The Practical Care of Christ

Would take your Bibles and turn
to the Gospel of Luke. We come again to the Gospel of
Luke, and if you have been with us the past few weeks, I say
that tongue-in-cheek because last week we weren’t even in
the Gospel of Luke. We were in the Gospel of Mark,
picking up some details, some context that wasn’t actually
in the Gospel of Luke. I take you back in your mind’s
eye. In Luke 9, verses 1-6, Luke records that Jesus had just sent
out the twelve apostles. He had equipped them, graced
them with gifts, and sent them out to do ministry. Two things. The preaching of the Word. and
healing, casting out demons in His name. And so, we pick up
the context in the Gospel of Mark when, in a sense, after
these disciples, these apostles return, Jesus takes them for
a break. He calls them to come away and
rest. And that is the context in which
we come back into the gospel of Luke. They have been away.
They have been on this short, much more than a boat ride, but
a travel from one place to the other on the boat with Christ
alone. They come and they land at a
place called Bethsaida. We find, and even Mark mentioned
last week, that the crowd was running ashore and so the break
was going to be running along the shore. The break was going
to be short. Jesus knew it. They could even
see the people as they were drawing near to land, perhaps the whole
way during the journey. One pastor explained the context
in these simple terms. As soon as the people from Capernaum,
from the Capernaum side of the lake, became aware of the fact
that Jesus was leaving them and crossing over to the other side,
they literally beat a path up the shore to be with him. Maybe
they thought that he wasn’t coming back at the news of the death
of John the Baptist. Maybe they thought that was it.
He was shaking the dust off of his feet and he wouldn’t be back.
So there was some urgency on the part of these people. They
begin to gather as the boat draws near to land. As they see now
where Christ is going to land the boat, they begin to gather. And in Mark’s Gospel, he records
these little words. In verse 34 it says, when Jesus
went ashore, At that very moment, He saw a
large crowd and He felt compassion for them. Now, I take you back
in your mind’s eye to last week’s message and to that passage where
Jesus saw the need for His disciples to have a break, a rest, to be
with Him alone in solitude and for the purpose of restoration.
And yet, when Jesus sees this crowd, it isn’t disdain. It isn’t
disdain. It isn’t disappointment. It isn’t frustration that they
can’t even take a break. He felt compassion for them. Why? Mark records this, because
they were like sheep without a shepherd. They were like sheep
without a shepherd. Jesus saw them milling about.
Jesus saw in their eyes the desperation. They were willing to run all
this way up to the next town, following a boat offshore, only
to get near Christ. They were like a sheep without
shepherd. And Mark records, and he began
to teach them many things. He knew what their need was.
This little proverbial expression found there in Mark, like a sheep
without a shepherd, it isn’t the only place that that occurs.
In fact, often God has looked down on His people and likened
them to sheep without a shepherd. Let me just track briefly before
we get into Luke, this little expression, Numbers 27.17. Speaking of God who will go out
and come in before them and who will lead them out and bring
them in so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like
sheep which have no shepherd. 1 Kings 22.17 He said, I saw
all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no shepherd. 2 Chronicles 18.16 He said, I
saw Israel scattered on the mountain like sheep which have no shepherd. Ezekiel 34.5 They were scattered
for lack of a shepherd. And so when Mark records this,
he does so for the sake of his audience, tying these people
back in with all of the Old Testament saints or with all of God’s Old
Testament people who had no shepherd. And just the very comment that
Mark gives points in the direction of the fulfillment of all of
those. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Good Shepherd. The Scriptures makes it clear. Repeatedly, Christ is called
the Good Shepherd. That’s what the multitude needed.
That’s what they were gathering for, really. That’s what Jesus
recognizes. He recognizes in them the myths
in this wilderness of a world that they live in. He recognizes
their helplessness. He recognizes their hopelessness.
It recognizes that they are on the way to ruin like a sheep
without a shepherd. Nearly identical words are recorded
by Matthew on a completely different occasion. The occasion is Matthew
9, verse 35, where Matthew records that Jesus was going through
all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, healing every kind of
disease, every kind of sickness, seeing the people. And that was
key because as soon as he saw them, he had to see them for
what they were. Seeing the people, he felt compassion
for them. And no doubt, people, no doubt
in my mind that it’s because of my studies this week that
I had just a heightened awareness of the hopelessness of the people
in our city. And I just invite you to look
around. Look around. Look at their eyes,
if they’ll even look you in the eyes. Look at their faces. Listen to their situation. And
you can’t help but come up with the same conclusion that Matthew
did in recording Christ’s reaction. He felt compassion for them.
Why? Because they were distressed
and dispirited. That’s like the hallmark of our
society in this day and age. We’re all stressed out. We’re
all distressed. People have lost jobs. People
have lost loved ones. People just see the troubles
that life brings and they’re distressed and dispirited. And it’s in that context in Matthew,
it’s interesting. that Jesus says this, then He
said to His disciples, pardon me, I want to back up, He felt
compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited
like sheep without a shepherd. And it’s in that context that
He says this, then He said to His disciples, the harvest is
plentiful, but the workers are few. This is what Jesus noticed about
the shepherdless, wayward people, that they were distressed. What
better descriptive of our society? Distressed and dispirited. Christ lands on the shore, he
does so as the great shepherd. What Hebrews calls the great
shepherd of the sheep. Hebrews 13.20, Jesus Christ,
our Lord. What Peter, who was there with
him in the boat, What Peter would later acknowledge as the shepherd
and guardian of your souls. This is who landed on the shore.
No wonder the people were excited to see the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the shepherd sees these wayward, anxious, hopeless sheep
and sets about to exemplify ministry. He’s giving an example to his
apostles who were with him. practical, genuine care and concern
for people. That’s what Christ was doing.
And we have ample opportunities to do this. We may not be able
to heal or cast out demons. We may not be able to even preach
the gospel with great effectiveness. But we could show them practical
concern and practical care. walking through the Home Depot
parking lot early Saturday morning with my son. I see a guy struggling
with a board. We can show that kind of practical
care and concern, just helping people with their basic daily
needs. That’s exactly what Jesus does on this occasion. And he
does so for the purpose of preaching the gospel. In the passage before
us, Luke is going to give us three exhibitions of genuine
care, three elements of ministry, if you will. And it’s at this
time, if you would, Luke 9, beginning in verse 10. When the apostles returned, they
gave an account to him of all that they had done. Taking them
with him, he withdrew by himself to a city called Bethsaida. But
the crowds were aware of this and followed him. And welcoming
them, he began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and
curing those who had need of healing. Now, the day was ending
and the twelve came and said to him, send a crowd away that
they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and
find lodging and get something to eat. For we are here in this
desolate place. But he said to them, you give
them something to eat. And they said, we have no more
than five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy
food for all these people. For they were about five thousand
men. And he said to his disciples, have them sit down to eat in
groups of about 50 each. They did so and had all of them
sit down. Then he took the five loaves
and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he blessed them
and broke them and kept giving them to the disciples to set
before the people. They all ate and were satisfied.
And the broken pieces which they had left over were picked up,
twelve baskets full.” As I submitted to, I think Jesus
here is giving an example to His disciples. They had just
come back from their first ministry outing. They had just been entrusted
with the gifts The Christ bestowed upon them the gifts of preaching,
the gifts of healing, casting out demons. This is their first
sabbatical, if you will, a short break on a boat together with
the Lord. No doubt, Jesus wants to correct
some of their practice and some of their attitudes. Remember,
when he received them back, he didn’t even ask, how’s it going?
How did it go? How was ministry for you? Jesus
knew. And he knew, and I believe he
gave these exact examples for them. There’s no doubt that people
were ministered to, but there’s no doubt that the apostles were
in view. The apostles needed to learn the lesson that Jesus
had to teach. It’s interesting, in the passage
before us, in these three expressions of genuine care, it’s an almost
exact parallel of Psalm 23. What plays out. And in a sense, that will be
my outline this morning. First of all, Jesus shows practical
concern for souls. Practical concern for souls.
This ultimately is Jesus’ ministry goal, right? This is what Jesus
came for. But there’s no doubt that there’s
other things throughout His ministry that are mixed in. Go back with
me to verse 10, the second part. Taking them with Him. This assumes
or points us back to Mark’s passage where he takes them on the boat
and proceeds to Bethsaida. He withdrew by himself, so he
couldn’t have been by himself literally. He was by himself
with the apostles. By himself with the apostles
heading for a city called Bethsaida. But the crowds were aware of
this and followed him. And as I indicated, no doubt
the apostles, at least some of them, were even disappointed
in this. As they’re looking, they probably
wanted Jesus to stay out on the water. Let’s sail around a couple
of more times. Let’s get away from the crowd.
They no doubt welcomed this idea of a break. The crowds were aware
of this. The crowds were aware of Jesus
departing and they followed him. One commentator suggested, and
this is such nonsense that I debated whether or not to even waste
my breath on it this morning by refuting it. I even literally
crossed it out of my commentary. He basically said this, that
the unexpected arrival of the people defeated Jesus’ plan for
rest. Well, who was it unexpected for?
It was certainly unexpected for the one writing the commentary.
It may have been unexpected for the apostles, even though they
could see the people on the shore, likely. But there’s no way that
it was unexpected for Jesus. This was all part of his plan.
It didn’t thwart his plan. It fell right into it. In the
first place, the crowd wasn’t expected. Jesus knew all along
what the people were doing. The context shows that the rest,
even as we talked about last week, was to be temporary, right? Very temporary. As we even called
it, a break. Something to which even a minimum
wage people are entitled to. 15 minutes a day and 30 minute
lunch. In light of Jesus’ deity, this
couldn’t have been unexpected. Jesus knew. Nor could it have
been ruinous of his plans. He knew what was coming. His
plans encompassed the crowd. As we’ll see shortly, verse 11
says Jesus welcomed the crowd. This didn’t rain on Jesus parade.
This didn’t ruin his plans. No wonder he welcomed the crowd.
These people weren’t an interruption. They were ministry. The needs of the people. These
sick, ignorant, disappointed people. These hungry people meant
far more to Him than His own ease. Jesus came for this very
purpose. How could He be disappointed
in their arrival? And Jesus begins to care for
their souls. It says there in verse 11, that
He began speaking to them about the Kingdom of God. What a beautiful
phrase that is. Jesus began first and foremost
to minister to their souls. There’s no doubt we’re going
to come to the passage of the feeding of the five thousand.
There’s no doubt that a food based ministry, a ministry to
the homeless, a soup kitchen, if you will. There’s no doubt
that that can be a form of ministry. But there are ministries where
that’s the only kind of ministry they do, and they never minister
to the soul. If we were to be given the gift,
the other gift that is in focus in this passage, the gift of
healing and the gift of feeding people food, maybe we had unlimited
resources to feed people’s stomachs, unlimited resources to heal their
diseases. And we never touch their soul
They’re no better off at all. Jesus starts what’s most important.
He begins speaking to them about the kingdom of God. You see,
they live, these people, Jews primarily, under this yoke of
Phariseeism. The teaching of Jesus liberated
them from that. The kingdom of God was that faith
in Christ is here now. There are no more ways to work
your way to heaven. No more attempts to do the impossible. Over and over again throughout
the Gospels, that’s what Jesus proclaimed. The kingdom of God. Back in chapter four, verse 43,
we trafficked through this brief passage. When day came, Jesus
left and went to a secluded place. The crowds were searching for
him and came to him and tried to keep him from going away from
them. But he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to
other cities. This was the burden of Christ’s
heart to proclaim the kingdom, faith in Christ for salvation. John the Baptist had come preaching
repentance as the preparation for the kingdom. Jesus Christ
came preaching the kingdom itself. One pastor said it this way,
wherever it was that Jesus spoke, whatever town in whatever village,
whatever house or synagogue, inside or outside, he was with
enthusiasm and earnestness proclaiming the good news of the kingdom
of God. over against that yoke of bondage
to which all kinds of man-made regulations. Jesus was heralding
the realm of grace in which God was the King and salvation is
His free gift to all who trust in Him. What great words. Jesus came preaching the Kingdom
of God and that’s exactly what He starts with with this crowd
on the shore. He meets their greatest need
first. Mark says it even more plainly.
In Mark 6.34, it just says, He began teaching them many things. That’s what the people need. Even those little cards that
are smaller this week than they were last week. You’re invited. You know what the people need?
They need to know that God expects worship from them. God expects
to be recognized for the things that He’s done in their lives.
God expects and demands a response from every person. Now, it’s
not going to be acceptable worship unless it’s done in Christ’s
name. But they need to know that, too. The people need to be taught. The people need the kingdom of
God. That was their primary need. That’s what they needed most
of all. Some people perhaps had never even heard of Christ. They
just merely went out because of the enthusiasm of the crowd.
And the crowd was ever growing. I said that this passage in Luke
9, 10-17 parallels Psalm 23. Listen to Psalm 23 and see if
you don’t hear it yourself. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. Verse 3, He restores my soul. There’s only one that does that.
And that’s exactly what Christ set out to do with these people,
is to restore their soul. That’s what He cared for. He
restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of
righteousness for His name’s sake. And what’s the result of
that? Psalm 23 6. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Jesus came to impart not just
temporary needs. He came for a permanent, eternal
solution for people’s souls. Secondly, Jesus shows practical
concern not only for their souls, but for their suffering. Look
at verse 10, pardon me, still at the end of verse 10, taking
them with him, he withdrew by himself to a city called Bethsaida.
But the crowds were aware of this and followed him and welcoming
them. He began speaking to them about
the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing.
And Jesus did so to give his words power and acceptability. We don’t have that privilege.
We can’t, as we come across someone, see that they’re struggling with
some malady. We can’t heal them so that they’ll
accept our gospel message. But this is what Christ did.
Literally, Jesus was healing those who had need of therapy. the English equivalent of the
Greek word. This particular word for healing
is another one of the good Dr. Luke’s focuses. Matthew only
uses this word four times. Mark only uses it once. John
uses it three times. Luke uses it twelve times. This was part and parcel of Jesus’
ministry. He went about and everywhere
that he went, he was going about doing this kind of thing. ministering
to those who had need of therapy. It all began back in Luke 4.18. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of
sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed. This
was part of Jesus’ ministry. On and on again, it’s recorded
throughout Luke’s Gospel. If you’re a note taker, Luke
5.17, 6.17, 6.19, 7.7, 8.47 and on and on and on. He also went about healing, therapeuo,
giving therapy to those. Another word completely. And
here the other gospel writers catch up significantly to Luke’s
use of it. But Luke uses this word plentifully
a dozen times. This was part of Jesus’ ministry. Healing was one of the two things
that He imparted the apostles to do. Preach and heal. And by heal, I believe cast out
demons as well. Jesus cared. Jesus wanted to
empathize practically with the people’s needs. And a lot of
times we, you know, never can we heal people. But a lot of
times we can minister to people in practical ways. We can come
alongside of them. At the very minimum, we can pray
for them. At the fire conference, I was so touched at one moment
by a dear brother of mine, John Sale, who years ago Years ago
was crushed by a front end loader. He was in the construction business.
This was one of the means of drawing him to Christ. And he
was literally crushed. His pelvis, his spine, his legs
were crushed by a front end loader, a big piece of machinery. And
he said one of the practical elements of ministry was a young
seminary student came in. And he said, can I do anything
for you? And John just said, would you shave me? This growth
that was beginning to extend on his face was tremendously
uncomfortable. He’d never had a beard before.
And here is this man, friend of his, begins to shave John. And John says to this day, he
is touched and moved at the very thought of that. We can minister
to people. We can lighten their burdens. That’s exactly what
Christ, in demonstrating to the apostles, demonstrating His power,
authenticating His Word, that’s exactly what He was doing for
His apostles. And this, too, parallels Psalm 23. The Lord
is my shepherd, I shall not want. Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for thou art
with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou dost prepare
a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Thou hast anointed
my head with oil. We’ve talked about this before. Oil in those days was a salve
often. It would often be poured into
the wounds of an injured animal. Jesus shows practical concern
not only for souls and suffering, but thirdly, and this is where
we’ll park for the remainder of the morning, for sustenance. Jesus cared that they were hungry.
He cared and he showed his apostles in a practical way that he cared. Verse 12, where we get an almost
astounding turn of events. Shocking, maybe even as a good
word. Now, the day was ending and the
12 came and said to him, send the crowd away. And it sounds
so gracious, doesn’t it? Send the crowd. Lord, we care
for these people. We see that they’re hungry and
they’ll have no place to sleep tonight. Doesn’t it sound just
like us? Send the crowd away so that they may go into the
surrounding villages and countryside and find lodging and get something
to eat, for we are here in this desolate place. All the Gospel writers said this
little thing a little bit differently. The day was ending, says Luke.
Mark says that it was quite late. We don’t know in Jewish times
what that meant, but it was probably drawing near dinner time. Too
late. Getting to be nearly too late
for them to make the walk in the dark and to find food. Matthew says that it was flat
out evening. And in a sense, the apostles
perhaps were concerned. I’ll talk more about that in
a moment. But this opens the section on the feeding of the
five thousand. And those who reject a supernatural,
miraculous, divine intervention, they have to reject this story.
And throughout history, they have. And they found some very
creative ways around the feeding of the five thousand. My favorite, or should I say
my least favorite, was this. One commentator, and really it’s
been a pretty popular approach for those who reject the miraculous,
suggested this. That everyone actually had food
with them. But they were selfishly hoarding
it. And when they saw this little boy that we read about in John
6 willing to share his food, they all broke out their provisions
and there ended up being more than enough for everyone. And
so the miracle really is a miracle of change of attitudes. Which is a shocking disregard
of the facts that God records. Others suggested that this was
just a token meal. Similar to the Lord’s Supper,
where each person just went around and took just a little bit, a
little bit of the bread, a little bit of the fish, just a token
meal. Still, others in history have
grossly distorted the meaning of the story by misinterpretation,
allegorizing the story. One church father suggested that
the five loaves and the two fish represent Moses with his five
books and the two tables of the law. Absurd. Any reasonable approach to the
Scriptures, any fair exegesis of the Gospels in their totality
leads us to see a profound miracle by our Lord Jesus Christ. And
to say anything else about it is blasphemy. It’s the only one
of Jesus’ miracles recorded in all four of the Gospels. And
we have to keep in mind that this story is concerned with
bread. Not bread literally. I mean,
in this story, there’s a literal bread. But when Scripture so
often speaks of bread, it’s speaking of food, sustenance. In our day and age, we have so
many other foods to think about that we forget how central to
the diet, to the sustenance, bread was to these people. This
was a staple, a necessity. In that sense, when Jesus says,
give us this day our daily bread, He isn’t just saying, Lord, would
you send us a loaf of bread? He’s saying, Lord, give us what
we need, all of the food that we need. So, this miracle, this
miracle of the multiplication of the bread. Now, back to the
Apostle’s thought. Send them away. Jesus, we are magnanimously caring
altruistically concerned for these people, more even than
you, because you didn’t recognize it and we did. We wish that you
would send them away so that they could go get their evening
meal. The reasoning was this. If they’re going to eat, they
have to leave now. If they’re going to leave, they’ve got to
be told to do so. Jesus, stop preaching and send
these people away. You know what I think? I think
it’s distinctly possible that the apostles are still pouting
about having their break cut short. You know why I say that? Because when they mention the
desolate place, those are the exact words that Jesus promised
them. Let’s go away to a desert place. To an isolated, quiet,
solitude place. And now that they’re in this
desert place, the apostles want Jesus to themselves. John records, as we already read,
that Jesus first approaches Philip, perhaps plant the seed in his
mind. Where are we going to buy bread for all these people? And
maybe Philip went back to the rest of the apostles and began
sharing his concern. We only have 200 denarii. We
don’t have any food and there’s all these people and Jesus wants
to buy bread for them. And so the apostles perhaps collaborate
and they come to Christ now as a group and they begin to say,
We have a concern. People are hungry. We have no
food. You’ve got to send them away, Jesus. Food wasn’t their
only need, and Luke is the only one of the gospel writers who
acknowledges the obvious that not only are they going to need
food, they’re going to need lodging. And what is Jesus’ response? I have to insert here Matthew’s
words. They do not need to go away.
Matthew records Jesus saying they do not need to go away.
No, I will not send them away. They do not need to go away.
It’s interesting, Matthew’s account is shorter. Shorter than John’s
and shorter than Mark’s and not just only a little bit longer
than Luke’s. And there’s very little in Matthew’s
account that is any different that has anything really to inform
us about the rest of the gospel writers. But this one phrase
is one of them. And I think it’s a profound one.
They don’t need to go away. You’re wrong, apostles. And in verse 13 of Luke, he says,
you give them something to eat. And there was likely, as there
is here, dead silence. What was it that you wanted us
to give them, Jesus? The apostles too often, and we’ve
seen it again and again, we’ll see it throughout our study of
the gospel. The apostles were too often willing
to shirk responsibility, to brush their hands of any responsibility
and to try to put off ministry responsibility, much like we
are. If we can find someone else to
do it, if we can find some other way around it, if we can write
a check, that’s the easiest. Jesus said, no, you give them
something to eat. It’s interesting how often they
try to shake off responsibility. Matthew 15.23 records the disciples
came and imploring. Here’s this woman pleading for
Jesus to help her. Send her away. She keeps shouting
at us. Ministry sometimes is just irritating,
isn’t it? Bothersome. Luke 18.15, they
were bringing their babies to him so that he would touch them.
But when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. Stop
it. Leave Jesus alone and us with
him. Luke 9.49, John answered and said, Master, we saw someone
casting out demons in your name. We tried to prevent him because
he does not follow along with us. But Jesus said, do not hinder
him. There again, they were trying to squelch and squash ministry
opportunities. That attitude is replete throughout
the Gospels. Jesus wants to remind his men
that ministry stops with them. And the challenge to us is, does
ministry stop with us? Or do we just pass the buck,
the proverbial buck, and wait for someone else to step up and
do it? Jesus wanted to remind them that
getting rid of the people wasn’t the solution to the problem.
That wasn’t God’s way of doing things. He wants His people to
come and to ask, to seek, to knock, right? To come to Him
who supplies every need. And so they present to Him what
Philip had discovered. There’s a little boy here. He’s
got five loaves and two fish. That’s all we got. We don’t have
time to go buy food. Five loaves and two fish. That’s
what we’ve been able to round up. The loaf would have been
literally what we call a bun, and it was a poor person’s bun.
It was made out of barley, not the expensive wheat that others
used. Disciples, they come and they
lay this meal before Jesus as some kind of a graphic proof,
an attempt to prove that look how hopeless the situation is.
That’s all we got. From the apostles perspective,
it wasn’t enough, but with Jesus it was. Verse 14, there were about 5,000
men there and he said to his disciples, have them sit down
in groups of about 50 each and that for the purpose of expediting
the feeding of the 5,000. There’s a couple of little additions
that I want to pick up from the other Gospels. Mark adds, interestingly,
he commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. Matthew adds, there were about
5,000 men who ate besides women and children, so there are even
more than 5,000. We should always talk about this story as the
feeding of the 5,000 plus. The feeding of the 5,000 and
then some. The women often would sit separately
from the men with the children. In verse 15, it says that they
did so. They had them all sit down. They
took the five loaves, the two fish, And it says that Jesus,
looking up to heaven, blessed them and broke them and kept
giving to the disciples before them. This looking up to heaven was
a standard posture for prayer. Seen repeatedly in the Psalms.
Psalm 25-15, my eyes are continually toward the Lord. Psalm 121, I
will lift up my eyes to the mountains. Psalm 123-2, to you I lift up
my eyes. This was a standard posture for
Jesus in prayer. John 17-1, Jesus spoke these
things and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He began praying that
great prayer in John 17, and it says that he blessed these
elements. Literally, he thanked God for them. John uses a different
word than the other gospel writers that sheds light on exactly what
Jesus did in blessing these elements. We have our word Eucharist, which
sometimes is referred to the elements of the Lord’s table.
That’s the word used here. Blessed and blessed in this instance
literally means gave thanks for the elements before him. He thanked
God for what was there before it was even there. He thanked
God for the little before it was much. And he began breaking
it. And the wording here is so graphic.
He broke it once and for all and he kept giving. He kept giving. And as he gave, God multiplied
the bread and the fish. And get this, they ate and were
satisfied. They all ate and were satisfied. It’s an interesting word here
too that was originally used of feeding animals. And you would
slop the hogs and you would fill the animals with food, with fodder. And it implied, whenever it was
originally used of humans, it was almost a brutish feeding,
a gluttonous feast. They were filled to the full.
They were fattened, literally. It wasn’t a token meal. And then it speaks of the broken
pieces. And Jesus gestures and suggests that his apostles go
around and gather up what’s left over. Twelve baskets full. These people not only ate, but
they were satisfied, they were stuffed to the point where they
couldn’t even finish the crumbs. All of them. They went around
and gathered up the twelve baskets full of fragments. That overabundance is characteristic
of God, isn’t it? When we ask, God gives and He
gives exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. And really, if you consider it,
this miracle is really just a continuation of the miracle of sustenance
that really began back in that first week of creation. Do you
know, as we pointed out before, God created food for man before
He ever created man? How are we going to go hungry?
You think of the stories of the Israelites in the desert and
the manna that came down from heaven. You think of Psalm 104
that distinctly talks about not only the God of creation and
the creation of God, but the sustenance of God’s creation
by God. God is the one that cares. God
is the one that gives us our daily bread. God is the one that
says you are to be content if all you have is food and clothing. Acts chapter 14, Paul begins
his ministry. One of the first opportunities
he’s there. They begin to worship him. In
an attempt to get them to stop worshiping him, he begins to
tell them about God. And he says this, in the generations
gone by, he permitted all the nations to go their ways. And
yet he did not leave himself without a witness. What was the
witness? Tell us the witness, Paul. How did God prove himself? He did not leave himself a witness
in that he did good and gave you rain from heavens and fruitful
seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. This was just a practical continuation
of the way that God had always cared for them. And in that sense,
echoes once again, Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He makes me lie down in green
pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. Thou didst prepare a table before
me in the presence of enemies. And in this life, on this earth,
surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of
my life.” You know what? Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they
all abruptly end the story there, but it wasn’t the end. John records
it. At first, they looked at Jesus
as a prophet for having worked this miracle. They ultimately
wanted to seize hold of Him and force Him to be their King. Jesus
rejected it and began to call them to faith. He began to appeal
to their hearts to believe in Him. And ultimately, that’s what
Christ wanted more than anything, more than to give them a free
lunch. And it seemed like they were intent on just satisfying
themselves with a free lunch. Once again, give us some manna
from heaven. Jesus proclaimed to them, I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate man in the wilderness
and they died. This is the bread which comes
down out of heaven.” Jesus proclaimed to them once again out of His
mercy, called them to faith. Let’s humble ourselves before
Him. O gracious God, grant us by Your
grace the lesson of this account so richly recorded by Your servants,
the Gospel writers. Father, may we heed the lesson
here of ministry at reaching out to those in need, giving
them what they need. Worst of all, the gospel of Christ
ministering to their hurts, even caring for their physical needs.
Father, use us for your glory. We pray these things in Jesus
name. Amen. If you will, we’ll close with
just one verse of him. Four ninety eight. Jesus, what
a friend for sinners. Let’s stand, if you would.