Where Shall We Buy Bread, That These May Eat?

John 6:5 Then 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.

Throughout His three years of ministry JESUS was pushing the disciples to grow and learn the lessons of the Kingdom.

Now, he asks them to sort out this difficult situation. I don’t think He had much expectation that they would get the right answer at first, but I do think He wanted them to learn the right answer through the experience.

What can we learn from their experience? We will be put in situations by Jesus that will test us too. He is far more interested in our growth than in our comfort.

? THERE ARE GENUINE NEEDS.

There is a huge crowd here. They’ve been traveling with Jesus for a while now. They are hungry.

Jesus wants to work through us. One of the reasons He wants to do that is because there are so many genuine needs in the world.

• There are people struggling with depression.

• There are people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from.

• There are people who see no point to their existence.

• There are people who need practical wisdom to live well.

All around us there are people with genuine needs. And we have not been called to stay inside the safe, secure walls of the church and tell each other how God thinks we’re great. We have been called to go out into enemy’s territory and rescue as many POWs as we can. We have been called to proclaim hope in a desolate land.

But like Philip, we think that WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO MEET THOSE NEEDS.

As a matter of fact, there are many instances in the bible where people though they didn’t have enough but were wrong… 1 kings 17:12 the widow of Zarephath told prophet Elijah… “As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.” …. but in verse 16 And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the LORD, which he spoke by Elijah.

2kings 4:2 the Shunammite woman said to Elisha … “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”…. But in verse 6 And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.

John 2:3 Mary said to Jesus…And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine”… But in verse water turned into wine 8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it

And the disciples said where would we get enough bread to feed them?… we don’t have enough, but they got 12 baskets extra after feeding the 20,000 people…

Philip is worried about the expense; it would be enormous. Andrew and the rest were right that there was a little there, but that concern was a drop in the bucket compared to the need.

We are often overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of the problems around us. We are all painfully aware of the societal problems we face right now. The drugs crisis, The bitter political divisions, The depression and loneliness, the wars, and rumors of wars…etc.

We are also aware of the problems of the church. So many who have an empty “belief” that doesn’t change their behavior, confusion of religious belief with political allegiance… yes, the global church is so off-track… but What’s our response?

Generally it is to shrink our vision of what we can do and settle for less. We understand how little we have in our hands and so we expect a small impact.

Just to use the example of baptisms, most churches have come to accept as normal that they will have only a handful of baptisms a year. In fact, even among mega churches, there is no expectations of dozens of baptisms. And so we don’t pray for that. We just decided and therefore know it’s not going to happen.

BUT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN THAT LITTLE IS MUCH WHEN JESUS HAS IT…