[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints, if it’s all right, I start with a little personal antidote from this week.
I don’t know if it’s the same with you, the last few weeks have just, it seems like the
world has kind of gone crazy.
I don’t know why, but it seems more than usual, I think coming out of the presidential debate
and with the unrest that followed and then with the assassination attempt and all of
the things that are happening, it seems particularly troubling to me.
And as Carrie and I were talking about that, and I think it was mostly she was getting
annoyed that I was watching the news so much, she said, Brian, you know how you talk about
how Jesus sits on the throne?
Yeah.
And you know how you talk about how Jesus rules and reigns all things for the sake of
the church?
Yeah.
She said, you know how you talk about how all things work together for the good of those
who love God and are called according to His purpose?
Yeah.
She said to me, well.
And I think the text does that to us too, today.
I think this is, and it’s, it’s a hard text for me.
It’s not a hard text to understand,
the feeding of the 5,000.
But I think particularly for me,
it’s a hard text to apply.
The basic idea of the text is simply this.
Jesus takes care of us. And maybe specifically, Jesus cares for our lives
here on earth as well as our spiritual lives. I think the reason
this is difficult, at least just for me, and I told the early church that I
should sit there and every one of you should come in the pulpit and preach
this to me. See if we could squeeze you all in and you could tell her, because I
I think this is mostly what I need to hear is that,
I think that I know that our eternal salvation
is by grace through faith,
apart from works so that no one can boast.
When it comes to our eternal life,
it’s God’s grace and mercy and peace
that governs and rules there.
But here’s the danger,
is I start to think that our earthly life here,
our temporal life is by works and not by grace.
Grace for heaven, works for earth.
earth, grace for eternal life, works for life below.
Now it’s not that our works have nothing to do with our life below, but the Lord Jesus
wants to enter into our earthly lives and say, I also here am Lord.
I also here am taking care of you.
I am here your good shepherd.
That’s the idea of the feeding of the 5,000.
So the text is, so Jesus had just sent the disciples out, the 12, to preach and to work
miracles and to rescue people and to deliver them from the demons and to heal the sick,
and they come back to Jesus and they’re telling all the stories and they’re giving the report
of all the things that happened, and people are kind of crowding around and they’re so
busy and there’s so many things going on that Jesus says, alright, it’s time now for a retreat.
In fact, in some ways, the feeding of the 5,000 is a retreat gone wrong.
Because Jesus says, okay, let’s the 13 of us, you, disciples, and me, let’s get out
of here.
Let’s get out of Dodge.
Let’s get in the boat.
Let’s sail around the Sea of Galilee.
Let’s find a hidden spot where we can just rest and eat and pray and be by ourselves
for a little bit.
Okay.
So they get in the boat and they start heading around to the desolate spot and everyone sees
where they’re going and they know where they’re going and they run to meet them there so that
By time they come around the corner to this hidden cove,
it’s filled with 10,000 people, 5,000 men,
not even counting the women and the children.
And they’re all there waiting for Jesus.
And you have to think the disciples are,
in some ways, even Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark,
this comes up over and over again,
that Jesus is trying to get away,
or he’s trying to preach,
and the people are coming to him
for all sorts of needs, healings and deliverances.
and Jesus, he wants to preach or he wants to pray,
he wants to be a way, but he looks at the people
and he just can’t help it.
In fact, in the text it says that he looked on the people
and he saw that they were like sheep without a shepherd,
which is bad for the sheep.
He sees that they’re sheep without a shepherd
and he has compassion on them.
That’s the word used in the Bible only of Jesus.
He has compassion on them.
Him. He can’t help them. His heart is bleeding for them. He loves them so much. And so even
though they were planning to try to go on retreat and kind of get away to themselves,
they’re there and so Jesus starts to bless them by preaching and unfolding to them the
kingdom of heaven, preaching law and gospel, the kindness of God, the openness of heaven
for them by His own works. He starts preaching to them and He’s preaching all day and it’s
Now it’s already getting into the night.
And the disciples look at Jesus and they say, well, maybe they didn’t have watches back
then.
I don’t think theyâ¦
Maybe they had an hourglass or something, pointed at the sun, that’s how they did it.
It’s getting late.
People are hungry.
It’s probably time to send them away so they can go into the villages and get something
to eat.
You know, that’s kind of in the sermon here.
here, and Jesus looks at the disciples and says, why don’t you feed them?
The disciples, Philip and Thomas particularly seem to be the quickest at math, and so they
do the calculations, and they’re looking at all the people, and they’re looking at how
much, and they add it up, and they say, 200 denarii, that’s 200 days wages, is a year
really, maybe not quite, but that’s how much money it’s going to cost to feed all
these people. Do you want us to go and use this 200 denarii to buy bread for
all the people? I don’t even know if we have that much money. They’re
calculating all these things. And Jesus says, well, what do you have? So they
look in the picnic basket, five loaves, two fish. Jesus says, give them to me. And
he breaks them. He breaks them. He gives thanks to God. He hands them to the
disciples and says, feed them. You know, the disciples think that, well, all the
people in the front row are gonna be fine, but everybody else is gonna be
hungry. But they start to feed the people and there’s so much bread
and there’s so much fish that everyone eats as much as they want and they’re
full and they’re satisfied and they can’t eat anymore and then Jesus has
them pick up the leftovers and there’s more at the end than there was at the
beginning. 12 baskets full of fragments, breadcrumbs, leftovers, and fish. More at
the end than there was at the beginning. And then the crowd goes away. And this
is recorded for us for our amazement. In fact, I think the gospel of Mark
particularly grabs a hold of the language of Psalm 23 to impress on us
this fact that Jesus is our Good Shepherd. Jesus is the one who leads us
in the paths of righteousness. But more than that, Jesus is the one who brings us
by the cool waters and the green grass. He feeds us and He takes care of us and
He blesses us and He gives us all that we need, not only for the life to come, but
also for this life. It’s to Jesus that we pray, forgive us our trespasses, and to
Jesus that we pray, give us this day our daily bread. And that’s the point, that
And Jesus provides for our daily bread.
Now I think the reason why this is so hard, I was talking about it before, because I just
want daily bread to come by, like the Lord says to Adam, by the sweat of your brow.
My favorite verse in this text is, the one who doesn’t work shouldn’t eat.
I just think that the way that it should work in this life is that there’s a, if then, if
you work hard, then the Lord provides for you.
If you do this, then you get this, and if you don’t, then you don’t. But I think,
and this is the point of the text, is that the Lord wants to insert Himself
into our if-then-ness, into our materialistic thinking, into our
kind of simple cause and effect. There’s a way that we become, we’re Christians
when it comes to the spiritual blessings, but we’re kind of atheists when it comes
to this normal life, and the Lord inserts Himself into the middle of it. Now when
When He does that, He does not intend to get rid of work.
That’s what I think my own kind of lazy sinful flesh says, that, well, if Jesus just feeds
the 5,000, then why do you even need farmers?
You know, Jesus, when He fed the 5,000, brought an end to the entire farming industry.
Or Jesus, when He fed the 5,000, meant that no one should ever go fishing again in their
life.
Or, when Jesus fed the 5,000, He taught the disciples that they don’t need to do math
anymore.
I think that’s what maybe some of the kids would think.
That would be great.
No more math class.
It never adds up when Jesus is there.
That’s not what it means.
Jesus wants us to go about our vocations.
He wants us to work.
He wants us to do what we’re supposed to do, what we’re called to do.
But he wants us to to know that in the midst of all of these things that he cares for us
for all the things of this life that he’s the one who gives us food and drink and house and
And home and clothing and shoes and all the things of this life even the smallest things
He’s he’s the one who numbers the hairs on our head. He knows
Even the the things that we are not even concerned about in this life
But He’s concerned for all those things, and He has promised to take care of us.
I got out the promise book today.
This is this book that has all the promises in it, and I opened it up to the promises
of food.
The Lord wants us to know these things.
Psalm 37 verse 3, trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and truly
you shall be fed.”
Psalm 132, verse 15, I will abundantly bless her provision.
I will satisfy the poor with bread.
Proverbs 13.25, the righteous eats to the satisfying of his soul.
And then if â lest we say, well, that’s just Old Testament, that’s â the Lord is
concerned about food in the Old Testament but about spiritual things in the New Testament.
Listen to what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.
Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap or gather into
barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you of not much more value than
they?” So the Lord wants us to look to Him for every good, for spiritual good and
for earthly good. I think there’s maybe three conclusions that we want to draw
from this truth, and I think the first is this, that when we have food
and drink and house and home and clothing and shoes, then we thank the
Lord for it. I always thought that that prayer of Thanksgiving must seem very,
very strange to the world when the Christian sits down to a meal and thanks
God for providing the meal. I wonder what if you go to a restaurant, what the
The chef thinks, well how come they’re not thinking me, you know?
Or the farmer, or the waitress, and of course we recognize that the Lord uses all these
things to get the food from us.
But when we thank the Lord for the gifts that we have, we are confessing what the Lord wants
us to confess, that he provides for all of our needs.
When we have, we give thanks.
When we don’t have, point two, when we don’t have, we pray.
The Lord is the one who hears our prayers and answers them.
And if you’re hungry, you cry out to Him for food. When you’re thirsty, you cry out
to Him for something to drink. When you’re cold, you cry out to Him for
provision and clothing. And He hears your prayers, and He delights in answering
those prayers. We look to Him for all good. And maybe the third point is that
we look to His Word first. It’s not an accident that the people that Jesus fed
on this day were the people who gathered out of all of the villages
around the place to come and hear what he was talking about.
Jesus says it like this,
seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all these things will be added to you.
So our first aim in life is not to fill the pantry
or the bank account or the closet
or the garage or whatever.
Our first endeavor in life is to fill our ears
with the word of God and our hearts with his kindness
and our consciences with his comfort
and our minds with His wisdom and our lives with His presence.
This is our first endeavor.
And seeking first His kingdom and knowing first His forgiveness.
All these things, this is His promise, all these things will be added to you.
Now this is not easy, in fact I think I mentioned that I need you guys to preach this to me.
But we want to know that we live in life, in death, in spiritual things and in physical
things that it is the Lord Jesus who gives us all that we need.
He’s the one who loves us, who died for us, who fed the 5,000, who looked at the crowd
with compassion and looks at you with that same compassion.
May God grant us this confidence and wisdom, through Christ our Lord, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, through Jesus
Christ our Lord, amen.
