You
know, Jesus was tired. Can you imagine
God being tired? I get tired and I’m
not God, but even He, even Jesus got tired, and so He wanted to rest. Big crowds were following Him, and so He,
here in Mark, chapter 6, if you want to follow along in your Bible. Mark, chapter 6, and verse 31, He said to
the 12 disciples, "Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place,” He knew this special little place, “and get some rest."
And so, in verse 32, “they went away by themselves to a solitary place.” They went by boat. They knew this special place.
It was deserted. It was
solitary. It was woodsy, and when they
got there, poor Jesus, He was tired, bone tired, but He couldn’t hide, and like
hounding reporters, the kind that hound, they work for Enquirer magazine, or
someplace, I don’t know. They hound
celebrities. They suspected that Jesus
would go to a certain place and when He got there, everybody was there. Huge crowd of people waiting for Jesus, and
so what happened?
Well,
look at verse 34. “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd,” He said to His disciples, “Get back in the boat. We’re out of here. We’re tired.” Is that
what Jesus said? What does it say that
He did?
“He had compassion on them.” He loved people. He
had compassion on them “because they were like
sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things,” and He went on and on and on. He was a teacher. He was
a tired teacher, and it was the same crowd that He just left. You would think they would have had enough,
but they wanted more. Instead of being
angry, Jesus was moved with love.
Now
notice that Jesus lovingly set aside His basic rights so that He could meet the
needs of the people. I think, today,
American Christians are focused on maintaining our personal rights. That’s why we put fences around our
property. That’s why we lock our
cars. We do a lot of things to maintain
our personal rights. Jesus had very few
personal rights. He was always willing
to give of Himself to His people. We
are consumed with building our kingdom when we ought to be consumed with
building His kingdom. And notice that
Jesus lovingly ministers to these people.
He did it out of love in His heart that He might provide for their
needs. And that’s why He came to this
world is to provide for our needs. I’m
so glad He did.
Now
the crowd was big. We know how big they
were because it tells how many people were hungry. There were 5 thousand men plus their families, and the average
family, I suppose, has a man and his wife and 2 children, so that would be 4
times 5 thousand. That’s 20 thousand
people that were there. That is a big
crowd, and you think about that, especially that is momentous when you consider
the territory. Capernaum was a town of
2 thousand people. Bethsaida was a town
of 2 thousand people. Where did they
get 20 thousand people from? I don’t
know. The crowds only got thicker after
the martyrdom of John the Baptist, and it has been said often that the blood of
the martyrs is the seed and the fertilizer of the church, and I believe that.
And
this crowd was hungry. They were at the
first meeting with Jesus. Then they got
there before He landed, and they were again at Jesus’ feet, and they were a
hungry crowd. Now you may be surprised
at this, but did you know that other than the resurrection this is the only
miracle of all the miracles of Jesus Christ that is mentioned in all 4
gospels? This is an important
miracle. If you have missed some of
these other sermons today, this miracle is vital. No miracle was done before so many witnesses as this miracle, and
this miracle, Jesus absolutely created something out of nothing, you might as
well say. He created new matter. In restoring sight to the blind, He would
just touch them and basically repair or restore. If they were crippled, He would repair, but here was absolute new
creation. The only other miracle that
resembles this one is the one were He made the wine out of the water, and of
these 2 miracles, one represents His blood and one represents His body.
There
are 4 possible answers to feeding 20 thousand people. Could you do it? Could
you invite 20 thousand over for lunch?
The disciples said, and here’s the first answer, “Send them away. We can’t--there’s no way. We don’t have this kind of food. Tell them to go home before it gets too
dark.”
You
know, if you’re in school and have a problem, the obvious answer is, “Just
quit. Get out of here. Be a dropout. Quit.” If you’ve got a
marriage and there’s a problem, the first thing that comes to your mind,
“Divorce!” “Get out of here. Send them away. Let them get food somewhere else.” That’s the disciple’s reaction.
But you know, there weren’t any Taco Bells there. There were no Burger Kings with veggie
sandwiches. Those things weren’t there.
So,
idea number 2. Philip. Philip said, “The situation is
impossible. We can’t afford to feed
them. We don’t even have the money in
the first place, let alone the food,” like the other disciples said. “We can’t afford it,” and then he says, well
look over here in John 6. This is where
the bulk of this miracle is. Come to
John 6. This is where we’ll spend most
of our time. The size of the crowd,
mathematician Philip starts figuring things out. A denarius is 1 day's wage, maybe here, and it would take 2
hundred day’s wages to purchase enough wheat to cook and bake some bread, and
each person--Philip said, “This is impossible.” Pessimist Philip focused on the physical factors. Notice John 6, verse 7. ”Philip answered
Him, ‘Eight month’s wages wouldn’t be enough bread for each person to have 1
bite.’" Not even enough for
1 bite.
And
we act like Philip sometimes. You know,
a big bill comes in the mail, and we get the checkbook out, and there isn’t
enough money there and we’re fretting and fuming, “There’s not enough
money.” Maybe a cog slips in the
household machinery at your house. An
unanticipated demand, and we go bonkers.
“We just can’t do this, Lord.
It’s impossible. I can’t pay my
bills this month,” and do we, like Philip, look at our personal resources? Maybe it’s time to spread your difficulty
before Jesus. Maybe instead of looking
at our personal resources, we ought to look at God’s resources. Maybe we ought to have a habit of turning to
Him. Let’s ask Jesus for help and then
wait on His help. I mean, what is our
emptiness compared with the ocean of His fullness? He has it all.
The
third possible answer comes from Andrew.
Now this is in verse 9. Andrew
scoured the crowd and finally he found a little boy, and ”He said, ‘There is a lad here, which hath 5 barley loaves,
and 2 small fishes, but what are they among so many?’” Andrew says, “I’ve found this little
lad. He’s got a little lunch.” Praise God for optimistic Andrew. I mean, I don’t think he did it out of
sarcasm. I think he really believed,
“Maybe here’s the seed for something great.”
I wish we had a whole church full of Andrews. I kind of like Andrew.
Instead of looking at the crowd, he looks at Jesus, and with Jesus
you’re never going to be out of food.
Andrew’s hope was not in his money, but in his Master. I wish we had Andrew here today to tell us
about this story. I’m sure it would be
so fascinating to hear a first-hand account.
How thankful we should be that God's blessings are dispensed not
according to the riches of His grace, but according to our needs. Andrew brought to Jesus the material for the
miracle. That’s what he did, and a
miracle happened. Andrew was always
bringing people to Jesus.
And
the final solution comes from Jesus Himself.
Jesus said, “Give Me the loaves and the fish.” Now before we talk about the miracle, let’s talk about the little
lad. There are at least 6 things that
we know about this little boy.
First
of all, number 1, he was small. He was
just a boy, and maybe he had gone to his mother and said, “Mommy, I want to go
see Jesus today. Could you fix me a
lunch?”, and maybe she fixed him up a nice little lunch, you know, of 5 little
loaves of bread and 2 pickled fish, or salted fish. I don’t know how you fix--they couldn’t be fresh because they
would spoil in Palestine that way, or maybe she said, “Well good, I’ll go with
you, and daddy’ll go with you. We’ll go
as a family.”
Number
2, the boy was extremely poor. Now how
do we know he was poor? Well, if you
look at this, you wouldn’t get that from the lunch. The lunch seemed to be adequate, but the reason we know he was
poor is because the loaves were made out of barley, and barley was the feed of
animals. Barley was poor people’s food,
and so we know this lad was poor.
Number
3, his lunch wasn’t really that large for a growing boy. I remember when I was a boy, I used to say,
“You know, mom, mommy, if I don’t eat I’ll die. We’ve got to eat.” I
remember my dad had a garden and would bring the corn in, and sometimes I
remember eating 8 ears of corn as a boy.
Growing boys like to eat, and to have 5 little, I mean, these little
loaves were not big. You don’t have a whole
loaf of bread here, you know, you understand that.
And
number 4, his lunch was not eaten yet.
We know that, don’t we? All the
people ate their food. Did this boy eat
his food? His lunch was not eaten
yet. Why? Why was his lunch uneaten?
Everybody else had eaten. Here
he’s still got his food. I can just
picture him hanging on every word of Jesus.
Can’t you do that? He’s so
intent on Jesus that he forgot to eat his lunch. In fact, he’s been there for several hours, and he’s been feeding
on the words of life. I like kids like
that. That’s what he’s like.
And
number 5, we know something else about the boy. He was generous. Now most
children are born selfish. If you take
2 little babies, 5, 6 months old, and put them in the playpen together, and you
just have 1 toy, they’ll begin to tussle over that 1 pacifier, that 1
bottle. You can see it happen. We’re born that way, and here we have a
child, a kid, a young boy, who is unselfish.
He’s willing to give his entire lunch to Jesus, and he doesn’t have any
other food. He’s going to die if he
doesn’t get anything else. He
surrendered 100% of all the food that he had to Jesus, and only then did the
miracle come.
Number
6. He became an instrument in God’s
hands. God used him. Used his lunch. He came forward. Andrew,
“Come on, little lad. Let’s come
up. Bring your lunch to Jesus. Let’s see what’ll happen here,” and God
needs building materials for His miracles, and this boy provided those
materials. No one else had a lunch. Out of the 20 thousand people, he’s the only
one with food left, and Jesus needs what we have. Jesus needs what you have. Maybe if the boy had not shared, the miracle wouldn’t have
happened. I don’t really know. Maybe the world is denied many a miracle that
the world needs, because we don’t give
what we have in our hands. That could
be. I'm so glad that this boy was
liberal. What an example that child
had. He openhandedly gave his whole
lunch to Jesus, and I think Jesus looks for our total commitment.
Look
at John, chapter 6 now, and verse 10.
Jesus says something amazing. At
least I think this is amazing. He says,
“Sit down.” Don’t you think that’s
amazing that 20 thousand people were still standing? 20 thousand people were not seated. I couldn’t say to you, “Please sit down.” You’re already seated. He had to say to them, “Sit down,” because
they were all standing. They had been
standing for hours. That is
amazing. Sit down. You know, you’ve got to stop and sit down to
be truly fed. I think so often we eat
on the run, in America. Now when you
get to heaven, you won’t do that. We
need to savor our food. We used to have
a member of our church here by the name of Ed Allen. I went to Ed’s house one day and “Ed, what’d you have for
lunch?” He said, “The same thing I had
for breakfast. The same thing I’ll have
for supper.” I said, “Really. Tell me about it.” He said, “Well, I have 20 tin cans that I open up, and I take one
spoon out of each tin can, and then I put them back in the refrigerator, close
them down, and then the next meal, open them back up. One more spoon out of each one.
I’m always eating balanced. A
big variety here.” He was single, you
know, and his wife had died, and that’s the way he handled life. He said, “I just stand there at the counter,
and I could eat my whole meal in about 11 minutes.” Let’s savor our food.
Jesus said, “We’re going to eat.
Sit down.” Sit down. Let’s at least enjoy it. In this crazy age we rush to and fro. I think Christians become infected with the
spirit of haste. We want fast food,
fast computers, fast cars. You think
there’ll be fast food when we get to heaven?
Yes! All the food’ll be
fast. You just pick it off the tree and
eat it. A lot like Ed Allen’s
refrigerator, I think. I think the ice
cream cones will grow on trees. You
just pick them. If God can grow a pine
cone, He can grow an ice cream cone.
Get the pizza off the pizza tree.
It’s all fast food. All
healthful for you. All the ice cream
you want to eat. No calories high, you
know. Let’s get back to the miracle.
Jesus
says, “Sit down.” So often we have to
be made to sit down. Psalm 23. “He maketh me
to lie down in,” what kind of pastures? “Green pastures.” Notice that in the down time we are placed in
lush pastures. Green pastures. The next time you’re down and out, feel
around you. The lush pasture’ll be
there. It’s all around you. It’s there.
There’s a lot of good things you can do. Look for the blessing when God slows you down.
Mark
6 says that Jesus directed them to sit in companies of 1 hundred and
fifties. That’s interesting. Jesus is an organized person. He’s so orderly. The Bible says, "Let all things be
done decently and in,” what? “In order."
John 6, verse 11. Now
there’s a lot here in verse 11. It
says,
“Jesus took the loaves.” He took these little
loaves. He didn’t complain because they
were small, because there was only 5 of them.
He took the loaves and He blessed them, and this ought to tell us that
God is pleased with whatever we have.
It may be small. I don’t think
it was a big lunch, but God is pleased with our small offerings even, if that’s
all you have. Give it to God and He
will be happy with what you have.
That’s the type of God He is.
Even your small offerings. The lad
gave all he had, like the widow’s mite, and your best gift may seem
insignificant to you, but in God’s sight it’s the material for miracle.
The
5 loaves and the 2 fish were ordinary while they were in the lunch box, but
they were not ordinary, they were extra-ordinary when they were placed
in the hands of Jesus. You place
anything in the hands of Jesus and it is no longer ordinary. It’s material for miracles. Your best offering. It may look meager to you, but place it in
His hands. Jesus could have called on
the sky, “Please rain some manna,” and it would have done so, but He wanted to
use what they had. He wanted to use the
resources that were there. He wants to
use your resources to solve your problems.
John
6, verse 11 continues. “Jesus prayed.”
Before anybody took the first bite, what did Jesus do? He prayed.
Do you do that? Do you have
grace at your table? 5 thousand people
were there, and He prayed. Now you may
say, “Well, we always pray at home, but when we go out to the restaurant,
sometimes we don’t do that. We just
kind of pray silently.” Well let me
tell you, these 5 thousand men were eating out. They were, and Jesus had prayer.
Jesus was the spiritual leader of that household, and you men, you are
the spiritual priest of your house. You
lead out in prayer.
Verse
11 continues. Then what did Jesus
do? Jesus distributed the food. I don’t believe that, do you? That can’t be true. Did Jesus go around and distribute the
food? Who did it? The disciples did it, didn’t they, and so,
this is curious to me here. The
disciples did it. Does that mean
that--here the Bible says Jesus did it.
Does that mean that when you are a deacon, let’s say, and you do your
duty, that it’s the same as if Jesus is doing it? I think that might be kind of what that means. If you’re an elder, if you’re a Sabbath
school teacher, you’re teaching all those kids in that class over there,
actually it’s Jesus doing it. Jesus
distributed the bread when actually the disciples did it, but Jesus did it through
them. Jesus is teaching where you
are. Jesus is ministering where you’re
ministering. Where did this miracle
happen, by the way? Jesus gave each
disciple a basket of food and they just kept passing the basket out and went
down this row and down that row and down that row and it was still full. Is that how the miracle happened,
probably?
Actually,
the clue is in the Greek. If you look
at Mark 6, verse 41, you may want to come over, don’t lose John, but Mark,
chapter 6 and verse 41 actually gives the answer. You can’t read this in the English in the Greek, but let me share
it with you. It says, ”He gave thanks and broke the loaves, then He gave them to His disciples.” Now ‘broke’
is the aorist tense which means an instantaneous act, but listen to this,
‘gave’ is in the imperfect tense, which means a continuous action. In other words, the miracle happened in His
hands, and Desire of Ages makes this very clear. Page 369. "The food multiplied in His
hands." That’s where the miracle
was. The miracle is always in Jesus’
hands, isn’t it? Sure it is. That’s where miracles happen, is in the
hands of Jesus Christ, and if you want a miracle, you need to place yourself in
the hands of Jesus, and then you’re going to get a miracle.
Mark
6, verse 41. “Jesus
gave them to the disciples,” and the disciples distributed. I think that is so cool.
Verse
11 now, back in John 6. John 6, verse
11. The next thing it says, and I want
you to read this in your Bible, John 6, verse 11, “Jesus took the loaves, gave
thanks, distributed to those who were seated as much as they needed.” You see anything wrong with what I just
read? Is that what it says? It does not say that. It says, “Jesus took
the loaves, gave thanks, distributed them to those who were seated, as much as
they wanted.” Now that is cross-wise to the way that I have always
thought about Jesus. He provides our
needs, is what I thought. He will meet
your bare essentials, but that’s not what this says. Each one had as much as they wanted. That tells me that God is extravagant, that God is lavish, that
God piles up His gifts upon us. As much
as we want. You can have as much of
Jesus as you want. Do you believe
that?
Why is it that we draw so little on the vast spiritual wealth that
Jesus wants to provide us? I want to urge you to
come to Jesus with your greatest spiritual needs and with your empty vessels
and draw from the fullness that He has for you.
John
6, verse 12 says, “And when they had had enough…” Another version says, “And when they were filled…” These people were full. And it was probably good bread. You know, when Jesus made the wine, was
Jesus’ wine better than what they had at the first? And when Jesus made this bread, don’t you think it tasted like
Little Debbies or-- It was great. It was almost like eating dessert. It was great bread. He gave it to them and they ate until they
were full. They were full. As much as they wanted. David said, “My cup
runneth over.” That’s what God
is like. Notice that the supply stopped
only when the demand stopped. The
supply of bread flowed from the treasuries of Jesus’ hands in rich abundance
until everybody was full, and then it [snap] stopped.
You
know, that’s what grace is like. God
will give you as much as you want. His
vastness for your meagerness. We come
to Jesus as poor bankrupt believers, and He makes available to us all the vast
resources of heaven, and who paid for that bread? Who purchased, who had to give money for that bread? It was free. It was totally free.
That’s what salvation is like.
Salvation is totally free. All
you have to do is take and eat, and you will receive the blessing. They were filled. 20 thousand people were filled.
You
know how much bread that would amount to?
How much bread would it take to fill 20 thousand hungry people with
bread? I think at least 5 tons. That’s a lot of bread. That’s a lot of bread.
And notice what Jesus said next here in verse 12. He said, “Gather up the leftovers.” Jesus doesn’t like waste. What a rebuke to modern extravagance of our age. Does it bother you when you go out to eat,
or when you’re at some function, and people can load up their thing with food,
and they take a whole plate full of food, they’re masters at stacking that, and
then they just eat about half of it, and then the rest of it is thrown
out. Does that bother you? That is just waste. If you’re going to take it, then you ought
to eat it. Don’t waste it. We live in a day of abundance. Now Jesus wants us to be economical. Take as much as you want. Fill yourself up, but don’t waste. The next time you’re tempted to purchase
that gizmo, that new doo-dad, you think, “Do I really need this? I’ve got zillions of doo-dads at home. Do I need another doo-dad?” Think about that.
Verse
13. How many baskets did they have left
over? A whole bunch of people at first
church came out and they said, “Pastor, where did they get the 12 baskets
from?” I said, “Well, all kinds of
people brought lunch baskets.” These
were baskets. I don’t know how big they
were. I have no idea, but they were
there, and they were empty, and when it was all over, they had 12 baskets left
over, and who got the bread? Who got
it? It doesn’t say. It doesn’t say. You know who I think got it?
The little lad. I think he got
it. Why not? Why not give it to him?
The Bible says in our scripture reading that was read by Elizabeth this
morning, “It is the liberal soul that is made fat.” That little boy was liberal and I think he got the bread. We never need to be anxious whether there’s
going to be enough left over for our own needs. When you make out that tithe envelope and you put your money in
there, you think, “I wonder if there’s going to be enough left for me.” No, you just be liberal to God in your
tithe, you be liberal to God in your offerings, and you will be made, your soul
will be made fat. That’s what the Bible
says.
The
little lad’s load of leftover loaves was taken to his house, I think. Several people, maybe his folks, I don’t
know who carried it. He was
blessed. He was blessed.
And
you look at your life. You may have
limited assets, but when you place your limited means into the hands of Jesus
you’re going to receive an unlimited blessing.
And this still works. Jesus has
not gone out of the miracle business.
He knows how to do it.
Well,
our time is up. I want to encourage you
to place yourself in the hands of Jesus Christ, and only in His hands will
there be a miracle.
I
want us to sing about the mighty power of God.
I want you to experience the mighty power of God in your life as He
applies His mighty power to your needs, that you will receive a miraculous
miracle in your life. In your
marriage. In your home. Whatever it is that God needs to touch, that
He will touch you and change you and bless you. Place yourselves in the hands of Jesus, and you will see the
mighty power of God.
Let’s
sing number 88 for our closing hymn.
Hymn of Praise: #230 All Glory, Laud and Honor Scripture: Proverbs 11:25 Hymn of Response: #88 I Sing the Mighty Power of God
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McDonald Road Sermon transcribed by Steve Foster 8/23/08