FBC Daily Devotional – September 16, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Thursday morning to you. I hope you're doing well and your week has gone along well to this point also.

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Today we're reading in John chapter 6, and the passage begins with a very famous account of one of Jesus' miracles, the feeding of the 5 ,000.

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But what I want to zero in on today is the question that Andrew asks in verse 9.

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So here's the dilemma. There are these thousands of people who have gathered to hear

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Jesus teach, and they've been sitting and listening for a long time.

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But nobody anticipated that they'd be there that long, so nobody brought any food with them.

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And Jesus is concerned about their hunger, and so he wants to take care of this.

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He wants to feed them. And he says to Philip in verse 5, he says, where can we buy bread that these people may eat?

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And of course, the answer to that question is, well, there's nowhere to buy bread so that these people may eat.

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And Philip says to him, well, if we had 200 denarii worth of bread, it wouldn't be sufficient to feed everybody.

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And basically what he's saying is, there's so many people that it would cost more than we have, even if there was a place to go buy bread to feed everybody.

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In other words, Philip is looking at the situation, and he's saying, it is impossible.

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It can't be done. Forget about it. We need to just send the people away.

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And then that brings Andrew into the picture. And Andrew, very famously, he comes to Jesus and he says, well, you know, there's a little boy here who actually brought a lunch.

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And his lunch is five barley loaves and two small fish.

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Five barley loaves would be like those dinner rolls you get at a restaurant. You know, they're maybe like this big around, and they were to go with this fish.

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You'd probably open one of those barley loaves up, put a piece of fish on that, and that would be a sandwich for him. You know, he had five of those things.

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But then, then Andrew asked this question. The question is, what are they among so many?

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What are they among so many? So I'm wondering, what great need or crisis or problem are you looking at in your personal life, maybe in your resources, maybe in your family, maybe on a national scale?

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There's a lot of those, aren't there? But what great need or crisis or problem are you looking at and wondering as you look at what meager resources, if any, you have to deal with that problem?

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You're wondering, what are they among so many? What are they?

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What good are they? This was essentially Andrew's question, right?

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And Jesus said, I'll show you what good they are. I can take those few meager resources, and I can multiply them sufficiently so that the need is provided, the crisis is resolved, the problem is solved.

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Jesus can take whatever it is. So again, what are you looking at that is causing you to ask the question, what are they among so many?

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Give the problem, the crisis, the emergency, the issue, give it to the

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Lord and give yourself, your resources, whatever it is you have to the

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Lord and see what he does with it. By the way,

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I don't mean to say by that, that we have an attitude of sit back, let go and let

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God, where we don't have to participate in resolving any problems or anything like that.

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No, God takes what we have and he multiplies it and he uses it to resolve the problems, just like he did with the fish and the loaves.

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And so you let him take what he has, take what you have, let him take it, multiply it, use it for his glory and for your good.

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And by the way, be careful in the resolving of that problem, that you then don't develop an attitude that just looks at Jesus as merely one to provide all the solutions to all of your problems.

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That's exactly what many of these people did, right? After they got fed, miraculously on the hillside, they wanted

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Jesus just to provide them bread all the time. I mean, why should we go work for bread when there's this one who can multiply loaves and fishes?

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This is what happened in verses 25 through 27. Jesus, they went after him,

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Jesus left the area, they followed after him, they found him. And Jesus says to them,

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Moses, surely I say to you, you don't seek me because you saw the signs. In other words, you don't seek me because you really believe in me and are trusting me as your

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Messiah. He says, but you're seeking me because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

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In other words, you're seeking me because you want me to fill your tummy every day. Don't go there.

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Don't treat Jesus that way. Don't treat him that way for simply selfish reasons, to get what you want or to get what you think you need from him.

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Not really being concerned about truly following him and learning from him and becoming like him.

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No. But when you're facing a crisis, you got this tremendous need, a problem that seems insoluble, then take it to Jesus with all of the resources that you have and let him multiply those resources.

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Let him solve it. Let him use you to bring resolution. Let's learn from this today.

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Father, I pray that you would take the few fishes and loaves that we have and multiply them and solve the need, solve the problem and resolve the issues that are so concerning and plaguing our hearts and our minds.

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We entrust ourselves to you to that end. Take us, use us for your honor and for your glory.

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And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Have a good Thursday.