so that through the exercise of faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, we would be saved.
Altar Call
