Matthew 14:13-21 More Than We Need

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called

Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Recast Church.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and we're going to go in and get started. And I want to welcome you all to this gathering of church on the

Lord's Day, on this Labor Day weekend. Glad that you have taken the time out of your holiday weekend to join together with God's people.

Glad that you're here. Otherwise, it would make my preaching a little bit awkward, and the band would just be kind of doing a rehearsal or something.

So it's cool that you're here. In the course of the transition, many of you know that we're building a new building.

We have mentioned the phrase Semper Gumbi, always flexible. And flexibility needs to be our constant companion during this stage of the history of our church.

And currently, we're in need of flexibility. So I would love to be able to get up here and give you a date of when we expect to be in that building.

I just don't even feel like at this point, like it's reasonable for me to give you a date that I could even say one way or the other three or four weeks.

I really don't have that ability with the way that things are going currently. We continue to run into some delays, some cost overruns.

I can't report exactly when that's going to be. And it seems quite possible that we will not be out of our current office space, or that we will need to be out of our current office space before we're able to move into the new building.

That's a possibility. So please continue to pray for God's timing and for God's provision. I believe that God will receive the glory for this, even as we're kind of being stretched in this process of transition.

And so God's got this. I'm confident of that. And at the same time, please keep praying. There are some setbacks and some things that have happened within the last few weeks that have delayed the process, particularly regarding drywall and things like that.

And so I find our text this morning helpful as I've had a front row seat to the ups and downs of the building process here.

We're a church that values authenticity. So let me be honest with you that I've been discouraged at times during this process.

There have been times where I've been a little bit down in the way that things are progressing or the lack of progress at times. Just to give you some clarity, we've gone through four different crews of drywallers that have walked off the job without completing it.

And we currently don't have a drywall crew on the site. And so if you'd just be praying specifically for that need for drywallers, right now it's a building market.

And these crews will come in and then they get a better offer in Mississippi or they get a better offer in Minnesota and they pack up from our shop and leave for a better deal somewhere else.

And so we're not really a church that's in the business of suing people who sign a contract and then don't complete it.

So at this point, we're just kind of moving forward and trying to get this drywall hung.

So it's been a bit frustrating, but in our text this morning, it's been a corrective to me personally, and I hope I can pass that along to you as well.

We encounter a pretty well -known story from the Gospels that reminds us that God supplies for us more than we need.

More than we need. It's an awesome reality that we need to constantly be reminding ourselves of, especially during dark times or difficult times.

He is abundant with His blessings, and if we have eyes to see the great things that He is doing and the beauty of the blessings that are going on around us, the reality is some of you are a little bit more glass half -empty kind of people, and so you have to work harder at seeing those blessings, but believe me, if you just take a moment to open your eyes to the blessings that are around you, you will see that they are abundant.

The feeding of the 5 ,000 that we're looking at this morning is the only miracle that is recorded in all four of the

Gospels. The only miracle that's recorded in all four. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all so stunned by this event that they recorded it for us from their various perspectives.

In this miracle, we see Jesus modeling compassion, stretching the faith of His disciples, enlisting

His disciples and His followers to work the miracle, and we see

Jesus exceeding the needs of those around Him. This has been a very practical reminder to me this week.

Jesus is a good King. He has compassion for those that are in need. He has power and resources beyond our wildest imaginations, and He loves

His people. He loves His people. So this text doesn't promise us all wealth, health, and success.

Jesus isn't a sugar daddy in the sky, but He is good. And all of this life, for the one who follows

Him, is leading toward a kingdom where His goodness, His kindness, His mercy will be forever experienced by all of His children.

And there will be abundance. In that kingdom, there will be plenty. In that kingdom, there will be more than 12 baskets left over at that first banquet with our

King on the new earth. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 14.

We're going to be looking at verses 13 to 21. You can navigate over there in your app so that we can read about a foretaste of the banquet that is yet to come.

But if you don't have a Bible, if you don't have a Bible or a means to navigate to the

Bible on your lap, Mike is back here, and he's got some Bibles that are already open to this passage.

And so if you just slip your hand up, just real quick, he can bring you a Bible. And we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word on their lap that they can see, read, follow along with this text, and then during the sermon to be able to just check that out.

And if you don't own a Bible, you can just grab one of those off of the table back there at the end. We want everybody to have a copy of God's Word at home as well.

But recast, what we're about to read is God speaking to us. It's a story of something that legitimately happened.

This is a historical account, and at the same time, there's a message in it for us that we're going to walk through this week. So again,

Matthew 14, 13 through 21. Now when Jesus heard this, that's reflecting back on the passing of John the

Baptist earlier in the text that we talked about last week. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.

But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the day is now over.

Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves. But Jesus said, they need not go away.

You give them something to eat. They said to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish.

And he said, bring them here to me. Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing.

Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied.

And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about 5 ,000 men besides women and children.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for sending your son here to teach us, to model a perfect life for us, but also to teach us by the things that he did, by the way that he did things, by the way that he exercised compassion, by the way that he met the needs of those around him.

And Father, I pray that we would not be too quick to turn the attention to ourselves. We're very quick to look at Jesus and then try to pattern our lives after him.

But Father, I pray that this morning at Recast, we would look at Jesus first. We would look to him as our supplier.

We would look to him as more than just the model or the example for us to live, but we would know him.

That there is something to the revelation of Jesus Christ in this text as good, as kind to his people, as abundant in his provision to us.

And Father, that in knowing Jesus, we would lift our voices this morning with delight and with joy. We would fill this place with sounds of joy because of the abundance of our

King. Not just in the material things that we have here in this life, but he is so kind to us.

To give us grace we don't deserve, to give us forgiveness we don't deserve, to change us from a destiny of eternal condemnation to a place of eternal delight and joy because of his work for us on the cross, his great love that drove him there.

Father, I pray that you would help us in this gathering to encounter you as you are and to not leave here unchanged.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Go ahead and be seated. And just like every week,

I encourage you to get comfortable. Keep your Bibles open to Matthew chapter 14 verses 13 to 21.

If you lost your place there, you can hopefully turn over there to Matthew 14 and just be able to follow along in the text as that's what we're going to talk through.

Remember, if you need more coffee or juice or donuts, feel free to get up at any time during the message. If the seat you're sitting in gets uncomfortable, you can get up and stretch out in the back.

That's not going to be distracting to me. And it's all about keeping our focus on God's word here for the next, for the remainder of the service that we have together.

Last week, those of you that were here, Matthew left us with a bit of a cliffhanger. It just kind of ended with a statement about the disciples of John going to tell

Jesus. And we read about John the Baptist. And we read about the death of John the

Baptizer last week. And at the very end of that text, his disciples came and had a funeral for John.

And then it says they went and told Jesus. And that's it. That's how it ended. So we pick up right there with Jesus getting this terrible news.

That's how our text begins as he gets bad news. His cousin and his ministry partner has been brutally executed by the highest ranking

Jew in his community. And I don't know about how you would feel if you had just lost a friend and a cousin, but I think that there would be some grieving that goes on.

And not only that, but the circumstances are known to Jesus and communicated to him in a way that he understands the sordid and sinful motives that went into the death of his cousin.

So Jesus models his humanity well by withdrawing from the public and going off to spend some time on his own.

That's what we see at the start of our text. He withdraws into a boat with his disciples with the intent to get to the other side of the lake and probably go off somewhere and be alone.

The reason I say he drew off into the boat with his disciples is that the types of boats that were on the

Sea of Galilee during this time would not be a one man boat. It's not a row boat. It's a larger boat that would have been a fishing boat that would have been available to him.

And so it's likely that all of his disciples go with him. But he still has the intention, remember, of going off and being on his own once he gets to the other side.

The reality is Jesus felt like we feel. He had feelings and has feelings just like us.

He grieved the effects of life in a sin -cursed world. He entered into this busted up and decaying world and experienced it all just like we do.

He knows what you feel at the loss of a loved one, the loss of a friend. He understands that.

He experienced that. And I think even in his desire to get alone, he models something for us that's a reasonable part of the mourning and grieving process.

Many of you, some of you have experienced this, not all of you, but there is a time that you want to be away from voices.

You want to be away from talkers. You want to be away from even those who are well -meaning in their speech.

There's a time when even the well -meaning supportive words of those who love you are painful to you.

Have any of you experienced that? Have you been to those dark places where you don't even want to hear the encouraging words?

You just don't even really want to hear the words. And you just want to be alone.

There is a time when alone is better than together. And I'm up here regularly calling for us to move toward community and away from isolation.

You'll hear that from me week in and week out. But that doesn't preclude the reality that there is indeed a time to be alone.

And Jesus in our text, you need to remember this throughout this entire message, throughout this entire text, as you read this text, remember that it begins with Jesus wanting to be alone.

That flavors the entire text that we're looking at. Everything that Jesus teaches, everything that Jesus is showing us and modeling us by his behavior in this text begins with a heart's drive to be by himself.

And that's not what this text is going to look like. You know, you've read it, you're familiar with it, but it starts there.

It starts with the intention of being alone. But the crowds. He gets in the boat with his disciples, they push out.

The crowds are knowledgeable about the Sea of Galilee. They've probably lived their entire lives on the shores of this sea.

It's been their livelihood. And they watch the trajectory of the boat as it pushes out in the water and they go, we know where he's going.

And they walk around the shore to meet him on the other side.

To go ahead, and word spreads village to village to village. The Master's going to the other side and they're all, villages are, and the crowds are growing as the people are going around the lakeshore to get to the other side.

Jesus has had a rough day with rough news. He wants to be alone. He wants to get alone and probably pray and maybe even just shed some tears for the loss of his cousin.

But there's no rest for Jesus. The structure of our text is all about the lessons that Jesus gives us through the way he lived his life.

He is not in our text teaching with his mouth, but he is teaching us powerful lessons by what he does and the way that he does it.

And so the outline for the lessons of Jesus, as we sit at the feet of Jesus and watch the way that he did things and watch the way that he rolled, here are the four points to his message for us this morning.

Four things that we can sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from this text. The first is Jesus models compassion in verses 13 and 14.

The second is Jesus stretches his disciples' faith in verses 15 through 18, the large chunk of what we're looking at this morning.

And then Jesus enlists his followers in verse 19. And Jesus exceeds the needs of those around him in verses 20 and 21.

So here in our first point, with the stage set in verse 13 for us, remember he wants to be alone.

Jesus is tired. He's full of sorrow. He's rightfully grieved. And he models compassion for others, our first point.

When he arrives at the shore hoping to get alone, he's greeted by a needy crowd that has brought out their sick from the villages for healing.

And he had compassion on them. I don't know about you, and I have a hunch about you, that you can relate to my experiences, but this is convicting to me.

This is convicting to me personally. I can come home hangry, and I'm unkind to my wife and kids.

I have a headache, and I can lash out at those that are close to me. I can always justify my rotten attitude or behavior with circumstances.

Anybody in the same boat as me, you have a reason why you said A, B, or C, or why you acted that way.

And you self -justify yourselves. I do that as well. Look at the text.

Jesus didn't come home to those who loved him. Jesus shows up for some alone time and is greeted by strangers.

This is his response to strangers who are asking him, Jesus, on this day, could you give just a little more?

Could you give just a little bit more? Now, how many of you think that he's justified in saying, not today, guys.

Not today. You would justify that for yourself, wouldn't you? You would justify, Jesus. You'd give him a pass on this one.

He's just found out his cousin has been beheaded. He's dead, and he's like wanting to be alone.

And it's pushing on in the day, and he's like, can I just get a break here?

And he shows compassion on them. They're strangers.

And he shows compassion. And you might be moved to say, yeah, of course. He's Jesus.

He's Jesus. Of course he acts this way. He has a supernatural love. He's strong and has an endless supply of energy to draw from.

He probably just went, ooh, I'm God. And it was a boom, instant power up. And then he was like, oh, yeah, and meet needs and all that stuff, right?

Sometimes we can have that view of Jesus, right? But I'd remind you, and it's very important that our theology comes into play in these texts and understanding who

Jesus is. Jesus had a human nature just like you and me. He didn't come and clothe himself in a human suit, a flesh suit.

It's not like God inside a person. He became a man with a body and a human nature, but without sin.

He felt tired. He felt tempted to say, I've got nothing left to give here today.

I just want to be alone, guys. But what does

Jesus do? He feels compassion on them, and he sets about healing them.

And notice he doesn't do it grudgingly. He doesn't act grudgingly like, oh, I mean, how many of you might even do the right thing, but you would have the wrong motives in your heart?

You come home from a long day, and somebody needs something from you, and it's like, oh, yeah, I'll do it. I'll be the martyr.

And then you're all pouty -faced and like, yeah, well, I'll just get dinner around, I guess, for myself or something.

After a long, hard day, I've had to do all this, and sure, and you're showing a lot of compassion in your heart when you're doing that, right?

He feels love. Jesus here in our text feels love for others and acts on that love.

Too often, we do one or the other without combining the two, right? You can probably relate to that at times in your life when you act the part without the feelings or you feel the feelings without the actions.

We all know what that's like. We've all done that. But compassion, when you feel it in your heart, is only ever meant to truly move you to help.

It's to move you to action, to move you to do something about the plight of those around you.

Without action, there's another word in English that I think applies better. It's not compassion when you don't act. It's pity.

It's pity. Pity is not a great word. Pity is just feeling bad for somebody else and turning the other way.

Whatever. You poor thing, you. But let me be careful as we use

Jesus as a model for us here. I kind of prayed that earlier. But I want to make sure that our attention in the text falls in the right place.

I don't want us to leave here thinking first about our need to muster up some sense of compassion and action to help others.

Some of us are like, oh yeah, Jesus, model of compassion. And so we just need to, we need to power up.

We need to level up. We need to just, I'm just going to force myself to have compassion.

You ever try that? How does that work? I'm just going to love others. I'm just going to make myself, just love.

It's not the way that it works, right? And I'm not sure that that's what

Jesus wants of us here in this text. I want us to fix our gaze firmly on the one who keeps on giving of himself.

I believe that's why he's here in this text. Jesus doesn't do this thing in the text so that you can engage in a self -improvement project of trying to take his place for everybody in your life.

He's doing this so that we might know his goodness, his kindness, his compassion.

And his compassion and goodness and kindness for people just like you and me. The sick.

The hurting. The downcast. Look at our text. The people desperate enough to carry a friend or a family member down to the shore in a far out of the way place, no villages around, a long ways away, a long hike, and they carry their family there without even having any food to eat to see the

Savior. Desperate people. Desperate people like you and me. And Jesus, hear me carefully,

Jesus on his worst day has enough compassion for all. Jesus on his worst day has enough compassion for everyone.

I'll let you down on my bad days. True story. It's not a promise, it's just a reality. Your spouse will let you down on their bad days.

Sometimes even on a good day. Your kids or your parents will disappoint you.

Even your best friend will at times turn on you. And you, you on your worst day will disappoint others.

But trust in Jesus is never misplaced. He is the perfect model of compassion.

And that's the first point. The second is the largest section of our text this morning.

It shows Jesus stretching the faith of his disciples. I believe that this is the core of this miracle.

The core of this account is the stretching of the faith of his disciples. Why does

Jesus go to such extremes in this miracle? Is it primarily to feed people who are just going to be hungry again the next day?

The next morning they're going to wake up and their stomachs are going to grumble and they're going to want breakfast. And then they're going to want lunch and then they're going to want dinner again.

Is this merely buying a value meal at McDonald's for a homeless guy who's going to once again be hungry later in the day?

It's a pretty significant miracle if that's what he's trying to accomplish. Jesus is doing something with his disciples and he's doing something with us.

He's trying to show us something here in this miracle. And it should open our eyes to what he wants from us.

What he desires of you and me. He wants us to trust him.

He wants us to trust him. And he's not above asking us to do strange things to demonstrate that trust and faith.

Verse 15 sets up the problem. And it's a funny problem. It's actually kind of somewhat humorous and I think it's intended to be.

It's not really even a big problem. There is no emergency in this text.

I don't know how many times you've read this. You've probably read it a lot of times. But have you ever identified that this just isn't that big of a deal? I mean, think about it.

It's not a life or death miracle. How many of you have gone without a meal? You ever gone without a meal?

Did you make it? Are you alive? Did you know that these crowds could survive just fine without him giving them bread and fish to eat?

Did you know that? They'd be fine. I mean, maybe they wouldn't even eat until the next lunch but they'd survive.

They'd be okay. I think that we're seeing something else that's a little bit humorous here.

The disciples are probably quite weary as the day is drawing to a close. Their motives for wrapping up this compassion fest is unclear but they tell

Jesus that these people have nothing to eat and maybe we should just disperse the crowds. Who's talking?

Who's saying this? Who's suggesting that all this compassion come to an end? The disciples.

Notice that the crowds aren't complaining. No complaints are recorded for us from the crowds shouting, give us food, give us food, give us food.

We're starving to death. We're dying here. Who brings this issue to Jesus? The disciples.

The crowds are hanging around for their turn with the miracle working healing. I think they're happy to stay.

They're happy to wait their turn because they know that they've got some loved one that is as an ailment or an illness that Jesus is working his way through the crowd and healing people.

This is 5 ,000 men, not counting women and children. The implications are this is a massive crowd.

It's taking Jesus some time to work his way through the crowd and deal with people on a one -on -one basis in the way that he did.

Think about how many miracles are in that crowd that we just don't even have recorded for us. So many things that Jesus did that we don't even see, we don't even know about.

It'd be cool to just kind of, who did you heal in that crowd? What was that like? To actually talk with them and see that, that would be an awesome thing.

They're there. If they were hungry, they could on their own choice just get up and go and walk.

It's a hall to a village, but they could get up and go in the village and eat if they wanted to. Implications are they're happy to stay there.

I see something in this that's a little funny, but also very, very close to real everyday life.

I think that at least some of the disciples would probably be categorized in the easily worried organizers and planners category.

Nervous laughter? I don't know. Some of them were pretty desperate to know what's next.

What's next? That would've been a battle cry of this text. That would've been the thought in the back of the disciples, what are we gonna do about this?

Problem solving, right? What are we gonna do about this? They liked the future all nice and tidy.

In other words, they had a strong trust in planning ahead. And there's nothing wrong with planning, but sometimes in our desire to plan things out, we can miss what

God wants to do. Do you know what I'm talking about? I had that experience just in signing student loans my first two years of college.

My first two years, I just signed on the dotted line every time that they put a paper in front of me so I could keep taking classes. And it wasn't until two years in that I was like, wait a minute,

I don't think a pastor's salary is gonna cover that. As a missionary, where's that gonna come from?

And so I took a semester off and ended up working some and trying to work the last couple of years to not add to that student loan debt that I was signing up for.

And actually, I saw God provide in some amazing ways that I think if I had just kept signing those loans, I had a situation where I got a letter in my mailbox at Columbia, South Carolina, at Columbia Bible College, and it actually said, dude, it didn't say that, you aren't getting credit for these classes.

I'm like literally a week and a half out from final exams in a semester. I'm like, dude, you're not getting credit for these if you don't pay up now.

And it was like, I had like a $1 ,700 balance, which back in those days was like, I don't know, half a million, I don't know. But long time ago, long, long time ago, not even like five days later,

I didn't say anything to anybody, I just prayed. Not even five days later, I had a notice in my mailbox that said, someone's anonymously paid this off.

You're free and clear. Credit granted, everything done. And I was like, whoa, like sign on the dotted line for the loan, which is kind of like,

I mean there's a little bit of planning ahead in there or there's a faith avenue. I don't know that I would have ever had that experience to share with you had

I just went ahead on my own and done it. Do you see what I'm saying? And so there are times when it's that extra trust and just faith and just saying,

God, I'm open to what you want to do here and I'm not, not my plan, not my timeline, not graduating in four solid years, but take some time off and let

God work and let God do some things. Check that out. That wasn't in my notes, that whole story wasn't in my notes, so we're gonna just try to see if I can get caught up here and see where we're at.

Yeah, the disciples, they like the future nice and tidy. If the disciples got their way on this evening in our text, this real evening that's going down here and they're talking with Jesus, the crowds would be dispersed.

If the disciples get their way, the crowds are dispersed. Many needs go unmet and many people go back disappointed and unhealed and a miracle of epic proportions would be averted.

It wouldn't have occurred. The feeding of the 5 ,000 would not have occurred on the disciples' timeline.

Are you hearing me? If the disciples get what they want, then they don't get to see the glory of God come down.

Can you recognize how sometimes that might be real in your life? Can you see how that might apply to where you live, where you've planned and planned and planned to make sure that you're insulated from the, from what?

The glory of God. You've put yourself in such a box and you've planned and planned and planned and you've held on white -knuckled to the plan to such a degree that you're making sure that none of those miracles get through.

But Jesus pushes their buttons in verse 16. He says, these are planners. They're organized and they come to Him with a problem, a perceived problem, and they're like, and He says, no, they don't need to go away.

You, the emphasis is you, give them something to eat. Two amazing observations about that statement in verse 16.

Jesus, how did we start this text? Jesus, who wanted to get alone,

Jesus, who wanted to get away, now has an out.

He now has an out to get alone. And instead, with compassion,

He doesn't want to send the people away. See, Jesus was born to serve others and He wants to keep on serving.

The second observation is that emphasis on the word you, showing that He wants the disciples to solve this problem.

You, do something about it. He's stretching their thinking. He's stretching their problem -solving.

He's stretching the way that they plan and saying, in essence, solve the problem, but you're going to have to have some faith in this.

It's a problem -solving that requires faith and not merely mental power, trusting in Him.

Like good planners, they already have an answer. You see in their flesh, they had already been trying to solve the problem.

So, I mean, have you ever asked yourself, how did they already know how many fish and loaves they had?

They'd already thought this through. They'd been trying to mentally come up with a plan of their own. They had already collected their resources and counted them.

And it didn't take them much time to come to the conclusion that five loaves and two fish are not enough to feed a crowd of over 5 ,000 people.

So, in verse 18, Jesus calls them to an act of faith. Bring the bread and the fish to me.

Okay, are you hungry? You're going to eat everything that we have here, Jesus? I don't believe that this is a huge step of faith for them, by the way, because they had had some experience, but they are kind of thick like you and me.

And so, sometimes I think that it took a lot more faith than we give them credit for to even bring the fish and the loaves to Jesus.

It's not a huge step, but it is a calling to them that requires obedience. Bring it. So, they bring out the five dinner roll -sized loaves.

That's the approximation of the word that's used there and understanding historically what that would have been, about the size of a dinner roll.

And two smoked, or they would either smoke or pickle fish for a travel like this. And so, it's probably pickled fish.

The disciples do not know what's going to happen next. Sometimes it's beneficial, it's always helpful for us to put ourselves in the shoes of those in the text to know what they knew when they knew it.

We have the benefit of reading the whole story and then going back and analyzing it so we know how it ends. They didn't.

They didn't know what Jesus was going to do next. We have a hard time seeing the faith that was required of them in this situation, particularly because we know how it all ends.

But they didn't have much choice. But I have a sense that maybe the disciples have some thoughts like, what's he going to do this time?

Or here he goes again, like, how's this going to go? And he commands the crowds to recline on the grass and he prays and looks up to heaven and offers a blessing.

That blessing, the word that's there, is probably just a thanks. It's not, God, please do something powerful and awesome here.

It's, thank you, Father. Thank you, Father, for being the one who provides bread.

Thank you for being the one who provides food for us. And he broke the loaves and the disciples began to pass them out.

Now, I think probably, some of you are more technical than I am, and so maybe you've already thought through this, but I had not given much thought.

I've heard this story so many times. I thought I was so familiar with it. And any of you have that happen, you read a story in the

Bible, and you're like, oh yeah, I'll just breeze through that one because it's that, and all of a sudden something stands out to you. But I haven't thought much about the mechanics of this miracle before this week.

A real question, real genuine question, although it's a little bit geeked out, but did Jesus break the first law of thermodynamics here in this miracle?

Did he add material to the equation of the universe here in this instance?

Have you ever thought about that? Possible. He's the creator. So, I mean, we had a funny banter in our staff meeting about this, and Dave's suggestion was like, hey,

I wonder if there's a wheat field somewhere that kind of just lost some of its grain that day. There's a school of fish.

I kind of went to the fish side of things. I was like fishing. Bob, where'd you go? Like, I mean, there's, oh, and he's pickled.

You know, I mean, what do you, you know, it's like, I mean, what happened here in this text in a physical sense?

I don't know. I have a hard time. I would want to go back and just see, like, what's physically happening?

Was it like Jesus took a loaf, he took one of those dinner rolls, and pop, and he's holding two?

And then he does it again, and then he does it again. I don't know. Or was it, was the multiplication just happening inside the baskets?

I don't know how the whole thing happened. I mean, it's just, it's crazy to think about how this all went down.

It's mysterious to me. It seems like one of the most incredible miracles. Anybody with me on that? I mean, miracles are,

I mean, they're all incredible, right? Like, the sun going back, you know, three steps, that's crazy. Or the parting of the

Red Sea, dry ground, not mud, not mud up to their knees, dry ground. Like, miracles are miracles, and they all ought to be astounding, but this one just for some reason just sticks out to me as like, whoa, wow.

And I don't know, I don't know what happened. By the way,

I do know this. Don't give any credence to some of the outlandish theories saying that this was a miracle of sharing.

Now, I've heard this on the radio before. I've heard it from other pastors before. Any of you ever heard that idea? That this is just, this is just,

Jesus had somebody share their lunch with him, and then it motivated the crowd to share, and then they just started sharing, and eventually everybody ate because, and there's a logical problem with that.

I'm thinking that maybe a pastor came up with that illustration because he wasn't thinking through the mechanics of it. But if everybody is able to eat, then why do they have to share their lunch with each other?

They could have just ate their own. If everybody's got enough food to share to feed 5 ,000, then everybody's got their own lunch to eat, and we're all good.

Like, if everybody's going to be satisfied by this meal, then that logic doesn't even work. But it certainly, we don't even need to go to logic.

Just stick with the text. The text indicates that this is miraculous. There was not enough food.

The disciples came to them and said, we've got to send them away. They've got to go get their own food if they're going to have dinner tonight.

So the text doesn't leave any room for that. The miraculous nature of this is just clear. But the disciples were called to trust in Jesus.

They came to him with a problem. And how many of you admit to having some problems in your life? You have some problems in your life.

Well, we have problems in our lives, and in their case, they came and suggested a solution to the problem to Jesus.

But for the King of Glory, the problem was really no problem at all. And the solution was far outside of the plans of the disciples.

I'm not against planning at all. I could have come across earlier in this message like I'm against planning.

Not at all. But I am against what I would call ultimate planning. I would suggest to you that we plan and we hold our plans loosely as the created, not as the creator.

I believe that Jesus would say to each of you, and each one of us in the room, go ahead and plan, and hold it loosely, and be ready for me to take you on a ride.

Be ready for me to take you on a ride. When it comes to the building, the building just a few blocks away, the elders have planned to build a modest building that we believe we can afford.

We've crunched numbers. We've planned for downturns. We've worked to safeguard ourselves from borrowing more than we can afford.

But in honesty, all along the way, I've been praying in a different direction.

I've been praying that God would drop some kind of miraculous gift on us that would just go ahead and cover the whole thing. That's the way that God can work.

God can do that kind of thing. We've planned. We've protected. We've suggested dismissing the crowds to go get their own food.

But I want to let God know that I'm open to the miracle. I would love to see him break into my plans with his creative power, and I would suggest to you that when you're facing a problem,

I think very often we don't go to God first with these things. We go to our plan first. We're plan A.

Our brain is plan A, and then everything else is B, C, and D, and Jesus is in there somewhere, hopefully, if he gets an honorable mention.

I trust in the power of God to do vastly more than I could ever plan for or anticipate. We should plan, but we should hold our plans loosely in faith that God may take us in another direction for his glory.

The third lesson in our text. He's stretched their faith. He's modeled compassion, and now this next one comes from the way that Jesus chooses to perform his miracle.

He enlists his followers. Jesus enlists his followers. Not a huge point, but notice in verse 9 that the disciples came.

19, rather. Notice in verse 19 that the disciples came to Jesus with a problem, and he enlisted them as part of the solution.

How often do we have a problem that God will actually use us to help solve? Jesus multiplies the bread and the fish, hands it to them, and says, you give it out.

You pass it out. Jesus didn't need to do that, by the way. I believe he's doing that intentionally to enlist the help of those around him.

He didn't need to use the disciples in this way. He could have had manna rain from heaven, and the crowd just has to open their mouth, and it falls right in.

Nobody even had to chew if he wanted them to. That's weird. Soft manna.

The kind that dissolves in your mouth. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know where. Why did I go there, Dave? What's going on?

But he enlisted them because he wants to show us that he desires to use us to meet the needs of those around us.

He wants us to be ministers to the needy, and he wants to use you and me to do it.

Verses 20 through 21 are the fourth point, the last point. Jesus is a king who exceeds the needs of his followers.

I think it was well within the mathematical and providential skill of Jesus Christ himself to avoid leftovers.

He could have done that. It wasn't a mathematical problem that was too tough for him and he was like, oh, crud,

I made a little too much casserole. Now we're going to be eating it for the next four years, right? Have you ever had that casserole that you're getting tired of?

Some of you have it in your refrigerator right now. It's something in your refrigerator, and you're like, why did we do this? Why did we do this?

Turkey after Thanksgiving? It's like, how much turkey can I eat? I'm done. Done with the turkey.

He didn't have to have leftovers to this miraculous meal that he cooked up. So the question on our minds ought to be why 12 baskets of leftovers?

What's he doing there? Jesus is doing this intentionally. He's not doing this accidentally.

Did someone eat less than he had planned for? Oh, they just kind of, they decided to kind of be on a diet today or whatever.

This is all we're satisfied. And there is awe. There should be awe and wonder in the leftovers because God is a giver of abundance.

We do not serve a stingy God. I'll say that again.

We don't serve a stingy God. Jesus is not into just enough.

His blessings are abundant. And those who accept him as King and Savior only now experience in part what will be the abundance of his glorious kingdom forever and ever.

Trust Jesus. And in eternity you will see that your faith has been well placed.

So let's wrap this time up with some applications. The first comes from the first point. Jesus is full of compassion.

So just a simple statement. Trust in his goodness. Trust in his goodness.

Jesus is full of compassion. The second, Jesus stretches the faith of his followers.

So hold your plans loosely and be ready for him to shift things over onto his plan, over onto his timeline, or over onto his way.

Third, Jesus enlists his followers. Be ready. Be available.

Be willing to be a tool that's useful in blessing others. Often we come to God with our problems and he ends up using us to meet the needs around us.

Lastly, Jesus exceeds our needs. Trust in his abundant provision for you.

Do you trust that he loves you and will grant you more than what you need?

This doesn't mean that a follower of Christ can never starve. That's not what it's saying. It means that starvation and lack is not the final destiny of any of his followers.

No follower of Jesus will end up disappointed. No follower of Jesus will end up hungry for more.

They will be satisfied. There's a glorious feast coming for any and all who are under the forgiveness and lordship of Jesus Christ.

You see, Jesus died for us and we remember that as we come to communion each week. We take a cracker, a little piece of bread as a reminder of the body of Jesus given for us.

We take a cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for his people. He is so full of compassion.

So for all of us who have come to him by faith, I'd encourage you this morning to come to one of the tables, take communion this morning and then go out this week ready to be enlisted in his work in the lives of others and do all this with the firm conviction that our king provides for us more than we need.

If you're here this morning and you don't know that king, you don't know that one who provides abundance for his people, and you don't even necessarily know what it means to be one of his people, then

I'd encourage you to please come in boldness and talk with me. I'm gonna be standing out by the door at the end of the service and if that's you and you're like,

I'd like to know more about starting a relationship with Jesus Christ, I need forgiveness of my sins and I need the hope that he supplies and I'd love to talk with you about that.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace, for the abundant provision that you give to us.

And I know that we're in various stages of that abundance. Father, there are some here who are blessed immensely in the physical realm and then there's others who are not and are struggling.

So Father, I pray that you would turn all of us, each one of us, that our eyes would be turned over to what it is that you desire for us.

That you would shine your goodness in our eyes that we would see your glory, your beauty, your majesty.

And at the end of our lives when we come to that final breath and we have nothing left to cling to, all of us will be in abject poverty at that point.

All of us with nothing except our final breath and our relationship with you.

I pray that you would highlight for us the richness, the great awesomeness that certainly we can't take anything with us but we can indeed take our faith with us in you.

And that grace is our hope and forgiveness is our hope. And that regardless of where we stand in the blessings of this life, there is one that is to come that is so much higher, so much greater.

And it is not temporary but it is permanent and it is eternal and it is glorious. And Father, if there's anybody in this room who has not put their faith and trust in you,

I pray that you would move them to boldness this morning to come and speak with me, to come and speak with one of the band members, to hear about how they can be forgiven and start a relationship where the abundance of the future can be theirs in Christ.

Father, I thank you that he purchased that for us. He purchased that for us at the cross and it's through his death and his burial and his resurrection that we have hope and we celebrate that reminder that our sins have been paid for as we come to these tables in the four corners.

Father, I pray that you would move in us just hearts of gratitude and thankfulness for the abundance that has been given to us through the blood of Jesus that covers us from our sins.