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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, but the last few weeks have just seemed 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.
As Carrie and I were talking about that, and I think it was mostly that 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 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 think this is mostly what I need to hear: 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: 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. 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. They come back to Jesus, and they’re telling all the stories and they’re giving the report of all the things that happened. 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 run to meet them there so that by the 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.
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. Jesus wants to preach or he wants to pray; he wants to be away, 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. 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 already getting into the night.
The disciples look at Jesus and they say—well, maybe they didn’t have watches back then. I don’t think they… 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, 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. They’re looking at all the people, and they’re looking at how much, and they add it up. 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, hands them to the disciples and says, “Feed them.” You know, the disciples think that, well, all the people in the front row are going to be fine, but everybody else is going to 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.
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 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 an 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— 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 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 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 home and clothing and shoes and all the things of this life. Even the smallest things! He’s the one who numbers the hairs on our head. He knows even 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—lest we say, well, that’s just Old Testament—that’s—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. 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 the chef thinks—well, how come they’re not thanking 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 for 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. 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.
