I Wonder If It was a Friday?
Matthew 14:13-21; 15:29-39
October 30, 2006
Introduction
How many of you are from large families, either natural or extended?
And as we approach the holidays, do you find yourself hoping that they don’t decide to come to your place because you don’t know how you’re going to feed them all?
And even if they bring a lot of the food, you’re not always sure just what you’ll get, right?
Maybe Aunt Greta found a wonderful “holiday” recipe for pigs feet and chicken gizzards that she insists be part of the meal.
And while you’ve never intentionally prayed for someone to have car trouble, you’re thinking about doing that now…
Well, Jesus knows what it’s like to feed an army of people. And He did it in a way that not only met the need, it displayed His glory so that the disciples would see the power of God in Him.
Today we pick up where we left off in the gospel according to Matthew, as we look at one of the more famous episodes in the life of Jesus, as well as an episode that closely relates to it, and those are the feedings of the five thousand and four thousand.
These are great stories about how Jesus made a bunch of food from a little bit of food, but I think we can find some things to bring into our own lives as we read through them.
I’d invite you to turn with me to Matthew 14:13-21 and also chapter 15:29-39. If you’re reading from the Bibles under the seats, you can find these on pages 692-693.
I’m going to read through both passages, since there are a couple differences that you night notice as we go through them.
14:13-21 –
13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
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."
16 Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
17 "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered.
18 "Bring them here to me," he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
15:29-39 –
29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way."
33 His disciples answered, "Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?"
34 "How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked.
"Seven," they replied, "and a few small fish."
35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.
You’re probably wondering where I could have come up with a title like, “I Wonder If It Was a Friday?”
Actually, it has little to do with the passage, but more to do with my Catholic upbringing.
Growing up Catholic, we ate fish every Friday during Lent – that period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
Even the school served fish on Friday, and believe it or not, I enjoyed it.
Of course, I actually liked the cafeteria food at the schools I attended, unless it was that yukky canned spinach. (Shudder)
Anyway, Friday was “fish day” for me, growing up. And even today, you will find many of the restaurants serving fish specials on Fridays during Lent.
I mentioned that there is more to these stories than just what’s on the surface – that Jesus can make enough food for thousands of people.
So I want to point out four lessons we can learn from Jesus in these awesome stories, and I hope that you will take these with you today and really contemplate just what God would have you do with them.
Because disciples of Jesus are called to be doers of the Word, not just hearers.
Here we go. First…
Even Jesus needed time away, sometimes.
There were times when even the Son of God needed time away from the crowds and away from the pressures of ministry.
Verse 13 in chapter 14 talks about how Jesus went to get away to a solitary place. In Mark’s telling of this story, Jesus invites the disciples to join Him for a period of rest and recuperation.
The fact of the matter is that no matter who we are or what we do for a living, we are in need of rest.
The pressures of providing for our families and paying the bills, or even the pressures of leading a church can weigh on people to the point where if they don’t get away from the work, it will kill them.
This is the reason God instituted the Sabbath – it was for our benefit.
And let me tell you, this is hard for me. Working another job outside the church, I rarely get a day off. But if there is one thing that I’ve been learning lately, it’s that I have to force myself to just get away from the office and rest.
And so I’ve been working intentionally to try to get things done so I could take most Saturdays off. I’m not always successful, but it’s getting better.
And once I get the pattern established, I plan to use that time to actually spend time with my family instead of just catching up on lost sleep.
Some will say, “I’ll rest when I’m dead.” The problem is that, according to medical science, if you don’t rest now, you’ll get that rest in death much earlier than you had planned.
Folks, let me just ask you something: If even the Son of God needed a rest, don’t you think it’s a good idea for you? I don’t know about you, but I’m no match for the stamina and strength of Jesus, and my guess is that no one else here is, either.
Yes, we all have things to take care of each day, especially if you have livestock. But aside from those things that absolutely must be taken care of, we all need to rest.
God’s provision includes our involvement, oftentimes.
Notice that in neither of these incidents did Jesus miraculously make the food appear in the hands of the people waiting to eat. The disciples had to be involved.
Jesus could have just had everyone hold out their hands and have the food just appear. But he said, “Guys, I want you to get in on this. Take the food and pass it around.”
Now why would Jesus do that?
I think that one of the reasons was that it forced the disciples to witness the miracle from an angle they would not have gotten if they had stayed on the sidelines.
I wonder what was going through their brains when they looked at the fish and loaves and then looked out at the crowd.
“How is He going to do this? Only about 6 or 7 people are going to get fed, and when I give this fish to the first person, I won’t have anything else to give.”
So they hand a fish and/or a loaf, then look and there is more to give out.
Can you imagine what they were thinking as they saw these thousands of people being fed?
And they got to be part of that!
Here’s the point here: so often we’re pleading for a miracle of provision, and Jesus is sitting there going, “Okay, but I need your involvement!”
Let me bring this down to where we live. Some of you might be asking God to provide you some help with your finances.
Well one of the ways God does that is to provide those little things called, “jobs.” And you know what, we have to actually go out and find them.
“God, I need a job.” “Well, I’ve got one for you, and all you need to do is go out there and get it.”
We can’t just expect God to dump money or jobs into our laps. Can He? Yup. And has He? Yup. I can testify and others can as well that God has, at times, brought money and provision to us that we didn’t get from our jobs.
But nowhere in Scripture does God promise that will be the norm.
I think one of the lessons the disciples learned was that as they went about their ministries after Christ ascended to heaven, that God would provide, as long as they did their part.
Oftentimes, God’s provision includes our involvement.
God’s provision begins with what we’ve got, many times.
The disciples only had a few loaves and fish. They weren’t able to go to the grocery store and get more, and even if they had the time, they couldn’t afford food for that many people. So they had to obey Jesus using what they had.
My point here is that God doesn’t require more of our resources than we actually have.
For instance, we are to tithe on what we earn, not on what we wish we could earn, and not on what the rich guy down the street earns. And aren’t you glad for that?
We use the money, resources, time and energy we do have and we trust God to multiply that, if necessary, for His glory.
The temptation I have sometimes is to think, “Wow. If only I had this or that or this much money or whatever, here’s what I would do for God.”
But in reality, God doesn’t call us to discipleship or even pastoral ministry based on what we could do with unlimited resources, He calls us to these things with what we do have.
From that point, it’s His job to provide what we need to fulfill those callings.
And this leads me to the last lesson I want to discuss from this passage, and that is that…
The limit of our resources does not equal the limit of God’s resources, at all times.
I think it’s helpful to think through something of the sheer number of people we’re talking about in these stories.
In the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus didn’t just feed five thousand. He fed five thousand men, besides women and children. In the feeding of the four thousand, it was four thousand men, besides women and children.
Chances are there were between 10-20,000 at the first feeding, and close to that for the second feeding.
Obviously, what they had on hand wasn’t going to do the job in either case, and so if the people were going to get fed, God was going to have to do something.
Sometimes in our own lives and in the life of the church, we see something that we truly believe God wants us to do.
But we look at the sheer magnitude of the job, and we think there’s no way we can do it.
And we’re right – if we only look to what we have on hand. But with God involved, nothing is impossible.
I’ve you’ve been part of this church for a long time, you know that one of the reasons for building on this location was because the congregation back then and its leadership wanted to build a sanctuary that would seat about 300 people.
They wanted to impact a lot of people with the good news of Jesus and wanted them to have a place for worship.
And I believe we still should work toward that.
But if you were to look around today, you could easily say, “How is that possible with what we’ve got right now?”
I believe that God is saying to us as a church, “You can’t do it on your own. You need Me. And I want you to succeed, so My name will be glorified and My kingdom will be advanced. But you need me.
Your resources – people, money, time, energy, all that – are not nearly enough. But my resources are limitless and I’m ready to not just put them at your disposal but also to give you the power of my Holy Spirit to make it happen!”
Folks, when we move in the directions that we know from Scripture God wants us to move, then He fills in the gaps of what we need.
So the question I have for you is this: whether the issue is moving along in your spiritual growth, working toward the spiritual growth of your family, or working for the growth of the kingdom here in Aberdeen, are you finding yourself looking only at your own resources?
If so, allow me to encourage you to say, “God, I know what You want me to do. But I need You to step in, because I’m looking at what I’ve got to offer and it ain’t much. I’m trusting that You’ll multiply the loaves and the fish so I can be the best servant for You that I can be.”
And let me tell you something: I’m asking that question myself in regard to some large issues that I’m facing as I lead this church.
So this isn’t something that I’m just suggesting you do because it fits real nicely with the message.
I’m convinced that one of the marks of a disciple of Jesus is their willingness to step out on faith when they’re convinced God has called them to do something.
When it doesn’t look good from a practical standpoint, but you’re convinced that God is leading that way, you need to step out, believing that God’s going to provide where you’re lacking.
So I’m having to wrestle with some things in my own life and ministry.
And the question I have to ask myself is whether or not I’m willing to move ahead even if it looks like I’ve only got 5 loaves and two fishes.
Conclusion
Folks, it’s so easy to look at these episodes from Scripture and just pass them off as nice fluffy stories about how nice Jesus is – look at how He fed all those people. Isn’t that cool…
But I really believe that if we’ll take the time to grasp what God has for us to learn about Him and how He works, we can get excited about the work He has for us yet today so we can impact not just the current generation but those behind us for Christ.
So take an inventory of what you feel you have to offer to God – your resources, time, energy, talents. And when you’ve done that say, “Lord, I know it’s not much, but just like you multiplied those fish and those loaves, You can multiply these to feed people spiritually so they can find Jesus.
“Please help me to get involved as best I can, trusting in You to make up the difference.”
I hope that’s the prayer of your heart today. It’s my prayer for you.
Let’s pray.
