The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E60 - Feeding of the 5000

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Hey, church family. It is Devo Time. If you've got your Bible, we're going to be in Matthew Chapter 14, day two of no doubt but hope for football. We're going to have a little jag season, hopefully this year. So anyway, if you got your Bible, Matthew chapter 14, we'll pick it up in verse 13. Part of the reason I'm doing this is kind of a follow-up to what I preached on a few weeks ago in John chapter 6. If we remembered in John 6, Jesus does the crazy, I'm the bread of life talk. You must eat my flesh, drink my blood. It came on the heat. heels of two big miracles, came on the heels of feeding of the 5,000, which we're going to talk about today, and walking on the water. And so I just wanted to take a minute and do a deep dive into

the feeding of the 5,000. This miracle shows up in all four Gospels, which is kind of rare. And when you look at it, part of what you've got to understand about the Gospels, we have four different accounts of the life of Jesus. Two of them are, are unlawful. And we're a lot of you. eyewitnesses that wrote the accounts. One of them interviewed an eyewitness and another one interviewed a whole bunch of eyewitnesses. And so we get four different accounts. And each of the accounts are written two different audiences, like a Gentile audience, a Roman audience, a Jewish audience. And so the best way to think about it is the events in and of themselves did not change. they were not different, but the accounts of the events just tend to highlight some different details,

like when you watch your football team play, if you see the highlights the next day on ESPN, they may decide to show one set of highlights, whereas CBS Sports may show another set of highlights, depending on their audience, et cetera. And so that's the difference between the Gospels. And so Matthew records it this way. Matthew chapter 14, beginning and 13. Now, when Jesus heard this, and the this that he heard was what we talked about yesterday.

His first cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded. So super bad news, he's bummed. So when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard of 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 he healed their sick. The Greek word there is splogitsomai. That when Jesus sees his people in need,

splagitsomai means like from the bowels is what it literally means in Hebrew or in Greek. Or from the gut. It's like this thing that God would love us so much, his creation, his children so much, that when he sees his people in need and in distress, something stirs from the inside. out that he wants to be the one that meets our needs. 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, this is very important, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. How many times do we come to the Lord and say, God, what is wrong with this world? why don't you do something about it?

And I think oftentimes God is looking at us going, that's funny, I was going to ask you the same thing. You see, God's primary method by which he is going to do, modern day miracles, is through his body, the church. That's me and you. And so the disciples rightly come to him and say, hey, boss, we got a problem, and I don't think we can meet the needs of these people.

So why don't we just tell them to go away? But Jesus, like Jesus is like, no, no, no, no. I want to use you to do something that in your own power, you would never, ever, ever be able to do. Let me tell you what a disciple is. A disciple is the person that says, all right, God, I'm going to put my yes on the table, and I'm going to watch you put it on the map.

A disciple, surrender to Jesus is the one that comes and says, God, whatever is on your heart, if you tell me go, I will say, I am on my way. A disciple is the person that says, here I am, send me. However you would use me for your glory here on earth, and God, I want to be a part of what you're doing. So he says to them, why don't you give them something to eat? And they said to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish. Now, in the book of John, John chapter 6, before the bread of life talk and the eat my flesh, drink, my blood talk,

John lets us know that they got this five loaves and two fish from just a little boy. That the primary conversation Jesus is having is with Philip in John chapter 6. And Philip says, Jesus, we'd have to work like eight months. We'd have to work for eight months, so, you know, buy enough food to feed. all of these people. There is no way in the world we can pull this thing off. And yet somehow this little boy comes up and donates all he has, which is not very much, and he donates the little bit that he has, and he says, maybe this will help. Let me ask you this. What has God put into your hands? That would be a blessing for you to trust God and say, here you go. I mean, is it time? Maybe you have

time on your hands? Is it some kind of talent? Is it resources? Is it a relationship? What is it? What are the things that God has blessed you with? And in your hands, there's only so much that you can do. I'll bet you, in our church, I'll bet you there are many, many, many of you that had a dream, that had a talent, that had an ability? And maybe at one point you were using it for the glory of God. And somehow that thing has grown stale and old and you forgot about it. I want to be a little. I want to be able to. I wonder how many unfed people there are on this planet because the people with five loaves and two fish kept up for themselves instead of putting it in the hands of Jesus. I mean, what is that for you? Is it your financial resource? Every single one of us should be bringing at least our first and best

tenth to the Lord saying, here you go. God, I know that you could make better use of this than I can, and you could do more than I can with this. And the crazy thing is, when we, when we, when we, when we hear five loaves and two fish and we watch like veggie tails, we think loaves are like big old French rolls and like a delicious bass. That's not what it is at all. This was like enough food for one little boy for that day. It'd be little biscuits, these little hard biscuits. And the fish were more like sardines. And the fish was like a condiment, not a protein. You would take this little sardine kind of fish and you'd just scrub it on the on the bread so that it would kind of add a flavor to it so it would spice up your bread a little bit. And this little boy says, Jesus,

I don't have much, but what I have, I bring to you. Again, I dare you to ask the Spirit of God, what is that in your life? And what is it, what is keeping you from delivering unto the Lord this thing that he has given to you to be used for him out of compassion for his people? And people and for his glory. Is it fear? Is it pride? Is it greed? What is it? So back in Matthew 14, they say to him, we have only five loaves here and two fish, and Jesus said, bring them here to me. And 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 he said a blessing. And then he broke the loaves and he gave them to the disciples. and the disciples gave them to the crowd.

Now, in my Bible, in the little header here, it says Jesus feeds the 5,000, and rightfully so, because apart from Christ, there's no way this could have happened. But if you look in the fine print here in the verses, who is it that actually fed the 5,000? It was the disciples. Do you realize that as a church, right now and always,

we are in the same position that the disciples are. There's Jesus in front of us and the world, a crowd of people on the other side of us. And oftentimes we are the conduit that Jesus wants to use to do his work among those people. And listen, I don't know how it work. Can you think about this? Don't think about this like a Sunday school story.

This was an actual event. Jesus is standing there. There are five loaves. There's two little tiny fish. He says the blessing. Something miraculous happens, but I don't know that anybody saw it yet. He hands out a little bit of bread and fish

to each of the disciples, and then he gives this command. Now, you go feed them. Can you imagine if you're the disciple? Can you imagine? You're looking at Jesus, and he goes, here you go. Go feed them.

Go feed them? There's 5,000 men. So if everybody brings a date and a kid, there's 15,000 people. And I've got a third of a biscuit and a half of sardine. What in the world am I going to do with this? And the crazy thing is, if you had five times that much in the hand of the little boy,

all it would do is feed one kid. Now you've got 20% of what the little boy, had, but it has been blessed by Jesus, and what can be done with it can't even be quantified. And then at some point, by faith, the disciples had to turn around, and they had to start handing out one-twelfth of a meal to a person. And they couldn't give it all the way at the first bit, right? Don't you imagine it at first? They're like, all right, listen, man, I know it's not much, but here, just take just a little bit, okay? So this guy has some, all right, and you take a little bit, and you take a little bit and you take a little bit,

and at some point, at some point, they had to begin to realize, oh, my goodness, this blessing of God is an inexhaustible resource, and the more I give out, the more I have to give out, and the more I give out, the more I have to give out. Do you understand that's the way God works with his resources? That maybe God didn't give you everything you have so that you could have everything you won't,

but maybe God gave you everything you have so that this world could have everything it needs, and it don't just need money. It needs time. There are kids all over our city that need to be mentored. There are people that need to be loved. There are prayers that need to be prayed. There are students that need help.

There are single moms that need families to come around them and say, we got you. There are foster kids that need to be invited into a loving, God-fearing home. What has God put into your hand? an extra car, an extra room in your house, extra money in your bank account, extra time on your calendar.

And one way to pay attention to this is, you see, when Jesus saw the crowd, he had splogetumai, he had compassion on them. So one of the ways to figure out what you do with what God has put in your hand is what kind of need is there in our world or in our city or in your neighborhood, and I'm talking about need, that does something on the inside of you.

You know, what led to our church sponsoring 10,000 compassion kids is because my wife saw one compassion packet 20 years ago and splogizumai rose up inside of her, and she did something about it. And we didn't think it was much, and it wasn't much. At that point, it was $32 a month. And now, as we continued to give, listen, at that point, we thought it was going to be one kid.

We had no idea that as we gave every single month to sponsor this kid, that God would multiply that into now a movement for all people to discover a deep in a relationship with Jesus Christ and almost every single one of you sponsor at least one kid. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. That when God takes a thing from you, blesses it, puts it back into your hand, and says, you go feed them. Then what does that look like for you?

And so he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and he said a blessing, and he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. Everybody didn't just get a bite because we have a lavish God that lavishes good gifts upon his children. and they took up the 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over, and those who ate were about 5,000 men besides the women and children. So there's 15,000 to 20,000 people here. Everybody eats all that they can eat, and there are still 12.

That is not a random number. There are 12 tribes of Israel. There are 12 disciples. There is a complete number left over. I wonder how many miracles never happened because somebody's fish and bread either rotted in their pocket or filled only their stomach when God wanted to do something exponentially larger than we ever hoped or imagined. What is that for you?

I pray that the Spirit of God would make plain to you what He has put in your hands that you should deliver unto the Lord. And I pray that the Spirit of God would make plain to you what he wants to put in your hands, to feed the people on the other side of you. Father in heaven, Lord, I thank you so much that in your sovereignty, you would use regular nobodies like us

to do the miraculous. And God, as miraculous as feeding people is, Lord, you use regular people like us to share the gospel, to share not just a little bit of food that will satisfy for a while, but the bread of life. that will change lives forever.

And Lord, would you convict us of places where you have given us these gifts, but we have grown, we've let them grow dormant because we've taken our eyes off of you, that we've gotten so busy with our world that we forgot that you didn't give us all that we have for us, but for you and your glory.

And God, even in this Devo time right now, all over the world, whoever's listening, Lord, I pray that you would speak very specifically to them to people. specifically about what you would have them do to step out by faith and be obedient to your call in their life. And God, we thank you for the abundance that will come because of it. We pray it in Jesus' name.