Right In Front Of You (Feeding Of 5000) Series

Right In Front of You

Feeding the 5000 | Dr. Marty Baker | September 20, 2009

Good morning and welcome to The Creek. I am so glad that you are here. I want to take this time to welcome all those in our Grovetown campus and all those watching across the world on the net. Today we are continuing our series called Inredible.

When I was a kid, I had a real competitive spirit. That nature was more than on the playing field, but it showed itself in every area of my life. My parents still laugh and talk about my drive to be first. They love to tell the story about me being the first one in line for the school bus. Every morning long before the bus arrived, I would go outside and put my books in bus line so that I could be in front. I wanted to be the first one on the bus. Patty will tell you that she was the one that the bus driver had to blow the horn in order to get her out of the house. Not me. I wanted to be in front.

I guess that passion to be in front came from my Dad. We’ve had season tickets at Carolina for over thirty years. We were always early for the games in Columbia. We liked to watch the team and so forth.

I can remember going to our first away game at Clemson in the 1970s. My Dad always wanted to make sure that we arrived on time, so we left very early that day. When we pulled into the parking lot, I thought it was sort of strange that we were able to park so close to the stadium. We jumped out of the car and headed into stadium only to discover that the gates were locked. They did not open the gates until three hours before the game. Needlesss to say, we were at the front of the line that day.

There’s nothing like being in front. When you are in front, you have a clear view of everything, but even then, sometimes you miss can something.

Have you ever been looking for something that was right in front of you all the time? A few weeks ago, Patty’s mother admitted to us that she was on her cell phone talking with her sister. They were engrossed in the conversation when she started looking for her essentials. You know we do that … you start gathering your keys, your wallet and so forth. As she was doing that, she said, “Oh no, where’s my cell phone?” She told her sister. Her sister tried to help her retrace her steps and asked her, “When was the last time she had it?” Then, she remembered that she was talking on the cell phone.

My Dad always had a slogan that he used to describe something that was right in front of you, but you couldn’t see it. He would say, “Son, if it were a snake, it would have bitten you.” That was his way of saying that you cannot see the forest for the trees. Both of these sayings talk about things that obvious to most people but for whatever reason you cannot see them.

So many times in life, the answer to our question is obvious. It’s right there, but you cannot see it. The solution to your problem is right in front of you. You already have what you need, just open your eyes.

Today I want to talk to you about the time that the twelve disciples of Jesus faced a huge dilemma and the answer to their challenge was right in front of them, but they could not see it.

This story happened along when the news of Jesus’ miraculous power began to spread through the region. As a result, crowds of people were flocking to Jesus, so much so that Jesus could not even get a moment alone.

The Bible says that Jesus and his twelve closest followers snuck away to a remote location for a little "R & R". The crowds found out where they were and crashed the party. There were probably five thousand men, five thousand women and possibly five to ten thousand children. All of these people went to this remote location and found Jesus.

Jesus had compassion on them and He began to teach them and heal them all day long until dusk. Now here’s the problem.

Matthew 14:15-16

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."