Title: There Was More Than Enough 02/17/02
West Side
Text: Matthew 14:13-21 A.M. Service
Purpose: In the hands of the master, effectiveness is not measured by the size of our resources.
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Introduction: (Use a real life story to illustrate how God works in miraculous ways.)
Chuck and Michele story of feeding 5000 people at their last church and how God answered prayer.
Setting the Stage
1. Jesus hears the news about the death of John the Baptist
2. He and His disciples try to get away for some solitude
3. Jesus is confronted again with the overwhelming task of healing sick and is moved with compassion
4. Disciples try to disperse the crowd to find food
5. Jesus says, "You give them something to eat"
6. 5 Loaves and 2 Fish
7. Jesus blesses, breaks and passes
8. 12 Baskets left over
Question: What can we learn from this miracle. One that is listed in all four of the gospels, must have some significance for us.
I. The Need Continued To Present Itself
A. We as human beings tend to be for many, goal oriented. The task is before us, we see the problem, Ok what can we do about it.
B. We want closure, there has to be an ending.
C. We live life in segments. We go from one task to the next
D. We get a little disheartened when the task before us seems overwhelming.
1. When you first sit down to do your taxes
2. When you walk downstairs to the children’s play area, the area you cleaned up just last Saturday, and it again is a mess.
3. After spending late hours on Friday, clearing your desk of all the "To do lists", only to arrive again Monday, with an overabundance of work, that have deadlines and irritable people to work with.
We live for the weekend. It’s here, time to shed all that responsibility, and just relax.
We find Jesus in v. 13 doing just that. After hearing of the news of John the Baptist, and having spent a great deal of time in ministry, it was time for a cruise, well, ok, may not a cruise, but at least to cruise to the other side of the lake to find some quiet time.
V. 14 says, that upon arriving, He went ashore, and He saw a great multitude, and felt compassion for them, and healed their sick.
For Jesus, the need was ever present. There was always going to be the sick, the hurting, and the lonely.
Jesus identified that the need was great, and there was not going to be an end, so he chose to be compassionate.
Our Real Need: As long as we live in this world, there will be things that will vie for our attention. Children, taxes, work, recreation, health, church. God has entrusted those things to us, and to live in balance and harmony with them.
Jesus showed the proper perspective in taking time to get away, to refocus, before the demands of everyday living overwhelming us. When there is such a large task before us, it important that we begin to set things in priority. But you can’t do that to the exclusion of the other.
Because the Scripture says that Jesus was moved with compassion. He could have gotten all bent out of shape, saying this is my day off, I’m not budging, but rather he was moved with compassion.
Our Reaction is what? Don’t bother me, I’ve got other things to do. You see we choose our attitude. We choose how we will respond in life. The task may seem overwhelming, but we still have the choice and in our reactions.
There will always be something to do. But our realization of the need, and our reaction, sets the stage for our response.
II. What are your resources?
A. The disciples have watched how Jesus responded, and now it is their turn.
After a long day of ministry, it was past dinner time, and the disciples come to Jesus and present the problem. " MT 14:15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food."
B. What was Jesus’ reply? "They don’t need to go away, you give them something to eat"
C. Picture with me. 5000 people, and Jesus says, you feed them. (look at crowd, look at Jesus, look at crowd, look at Jesus.)
Our Responsibility: There will come times in your life, when the problem seems so overwhelming, that we might respond to Jesus and say, look God, I’ve got this problem, and Jesus turns it around to use it as a faith lesson. A lesson of trusting in him. Jesus waits for teachable moments.
This miracle was going to be important because in a little while they were going to see it duplicated. This miracle was the feeding of the 5000 Jews, while the next story relates to 4000 Gentiles being fed.
Our Resources: "But God, we’ve ONLY five loaves and two fish."
Don’t you just love it. Here it is again. Before they looked at the crowd, then to Jesus, and back again. Now they look at Jesus, look at the baskets and then look at the crowd and back to Jesus again.
Jesus we ONLY have five loaves and two fish. Notice the word ONLY. Don’t you think that Jesus knew what resources they had. Don’t you think that Jesus is waiting to see how we respond when an overwhelming situation arises.
You see the disciples had made the computations in their head without taking the Master into consideration. Granted, these disciples were all kinds of different people. There were some who were great at crunching numbers, I can see Matthew the tax collector, processing the ration of food to the amount of people divided by the amount of time necessary for distribution, multiplied by exerted energy. No God we can’t do it. The numbers don’t add up.
I remember one writer who made a statement similar to this in when referring to the misapplication of the preaching of the law, when he said something to the effect that the numbers are not yet in of the people who have been lost, because of the misapplication of legalism.
We will not yet know, of the countless people who may have been lost over the years, because of missed opportunities.
Does that mean we just throw caution to the wind? No, I think it is clear through out Scripture of how God wants us to live responsibly, and to be good stewards. But neither can we measure all of our effectiveness by the size of our resources.
So what made the difference?
Our Response: Jesus said, in verse 18, "Bring them here to Me."
What a comfort. What a resource. What a blessing. "Bring them here to me."
Your Alabaster offering: God, all I have is 57 cents
Illustration: 57 Cents
Dr. Russell H. Conwell, relates this touching story of “57 Cents” in his book “Acres of Diamonds.” (Authenticated from Snopes.com about Urband Legends)
Conwell, Russell H. Acres of Diamonds.
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1915 (pp. 88-92).
One afternoon a little girl, who had eagerly wished to go, turned back from the Sunday-school door, crying bitterly because there was no more room . . . [I] asked her why it was that she was crying, and she sobbingly replied that it was because they could not let her into the Sunday-school . . . I said to her that I would take her in, and I did so, and I said to her that we should some day have a room big enough for all who should come.
She was a lovable little thing — but in only a few weeks after that she was taken suddenly ill and died; and at the funeral her father told me, quietly, of how his little girl had been saving money for a building-fund. And there, at the funeral, he handed me what she had saved — just fifty-seven cents in pennies.
At a meeting of the church trustees I told of this gift of fifty-seven cents — the first gift toward the proposed building-fund of the new church that was some time to exist. For until then the matter had barely been spoken of, as a new church building had been simply a possibility for the future.
The trustees seemed much impressed, and it turned out that they were far more impressed than I could possibly have hoped, for in a few days one of them came to me and said that he thought it would be an excellent idea to buy a lot on Broad Street — the very lot on which the building now stands.
I talked the matter over with the owner of the property, and told him of the beginning of the fund, the story of the little girl. The man was not one of our church, nor, in fact, was he a church-goer at all, but he listened attentively to the tale of the fifty-seven cents and simply said he was quite ready to go ahead and sell us that piece of land for ten thousand dollars, taking — and the unexpectedness of this deeply touched me — taking a first payment of just fifty-seven cents and letting the entire balance stand on a five-per-cent mortgage!
III. Source of Blessings Come from God
A. But now notice what happens.
B. These 5 little loaves of bread and two fish, when given to Jesus, are multiplied.
C. V. 19 says that he took the loaves and fish, and looking up toward heaven, he blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes.
Jesus’ Prayer: He blessed, He broke, and He passed
We don’t know exactly how this miracle was accomplished.
Three different ways
1. Jesus continued to bless, and break, break, break, and pass to this disciple, and then bless, and break, break, break to the next disciple. But the real miracle would have been in the distribution of it, to feed over 5000 men.
2. Or it might have been that the miracle happened after the Lord blessed and broke and passed, and as the disciples then were obedient to pass it multiplied in their hands as well, so that everyone could eat.
3. Or as one commentator described, it might have been that Jesus had begun to break down some stereotypes and wall of selfishness and moved into the arena of compassion. It would not have been unthinkable to believe that people traveling and gathering would have brought enough food for themselves, and that there was food available, but that no one was really sharing, but upon seeing the blessing of God, and the disciples sharing from the Lord, that they too, began to share with those around. (First pot luck)
However it was done, we don’t know, but they did feed 5000. As they carried out the command of Christ. When they went into partnership with Jesus in doing it. The lesson for every Christian is that, no matter how impossible his assignments may seem, with divine help it can be done. For as it says in Luke 1:37 "nothing is impossible with God." That our source of blessing comes from God. V. 20 says, that they all ate, and were satisfied.
But the story doesn’t end there.
IV. There was more than enough
Verse 20b "And they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets."
It had been an occasion in which the disciples overemphasized the problem and underemphasized the resources, for they underestimated the Master.
Jesus’ provision: 12 full baskets. Isn’t it interesting that there were 12 disciples as well. They now had more than enough for the next day’s meals as well.
The lesson is that as we give to God our resources, God blesses them, and always provides more than enough.
Jesus’ Promise: As the story is recorded in John 6:1-14, just shortly thereafter Jesus says to the multitude vs. 32-35, "Jesus said to them, ’I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’
JN 6:34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."
JN 6:35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
Conclusion: Faith Lesson
1. There will always be a need
2. We must respond as Jesus would
3. We can not measure our effectiveness by the size of our resources.
4. Acknowledge that God is the source of our blessings
5. Our Faith is to believe that God understands the size of the need and responds through our faith and obedience.
6. There will always be more than enough.
