It's amazing how the Lord brings
things together. Graham reading that remarkable
passage of scripture and then us singing about this river that
flows. I wanted us to think upon our
verse that has been, I trust might be the theme of these messages
over this last month, which is that glorious verse in Acts 20,
28, he says, you feed the flock, feed the church of God, which
he has purchased with his own blood. And as I've reminded you
that word to purchase, means to preserve, to reserve for himself,
to actually at extreme cost take as a possession to himself. But
feed the flock of God. We are fed in so many remarkable
ways by our great Saviour. Just as that lady was fed, she
had absolutely no idea. She had no idea as she left her
village that morning and walked down to that well. who she was
going to meet and what was lying before her. Someone else did. And one of the pictures that
the scriptures present of us is our Lord Jesus Christ going
throughout this world from the time of the fall and like a mighty
great shepherd He gathers and he gathers and he gathers and
he gathers and it's a stream of people that are flowing throughout
this world until this world will be no more. When the last of
them is gathered, that will be the end of this world. It will
be the end of this world. There is no reason for this world
to exist. except the fact that the Lord
has his sheep out there and he's in the business of glorifying
his father, of glorifying his word, glorifying himself in the
way he gathers them together. And His command to His Church,
His command to us, command to me, is to feed the Church of
God. To feed them. As the Lord Jesus
Christ fed that woman at the well. I'd like us to just briefly
look at a wonderful picture of the Lord feeding some people
in Mark chapter 6. It's the feeding of the 5,000.
It's a glorious, glorious picture. Glorious picture of the Lord
sending these people out in Mark chapter 6, just to get the context
in verse 7. And he called unto him twelve.
If you're going to be sent out, you'll be called unto him. If
you're going to be one of his, you'll be called unto him. And
he began to send them out two by two. And the third thing is
that when he sends them out, and he gave them power over unclean
spirits. And he says to them, do you take
nothing? You take nothing. You don't need
anything. You can live simply in this world. Paul's manner of life, he can
say to the people in in Ephesus, he's left, you know what manner
of life, you know, you Corinthians, you know how I lived among you,
I lived with simplicity, I worked with my own hands, I provided
not just for myself, I provided for others, but I lived with
simplicity. And he says to them, he says,
don't go aimlessly wandering. He says, when you enter into
a house, verse 10, There abide until you depart from that place. You find a place and you find
a people of ministry and you stay and you wait. And the passage I wanted us to
look at is down in verse 30 and they came back in verse 30 of
Mark chapter 6. And the apostles gathered themselves
together unto Jesus. If you've been sent out and if
you're one of his, you'll be gathered unto him. and told him
all things both what they had done and they had taught." They
came back with these remarkable words, haven't they? And he said
unto them, come ye by yourselves apart into a desert place and
rest a while for there were many coming and going and they had
no leisure so much as to eat. He wants them. He understands
that they've had a tiring time. They haven't even had time to
eat and rest. And so here we have this picture.
They get into a ship and say, oh, verse 32, and they departed
into a desert ship, desert place by a ship privately. And so here
we have this picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in this ship with
the 12 apostles. They'd just been out working
doing remarkable things, seeing remarkable things, witnessing
the remarkable things that the Lord had sent them to do. And
there's this ship sailing down the coast of the Sea of Galilee. And what happens? The Lord Jesus
Christ is out of sight in the ship, but the people on the shore
know that he's there. And what happens, and the people
saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither
out of all the cities. And so as this little ship, as
this little ship sails down the coast of Galilee, you can imagine
these disciples, these people, flocking from one village and
as they arrive in that village they say, what are you here for?
What are you running here for? And they say, on that ship out
there, on that ship is the Christ of God. On that ship is the life
of God. On that ship. And then they run
to the next village and they gather more and they gather more
as they go down the coast. They gather more and more. And
they outwent them, they were going faster than the boat, and
they came together unto him. So now there's another gathering,
isn't there? And Jesus, when he came out,
so they hadn't seen him thus far, but they knew that he was
on their boat, so they followed as close as they possibly could.
When he came out, he saw much people and was moved with compassion
toward them. because they were as sheep not
having a shepherd. Now no doubt as those people
ran down that shore and they'd seen these healings and they'd
seen those people with the demons cast out of them, they'd seen
and heard of the remarkable works of the Lord Jesus Christ, there
were people with all sorts of needs. There were people, everyone
that ran would have had some sort of a need. But the Lord
Jesus Christ speaks of the one great need that in any circumstance
of life is only ever going to be satisfied by him. There is
just one great need, isn't it? He saw that they were sheep not
having a shepherd. Now there were shepherds all
over the place in Israel, wasn't there? There was a shepherd in
every synagogue. There was no doubt the wisest, most religious
man in every village that they ran from. There were, in Jerusalem,
stacks of priests and scribes and lawyers. They had their Bible
colleges and they had their mission organisations and they had all
of the success of all of that religion and the Lord Jesus Christ
looked upon all of that crowd and he says, they're sheep without
a shepherd. They don't have a shepherd. They don't have a shepherd. And
the sheep without shepherds are scattered until they are gathered. gathered by one who is moved
with compassion. What a lovely description of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you think upon him being moved
with compassion? I don't know about you, so often
in our fallen state we think we have to coerce our God to
do things for us. We have to coerce our God to
be compassionate and to love his own. We don't have to at all. What
a great description. He was moved with compassion. And he began to teach the many
things in verse 35. And when the day was now far
spent, his disciples came unto him and said, this is a desert
place and the time has passed. It's got to evening time. We're
tired. We've been exhausted. We've been
out. laboring without much rest at all for weeks and weeks probably.
And they say to him, it's too much, it's too much to keep on
going. What do they say? Send them away. It's all too much. And he answered and said unto
them, Give ye them to eat. You give them something to eat.
Our theme is to feed the Church of God. And they say unto him,
shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them
to eat? There was a crowd. There could
have easily been a crowd of 10,000 people. It says that there were
5,000 men. This enormous crowd. you give them something to eat. And he saith unto them, how many
loaves have you? Go and see. And when they knew, they said,
five and two fishes. This is how people This is how
the Lord's apostles learn how to feed the flock of God, don't
they? They are weary and they are worn
out and they think that it's all just too much. And in themselves
and of themselves, they have nothing but a few scraps, a few
scraps. And what do they do with their
few scraps? Verse 41. And when he had taken
the five loaves and two fishes, he looked up to heaven and blessed
and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to sit
before them. All of God's servants labour
week in, week out, tirelessly trying to find something, something
that might feed the flock of God. And when we've done all
of our labours, all we have is a few scraps, just a few scraps,
a few scraps on a few pieces of paper. And God's servants know that
that's what it is. But what do we do? What do those
who feed the Church of God do? They take these scraps and they
give them to the Lord Jesus Christ. And he takes them in his hands.
And he looks up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves
and gave them to his disciples. So he takes it, doesn't he? He
takes it in his hand. He's responsible for his word
going out. It's just scraps, isn't it? We
heard the most delightful scraps from Graham, the Word of God.
We just hear it, don't we? But when it comes and it's in
his hands, it has the most remarkable ability to feed the flock of
God. And he gives it back to his disciples,
if you see. They had nothing. They said,
send them away. They said, we've got this next
to nothing to feed 10,000 people. And he takes it in his hands
and he gives it back to his disciples and you give it back to them.
You give it back to them. Heaven-blessed manner. You give it back to them and
you sit before them. And they all did eat and were
filled. Not only were they all filled,
verse 43, and they took up the twelve baskets full of fragments
and of the fishes, there is leftovers, isn't it? When the Lord feeds
His people, when the Lord blesses His people with heavenly manner,
when the Spirit of God comes and takes the things of the Lord
Jesus Christ, He makes us to realise that His words are spirit
and life. And we can live by his promises,
we can live by his faithfulness. There's always an abundance,
isn't there? There is always an abundance.
There is so much, that there is so much left over and he collects
it all. They took up the 12 baskets of
fragments and the fishes and they all did eat. It's a great lesson, isn't there,
for all of us. when you feel tired and you feel
empty and you're depleted and you're unable to give and you
just want to be left alone. And maybe you've been taken to
the end of your resources and we've been brought to those places
so that our God would know that He provides. He provides to His
own on His own terms and in His own way. and for his glory. I want us, I want us to delight
and to think with expectation, with faithful expectation that
our God will do remarkable things. I want us to expect to be surprised
by the grace of God. I love how Paul, when he prays
to these Ephesians, he bows his knees before them and he says,
in verse 14 of chapter 3, for this cause I bow my knees under
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family
in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according
to the riches of his glory. How rich is he? How glorious! He'll grant you according to
the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His
Spirit in the inner man, that inner man that's created in righteousness,
in true holiness, that inner man which is Christ in you, that
new creation. that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fullness of God." That's a mighty big prayer. They are mighty big
statements, brothers and sisters, aren't they? Paul was on his
knees thinking of these Ephesian elders. God's servants are on
their knees thinking of the people that they love in the Lord and
the people that they've been given some responsibility for
in our mutual fellowship. And he says, listen to verse
28. Now unto him that is able, now unto him that
is able, now unto him that is able to do, and I love the superlatives
isn't it, to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think
according to the power that worketh in us. Our God is able. There is nothing
impossible with God. Now God is able to do wonders. Unto Him be glory in the church
by Jesus Christ. Unto Him Be glory in the church
by Jesus Christ. The glory in the church is the
glory of the Father that he's speaking of there, isn't it?
And it's by Jesus Christ, by Christ Jesus, throughout all
ages, wherever the church is gathered. And wherever God comes,
our great God, wherever He brings that living water as He did to
the woman in John chapter 4, or He brings this bread and brings
this living bread of life as He did through the Apostle Paul
in Ephesus, as He's done throughout this time, He's gathering His
people and He's gathering His people. And it's all to the praise
of the glory of His grace. Unto Him be glory. in the Church
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. So that's how he feeds
the Church of God, brothers and sisters. He feeds the Church
of God. There is just one food that the
children of God need. They need the heavenly manner.
They need to hear yet again about the glory and the faithfulness
of our great God and how in sovereign mercy he comes to wretched sinners
and gathers them to himself and keeps on gathering them. What
he's begun is the work that he continues. Lord willing we might
see more of that in the second hour, second half hour. Let's
have a break and may the Lord bless his words to the hearts
of his people.