Father, we're so grateful to
be able just to gather tonight and, Lord, just be given the
opportunity to look at You in the face of Your Word through
the person of Jesus Christ. And God, I pray that as we start
this chapter tonight, Lord, that it would just be a fiery reality
of the Gospel and the full effectiveness of Your love toward us in Christ. And Father, I just thank You
I don't know how else to say it, but it is a privilege to
be able to open your word to John chapter six and to see your
face in it. And so we thank you again for
your grace, amazing toward us, for your love effective in us.
And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right, John six, if
you didn't know, and I debated whether or not just to do another
Q&A tonight and I want to go ahead and start
with John 6. John 5 was good. John
6 is gooder. At least that's the way I look
at it. It's more gooder. Like the old
George Grill, the God rest his soul out of business. It was
a sign of their motto was ain't none gooder. And so as my children
worked out the grammatical issues of that and it's realized, Everything's
better than the Georgia Grill. So either way, there is much
to be desired for John's gospel. And maybe by the Lord's grace,
before you die, a better teacher will come along and give it to
you in a better way. But for now, you're just going
to have to settle for me and and just bask in my selfishness.
Because I'm telling you that to teach John is not a chore. It is a beautiful, selfish endeavor,
which is why I have perpetually been teaching John's Gospel for
nearly a decade. And not only teaching it, but
learning it. And so as those of you who have
been with us, those of you... How many of you were with us
when we started John 1? It was right after the church.
We did American Church History. And then we started John one
and we spent almost three months in John three. And then we took
a long break and did a whole bunch of question and answer.
I mean, we feel just about filled this notebook up with questions
and did all that. And then we came back into John
four and John four and five have gone fast, even though it's taken.
Eleven sermons to eleven times, not necessarily sermonizing on
these Tuesday nights. Let's look at John six and follow
along as we read together, I'm just going to go down through
verse 15. Wow. Yeah, we're just going to verse
15 tonight and our reading will probably we won't get there.
After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of
Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a large crowd was
following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on
the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain
and there he sat down with his disciples. Now, the Passover,
the Feast of the Jews was at hand, lifting up his eyes then
and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him. Jesus
said to Philip, where are we to buy bread so that these people
may eat? And he said this to test him, for he himself knew
that he would do knew what he would do. Philip answered him.
Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of
them to get a little. And one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon
Peter's brother, said to him, there's a boy here who has five
barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for so many?
And Jesus said, have the people sit down. Now, there was much
grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five
thousand in number. And Jesus then took the loaves
and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those
who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted,
And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples,
gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So
they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from
the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the
people saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed
the prophet who is to come into the world, perceiving then that
they were about to come and take him by force to make him king.
Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. Oh, man, it's very
it's very frustrating from a teaching perspective to come from the
end of John five to John six. Now, there is John five. The blades are still out. The
war lines have been drawn and the Jews have just bared their
teeth and grit their hearts against Jesus. And Jesus has accused
them in a threefold way of being non-Jewish. That they weren't
Israel. They'd never heard God as Moses
had heard God. They'd never seen God as Jacob
had seen God, nor did they know the word of God as Moses had
given them. For if they did not believe Moses, they would not
believe him. For Moses wrote of him. He says to them, I do
not indict you. I will not bring a charge against
you, but Moses will indict you. And you look for glory, not that
comes from God, for I am the glory that comes down from heaven.
But you look for the glory that comes from men. You pacify your
own interests. You pacify your own glory. You
pacify your own lusts. And they are not of God. You
are not of God. You are not Israel. And you have
forsaken the God of your youth. I mean, this is Jesus' words. And then John goes on after this.
He went away. Shouldn't there be? Well, there will be more in John
10 as Jesus deals with it. There's been some controversy
Not being there is controversy still today over scholars thinking
that John six should be stuck different places and just that
and the other. But friends, this is not an error. And the Gospels, if you'll understand
the purpose of each gospel, the Gospels are not to give a blow
by blow account of Jesus life and ministry. They're not a historical
record. They are an historical narrative
for the purpose of illustrating theological truth. And so John,
the gospel writer, has done this in a way to to show that not
only is it sequential, John six, we see they sat down on the grass.
So we know this Passover was sometime in the spring and the
grass was not dead. It wasn't the summer because
the grass is dead in the summer. If you if you ever go to a place
where there's no trees and you see that when the California
looks good for just a few months in the East Bay, because after
that, the brown is just brown, just Everything's dead and there's
no clouds in the sky, so there's no dimension. And so we know
that if we just look at the writing, that it's where it's supposed
to be. There's no mistake in the in the in the putting together
of John's gospel in history. But the purpose for which John
is written is that we might see the glory of God. in the face
of Jesus Christ, the Word that has always been, that spoke and
brought not just the world into existence, but brings dead men
to life. And that's what Jesus has really
illustrated or John has really illustrated us in the teaching
of John five and John four and John three, where Jesus actually
begins to teach some doctrine about regeneration and that you
can't just come to faith. You must be born again. You can't
just profess faith. You must be born again. And the
way that you're born again is you must be born again by the
spirit that blows where it wishes, by the will of the father. John
one, as he outlines in his prologue, the first fourteen verses. And
so coming to John six, you think there should be some more. And
so if John, the gospel writer, were to say, then after this
happened, then this happened. We know that there's a sequential
order here, but we went from one Passover to another. We've
got three Passovers in John's gospel. We've got the one that
talks about him. being the lamb of God, and he's
the lamb, though they sacrifice the lamb, but Jesus is the lamb
that takes away the sins of the world. And then the last Passover,
where he comes and basically talks about himself being he's
the life. He is the one who is about to
face death. He is the living water. But then
there's this one. And in this one, he's greater
than the manna that comes from God in the wilderness. And as
you'll as you'll see, Jesus begins to prepare things so that his
teaching might orchestrate a truth about who he is. None of this
is happenstance. Jesus had to go in certain places
because he was compelled by the spirit to do these things, to
see these things, to say these things. Jesus was not just by
chance where he was in history, he was purposefully and divinely
there. And so when we see John six unfolding,
we must keep in mind that this this that a lot took place between
John five and John six. Because here we've got we've
got Jesus going to Galilee and to Jerusalem and to Galilee and
to Jerusalem. And so what he's doing is he's
going to more of a Jewish side of Israel and then more of a
Gentile side of Israel. He's swinging back and to and
people like to come in what they call a higher criticism and they
come in and go, OK, well, the timeline's not there when they'll
spend a lot of time and effort in their dissertations coming
up with the with the chronology of John's gospel. And they'll
start to put places, and there'll be holes, and they'll say, this
is not right, because there's a few months here, there's a
few days here, and there's a few hours here. Well, friends, listen,
the latter half of John's Gospel deals with the last week of his
life. We're not supposed to get a four-year
fullness of what he is, what he's done. Because the Scripture
very much tells us that if everything was written down that Jesus had
ever done and said, there would not be room in the universe to
hold the volumes. Don't get don't get caught up
and fall prey when you go get your little Google search on
and get all teased up because there's a problem with the Bible
because that's what the devil likes to do. And don't be so
ignorant to say, well, we just say it's God's word that settles
and I believe it. That's fine with me. But don't
just be that don't be that blatantly loose about it, because we ought
to be able to defend it. The purpose through which God
wrote the Gospel of John through this apostle was not so that
we have a blow by blow, play by play. We don't need that.
Even Luke. as he wrote his gospel. These
things are written that you may be certain of things that took
place. I got cornered one time on the
street with people saying, well, the Bible can't be true. You
know, Luke's a liar. That's what one of them told
me. Luke's a liar. What? How dare you call Luke a liar?
Where did he lie? Well, all throughout his gospel
and through the book of Acts, he talks about all the things
that Paul said and did, and he wasn't even with him. I said,
don't you think he just asked Paul? Then he started cursing
and walked off. You know, how did he know? How
did he know what was said inside that courtroom? How did he know
what was said inside there? He wasn't there. He was outside.
It says very clearly Paul was alone. I said, because when he
came out, I said, hey, Paul, what did you say? It's not that hard,
but the world wants to deny the gospel so vehemently that they
want to tear down the scriptures in the same way we don't apologize
for the scriptures. We don't make an apologetic either.
undergirding the scriptures with science or undergirding the scriptures
with archaeology. And we don't build upon underneath
the scripture to build it up for what it is. It is what it
is and it's enough. And as other things are laid
open for us to see and they might that the scripture might prove
or they might relate to the scripture, it does not reinforce God's word
for God's word needs no reinforcement. And when God's word goes out
to the ears of humanity and the ears of humanity close their
ears to God and close their heart to him, it is not for the people
of God to then come around in a different way and to try to
get people to see that which they could not see from hearing.
Because then their faith is in the evidence of faith rather
than the one who is faithful. God does not reveal himself in
through the evidence. He reveals himself in and through
the word alone. And so we have seen the glory
of God. And in John six, we are going now to see the glory of
God. We're going to see the condition
of man. We're going to see the the majesty and the power of
Jesus Christ and that his purposes are absolute and certain. There's no happenstance here
and you'll see it in the language. So what we need to understand
is that after this, after The discourse that he had with with
the Jews. Sometime after this, we don't know when and it's not
important for us to know when we just know sometime later. Jesus went away to the other
side of the Sea of Galilee, which is also called the Sea of Tiberias,
which was given the name I can't remember who named it that now
it doesn't matter. But it was known by the Jewish people as
the Sea of Galilee and by the Roman or Greek people as the
Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following
him. Now, remember what John wrote in John chapter two in
verses 23 through 26. It says many people believed
in him for the signs and the wonders that he did, but Jesus
himself did not entrust himself to them, for he knew the heart
of man. No one had to tell him what was in man. Now, there was
a man by the name of Nicodemus of the Pharisees who came to
Jesus by night. That's all one little little breath there. And
it moves on into John three one. And so what you'll see is you'll
see you'll see Jesus. You'll see him do something and
speak to someone and then you'll see a truth and you'll see doctrine,
which is theological doctrine. And then you'll see a personal
discourse that Jesus talks with someone that proves something.
You'll see the masses. You'll see you'll see Jesus say
something. He said, well, the first Passover,
he says, I'm the temple. I'm the temple, and if you tear
this temple down, I will rebuild it in three days. He tells, you
know. Nicodemus, that he had to be
born again and Nicodemus marveled and said, how do I, how am I
to be born again for I cannot go into my mother's womb to come
back out and be born? And Jesus says, don't marvel
that I say to you this, are you not the teacher of all Israel?
Yes, you do not understand these things. I tell you now. The sun
will be lifted up and draw him into himself. I must be lifted
up and I will draw the world to me and There was just this
problem about darkness and light. The judgment is the light that's
coming to the world. But people love the darkness rather than the
light because their works are evil. And Jesus plays this out. Many
people believed him. Now, there was one man. And we
give an example of how that works. And then at the same time, we
see the Jews didn't believe him and then one Jew did believe,
but he wasn't saved. And so his belief was in vain.
He believed he was divine from God, but yet he had not been
born again. Then we see in John four after the Jews reject Jesus,
then we see in John four where Jesus goes to Samaria, goes to
Saqar, to the enemies of Jews. To the unclean people and revival
comes and God, Jesus Christ saves this woman through regeneration.
The spirit of God rebirths her as she hears the gospel with
her ears. So hearing comes to her and she
says, then my whole faith and my trust is in he who is to come,
the Messiah who will reveal all things. And Jesus then says to
her, it is he who speaks to you. She goes and he stays many days
with them and many come to faith. And then in chapter five, he's
back. He's back in Jerusalem and he goes there and he what?
He heals the lame, the one man out of thousands. He goes to
them and he heals the one man. And the Scriptures say he vanishes
because it was there were many paralytic and sick and invalids
there. There were many there. His intention was not to heal
people. His intention was to glorify the father. And so he
made that one well for the purpose of showing his power, that he
might be all glorified, glorifying to the Father by forgiving the
sins of this man, not making him walk. And what were the Jews
concerned with? The law. Who told you to pick
up your bed? It's Saturday. It's the Sabbath. Who told you to? This man who
told me to pick up my bed and walk, I walked, I obeyed him.
I'm walking. You don't see it? So they rejected
Him. Jesus then expressly tells them that not only has the Father
doing all these things, but I'm doing that which the Father does. And I say that which the Father
says. And I am the face of the Father. So as you see Me, as
He'll say in the future of this letter, you see Me, you've seen
the Father. For I and the Father are one. He didn't say we're
the same one. He said we are one. And if you're in Me and
I'm in you, then the Father's in you and you're in Him. When you begin to look and see
all of this, chapter six does come to just a change because
now Jesus is with the masses again and he's back over there
in the area of Galilee and there are people following him. And
we need not forget that everything that we've learned It doesn't
disappear because we've got some really cool numbers to help us
remember where we are in our text. So there were people following
him. A large crowd was following him
just as they did in chapter two. But Jesus did not believe them,
for he knew their hearts. They followed him and believed
in his name in chapter two because of the wonders and the signs
that he did. They followed him and believed him in chapter six
because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. So their heart was not born again
to cherish Jesus, their heart was and just enthused. They were amazed. They marveled
at Jesus and they followed him. Now, listen to this. Jesus went
up on the mountain. And there he sat down with his
disciples. Now, what did he not do? He did
not pay mind to the crowd. They followed him. He wasn't
teaching them. They were just following him,
hoping they'd see a magic trick. Hoping they'd see a miracle.
Hoping they'd see some sign for which Jesus rebuked them over
and over and over again for seeking after. You seek signs and wonders,
but you're missing it. I'm the sign. I'm the wonder. Don't seek after these things.
And so Jesus goes up on the mountain and sat down with his disciples.
The crowd did not go up on the mountain. So Jesus goes up there
for an intimate conversation with his disciples. Now, let
me tell you what did not happen. What did not happen is that Jesus
did not have in his intention to go up there and just have
this small little conversation and was aggravated by the crowd.
His purpose was to show that he was teaching his people, his
twelve, and then to look out upon the crowd And then to teach
them something, as we'll see later in John six, his whole
purpose was to show them something, because what happens at the end
of chapter six, everybody but the twelve leave all 20,000 of
these people, 5000 men and women and children, their families.
Speculation on a minimal scale is 20,000 people. 5,000 men. And there's a purpose for saying
5,000 men, a great multitude. But as crowds follow Him, Jesus
goes up to the mountain. It's sort of like we see in Mark's
Gospel where Jesus is walking and the disciples are around
Him, sort of like an entourage, and there's a lot of people crying
after Him. Oh, Teacher. Oh, Master. Oh,
Rabbi. Oh, this. Oh, that. Lord, Lord, Lord. And
there's this one woman, this Samaritan woman, who keeps crying
after Him. And He ignores her. She's groveling at His feet and
He's ignoring her. And they're like, get away from
him, get away from Jesus. And finally, she comes and throws
herself at his feet again and he says, woman, what am I to
do? I came only to the children of Israel. I came only to give bread to
the children of Israel. And she says, Master, even the
dogs get the crumbs from the master's table. It's as great as your faith. Go. You're forgiven. And that which you want is done.
The miracle that you seek is done. And it started there in
you. I made miracles happen in you. I brought you to life. You saw
me when they couldn't, when His own disciples couldn't. Do you
see that? And so, it's not new. Why did He do that? It's like
when we see the account in Scripture where Jesus is walking through
the crowds and He can barely move. He's walking through the
crowds and someone touches Him. He says, who touched Me? You
know that the woman had a bleeding problem. She crawled under the
crowd and she she just thought in her heart, if I could just
touch the hem of his robe, I'll be healed. And so people are
all over Jesus touching him, probably rubbing his hair and
everything and kissing on him and just touching him. And the
disciples are there and they're a little concerned because things
are volatile. And this one woman out of nowhere just grabs grabs
the hem of his robe. Who touched me? Who do you mean
who touched everybody? Who didn't touch you? There's people over
there. Now, if someone touched me, power left out from me. Was Jesus ignorant? Was He stupid
at that moment? He'd go, oh, somebody touched
me. Who's stealing my power? No. He knew. He went there for
that purpose. He knew that she would be there
and that she was drawn to Him because she'd been given to Him
by the Father. And her hope and her heart was
not to be a spectacle for a miracle, but just to get there, that if
she could just touch the hem of His robe, In my grandmother's
final days at 67 years of age, she journaled a lot. She journaled
her entire life. She journaled. She shared this
with me as an experience that someone else had shared with
her in her final days, in her final weeks. She shared the same
experience as her own. And she would sit there at her
table, as feeble as she could be, and she'd reach out and she'd
say, If I could just touch the hem of His robe, I'd be healed. She came to conclude that, oh,
by God's grace, she had touched the hem of His robe. For she
had been born again and lived a life to hope and trust in the
fullness of that crown which was given to her through the
cost of the Son of God, eternal life. And Jesus is doing the
same thing here in John 6. This is beautiful. This is the
gospel in such a broad way and such a gracious. We miss the
grace of God when we look at these things with human eyes.
We need to look at the Word of God with spiritual eyes and see
that even when Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, he was giving
them grace. You search the scriptures, but
And you think you find eternal life, but it's they who speak
of me. Look and see. They could not
see. Refused to see. And he sat down with his disciples
and the Passover feast of the Jews was at hand. This is the
second of three Passovers that we see in John's Gospel. And what does Jesus do? He lifts
his eyes from the focus of his disciples with fierce intention,
and he looks and he sees and look at the look at the verb
there in the present tense, seeing that a large crowd was coming
toward him. He he sees they're coming. Jesus spoke to Philip. Now, why
would he speak to Philip? Well, it says there to test Philip.
Now, don't. Don't get your Greek books out
and get all bent out of shape. The word there for test is the
same word for tempt. But we know that God does not
tempt. It's OK. It's about there, there, there, there. You know,
you have to understand how and the context defines the meaning.
And so Jesus tests Philip. Philip was from Bethsaida, which
is in that region. And so the most obvious person
to ask is Philip. Philip. There's people coming. We're
like we buy bread so that these people may eat. Look at that
for a second. Now, we oftentimes see and I
say Christendom and I've actually caught myself as I've revisited
a lot of church history in the last three weeks, I've caught
myself realizing that just because I say Christendom doesn't mean
that there are Christians in Christendom. But I say that from
a mere historical. Thought, and here's the thing
that Jesus He feeds 5,000 men and their wives and children.
And He feeds these people. And He saw that they were hungry. And He did give them food. And a lot of times we like to,
as Christians, we will compartmentalize text. We'll take John 6 in this
little section and we'll take it and we'll just pull it right
on out as a little block. And it has no bearing on anything
else in the text or anything else in the Bible. And I've heard
people use this as a as a proof text to say why we ought to have
large feasts to draw public people to Jesus. And I would say that
because of the divine immutability of God and the character of his
holiness, that if that is the case and we use Jesus ministry
as the proof for such things, we must do it for the same purpose
and in the same manner with the same outcome as Jesus did it. Keep that in mind as we spend
the next three or four weeks in John six. So Jesus sees them
coming and he says to Philip, where are we to buy bread so
that these people may eat? Jesus said this to test him,
for he himself knew what he would do. Jesus was not perplexed.
He did not say, oh, man, I didn't prepare enough food. You didn't
tell me you were coming. You ever cook food or you ever
been at home? You know, my wife and I, we've
had dinner and we portion our meat out correctly because our
children, we know that Two of them are going to split one thing
into thirds and she and I are going to get a piece. So there's
been times we've had, you know, three pieces of meat to feed
all six of us just because this is what we get because we're
tired of throwing stuff away or giving it to the dog or whatever. And
then all of a sudden the doorbell rings and it's four or five folks.
Hey, we're about to eat. You want to join us? Oh, you
know, what are we going to do? We don't have enough food prepared.
So you're nuking chicken breast and that I ain't ever get and
thought, well, any minute now, you know, keep the buns warm
because you want to be hospitals, not a bite, not a big deal. But
you've been there. There's not quite enough ready.
And then the wheat thins don't look good in the place of turkey.
So as the wheat thins, you know, let's just all eat wheat thins
and hide the meat. You know, give these people the meat and
we'll eat the wheat. Either way, you get the point.
This wasn't Jesus' problem. Jesus wasn't perplexed and overwhelmed
by the idea that now there were people to feed and he didn't
know what he was going to do. He didn't ask Philip. That's
why John, the gospel writer, puts that in there so that the
reader is very clearly understanding that Jesus is not caught off
guard by anything. He's God. You might think, well,
I know that, yes, but in our mind, as we hear a narrative,
we picture it in a humanistic way. I mean, then, oh, man, look
at all these people. How am I going to feed these
people? Jesus did not ask that question. He had no doubt before
the world began how he was going to feed these people. But he
did what he did for the sake of the twelve. And one of them
was a devil. And so Phillips like. Two hundred denarii, that's two
hundred, two hundred what? That's eight months. Don't ask
me how I know that, but I remember that. That's eight months of. That's eight months of money. Eight months of wages, 200 denarii
wouldn't do it, he said. He said if we had eight months
of a of a wage, he said it would not buy enough bread for them
to taste. So what it says there for them
to get a little, they couldn't have a taste. All these people
have a taste for almost a year's salary. What do you what are
you talking about, Jesus? Jesus wants it clearly seen that
it's an impossibility for these people to eat. And in such way,
here comes Andrew. Simon, Peter's little brother,
Simon Peter, he comes in and says, there's a boy. Same word
maybe sometimes for slave. There's a slave, there's a little
boy over here who's got five barley loaves. This is weirdly
cheap grain and it's bad bread. It's poor man's bread. And the
fish there are pickled. They're not fresh. They're not
like, here's a piece of, I mean, it's like sardines in a can.
A little pickled fish. This boy's food. Pieces of bread
about that big. And a fish about like that. A
little minnow type fish, pickled. so that it doesn't spoil. So
there's there's about that much bread and about that much fish.
And Andrew, I don't know what's up with him, but he comes up
and says, look, there's a boy there and he's got these loaves
and two fish. What are they for so many? And
so I think what's happening is Andrew's just trying to make
the point, Jesus, you're really, as my dad would have told me
as a kid, you're mouserotting a check your butt can't cash,
man. You're putting your reputation on the line here. How am I going
to feed all y'all? Because all we've got is a man.
We've got a boy's morsel. Not even a man's morsel. And
Jesus takes it. He takes it and he prays. Now, in verse 10, he very intentionally
and purposely, he says this, have the people sit down. The last time I heard a sermon
preached on John 6, 10 was a sermon preached by a very dear friend
of mine from a pulpit who said that this is proof text that
Jesus desires order in ministry. Um. OK. Let me tell you. It's not there. Have the people sit down. Yeah,
we could we could deduce what Jesus wants people to seated.
So therefore, we should be seated. Therefore, Jesus is a God of
order. So we want we know God is a God of order, not a God
of chaos. This isn't what that proves. That proves that Jesus
now in his divine absolute sovereignty, is not only going to do something,
but He's wanting everybody to see it, especially His disciples. Now put yourself in their shoes. Because this is who He was talking
to, the disciples. Here they are. They'd seen it
all. They'd heard it all. They'd been
around. And now they're here. They're
at the Passover. And this multitude of 20,000
plus people are following Jesus around. It's a little unnerving.
Have you ever seen 20,000 people? I have. It's not a good place.
It's not I mean, there might be four hundred in the Wal-Mart
parking lot in Christmas week, and that's scary. There might
be eleven hundred. My goodness, the last high school
in California that I was on campus with, there were fifty three
hundred students there at an auditorium. And that was wicked. And then at one of the one of
the conventions that I've been to, there were thirty two thousand
of us. in there, and that was weird. It's a lot of people. There's
a lot that can be done with 20,000 people. 20,000 people is not
some chunk change. It's not something to just be
ignored. It's not something that you make a promise to and then
you just renege on it. You can't do that. We're in a
place, as you've already heard as I read this text, where there
were 5,000 men in this place. I've got friends who have been
on teams of four who have taken out armies. What could 5,000
do? 5,000 Jews taking Jesus and pushing
him up into Roman territory and saying, this is our king, if
you don't like it, die. It's a very good possibility.
And so now these people are hungry. They're hungry not only for food,
they're hungry for freedom. They're hungry for a lot of things
and in their hearts, they want this man to rule over them and
to liberate them from Rome. That's what they want. That's
what has been prayed for. And you go to Luke chapter two
and you see the birth of Jesus. You see then, prior to that,
the prophecy coming from Zechariah and Elizabeth. Zechariah is told
in the Holy of Holies, as he's lighting the incense, that your
wife's going to give birth to a son and his name will be John. And it said that all Israel wondered
what this boy might be. They longed. They rejoiced. And we know that at this time
now, John the Baptist's head is gone. He's gone. I must decrease that he may increase. The bridegroom gets the bride. These people are expecting Jesus
to take His throne. And Jesus is not here to take
a throne that He already sits on. He already sits on it. Jesus
is here to glorify the Father who sent Him to seek and save
a lost people for Himself. And He tells them, have them
sit down. Now, back to my original point. Imagine the disciples as they're wondering, what is
he about to do? He's doing something. He's got people sitting down
expecting something. He wasn't just going to start
handing out food to a mass of folks walking around. I want
them seated so that they know I'm about to feed them. I want
them seated so that they can be served. I want them seated
so that it can be clearly seen that this is an orderly thing
and an intentional thing. But the point is, I want you
to obey me and trust me. That's the point of this. So
you twelve. Without enough money and without
enough faith. I want you to tell them to sit down. Now you see
it. Obey me, trust me. Because that
instruction is absurd. How much money do we have to
buy bread? Jesus, if we all had all of our
money together for that, we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to flick
the crumb at these people. And Andrew's like, well, all
the food we got at this little boy's sandwich or sack lunch. What are you talking about? OK,
have them sit down. That'll do. That'll do. And he doesn't explain what he's
going to do. He doesn't come in and it's not like, oh, you
know, oh, I mean, he doesn't smoke, doesn't appear and fire
doesn't appear in the ground, doesn't shake. And he's he doesn't
say abracadabra or Jehovah Jireh or any of that kind of stuff.
He doesn't say anything. He takes that which was given
and you probably heard something about this. Jesus can do a lot
with a little bit. That's a week. Jesus could do
everything, but nothing. He didn't need that boy's lunch.
He could have rained fish from heaven. He could have had a herd
of cows. Well, yeah, he could have had
a herd of cows walk in and turn into T-bones. But he didn't. Because what he was doing was
not for the sake of those, but for the sake of these. Obey me. Tell them to sit down. And let
me paraphrase a little bit and put in some other scripture.
You weak, faithless sheep. Watch your shepherd. And he takes
that. And he thanked God for it. He
didn't say, oh, God, make it abundant. He didn't ask God to
do anything other than thank you, Father. And there's some
there's some scripture, not scripture, there's some prayers that are
outside of Scripture, that are in Jewish writings and other
places that we see. And Jesus probably thanked loudly
the Father in some way like this. Oh, great Father in heaven. And when you pray, pray this
way. Holy, holy God of all the heavens. Your kingdom come, your
will be done. on earth as it is in heaven.
Thank you for this bread that you've given us this day to eat,
to be reminded of your providence. Thank you for the bread you gave
our people in the days of Moses. Thank you for your mercy and
your grace. See, that's what I tell you. praying for your food can really
bog you down. Be careful. Thank you for your grace for
this bread. Thank you for this nothing of
a morsel. And he just began to serve it. It happened in the sack. It didn't happen. He didn't pour
it out like a Like I would do it, you know, an empty water
jug just keeps on pouring. I can take an Oreo and eat the
cream out of it and put it back. It's pretty cool. I'll have to
show you how to do that one day. It's nasty though. It wasn't a magic trick. It wasn't
this grand spectacle. He just dipped into this little
basket, picked out a piece of fish and some bread and he began
to give it to the disciples and they began to serve. And that
in itself, if everybody had gotten a taste, it would have been great.
The grace of God is not a whiff of a fire. The grace of God and
His mercy and affection toward His people is not a taste. This isn't the Eucharist. This
isn't, let's remember, these people were stuffed. Just like
the wine that Jesus made. When this first miracle, the
wedding in Canaan, you remember that? You remember that time
when we were going through that section of John and we realized
just the severity of what had happened to this bridegroom who
had run out of wine? It wasn't just what a sorry host. It was you're done. Your community,
your family and everybody's ostracized. You have disregarded the traditions
of our people and you aren't welcome in our community any
longer. You have failed. And if you've failed in serving
wine, you have failed as a husband. And Jesus takes those ceremonial
jars made for washing and he fills them up with the best wine
and the master ceremonies, he says, go, it tells the servant,
take this to the master of ceremonies and have him taste it to see
if it's good enough. That's the ceremonies tasted. He goes, oh,
where is the bridegroom? What an amazing man. He has waited
to the end to bring out the best. Most people bring out the best
at the beginning. And then when everybody's drunk their share,
they're too drunk to notice the crap that comes out of the end.
This is an amazing man. And Jesus gives the credit of
that miracle to this heathen, worthless, sorry bridegroom. Because he's the better bridegroom.
The one full of righteousness and all those wicked people,
he gives us his righteousness. I said, look at their righteousness,
father. They're not guilty. They're innocent. Their righteousness is just as
mine, and God's not stupid, he's not being tricked. It's his purpose. That's the purpose of this miracle.
It's not a little T-90 taste. He doesn't go into saying, now
you got to eat of my blood and my flesh so that he can establish
a precedence for the Eucharist for the church later. This is
the fullness of God's grace, and he says, the scripture says,
he gave thanks and he distributed them to those who were seated.
Now, I'm going to take a stretch here and just tell you to think
about something, I'm not saying let's teach this, I just say
think about it. I wonder why he made mention of the ones who
were seated. Because he told him to sit down. And they sat. He gave it to those who were
seated to remind us that Jesus had purposefully appointed this
time to do this thing. Now, we could say, well, those
that weren't seated didn't get any food, but let's don't go
there. I would say those that weren't seated left. But I would even say this. Probably
these men who were seated and all of those people with them
probably thought he was about to teach. We don't know what
they were thinking, but we know they were hungry. Hungry for
food, hungry for freedom and hungry for some magical fire
that they might see something they'd never seen. And after they had eaten their
fill. This verse 12 is amazing. And after that, well, he distributed
those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted. Can you imagine that? As much
as they wanted. And after they had eaten their
fill. I want you to see it. He didn't just, it's not a ration. What did he tell the woman in
John four? Can I get a drink? How is it? You ask me, you would
you ask me a Samaritan for a drink? Woman, if you knew who it was
asking you for a drink, you'd ask him for a drink and he'd
give you living water. How are you going to get water?
You don't even have any buckets. The water that I give wells up
to eternal life. Huh? Are you greater than our
father Jacob who gave us this well? Whose sons and livestock
watered it? Are you greater than he is? Yeah, he is. He's a God of Jacob. He wrestled with Jacob and wrenched
his hip. Changed his name to Israel. And these people ate their fill. They were stuffed. Now look what
happens. And Jesus told His disciples.
You know when you eat all you can eat and there's stuff left? You know what I was trained to
do? Eat it. And I can. I bet I ate 10,000 calories yesterday. We'd go out to eat with my father-in-law
on Monday nights. And I ate a lot all day long.
And then I ate just snacking on stuff. And we've got this
jar of coffee beans that was just refilled in my house. barrel
of them down, you know, and we filled them up again yesterday
and we ate them and we filled them up again today. And I've
been eating them and eating them. And we went out to eat last night
and we went out to eat yesterday afternoon. And then we went out
to eat yesterday morning and we were just eating and eating
and eating and eating and eating. And last night I ate my children. They did so well and I promised
them dessert last week, but they didn't give it to us. I let them
get a dessert. And we went there and they got two chocolate mousse. Two of them got chocolate mousse.
One of them got red velvet cake and one of them got cheesecake.
Didn't realize it was going to be $15 worth of cake until afterward. Had a heart attack. But who charges
that much for food? I mean, you know, 50 cent here
and 50 cent either way. It was a lot of food. And so
then I ordered some food and I ate my food and then I ate
a little bit of Katie's food and then they'd only touch half.
So I ate all the rest of their desserts. You know what I mean? I said,
I want to eat that cake. And I ate. And then I saw some
more food. I'm like, I can't waste that. I'll take it home.
My father-in-law takes everything home. I think he'd go along other
people's plates and another table and just take meat. I'll cook
that up again. I mean, that's just the way he
is. He don't throw anything away. Crumb hits the floor, five second
rule, put it back in and just cook it up. If you heat it up
hot enough, it won't hurt you. But that's not me. I eat it all
or I leave it. But you ever eat so much, you just have to leave
some. And especially if you haven't eaten in a while. And I think
that's what happened. I ate so much caffeine yesterday
that my body was just, and I was just hungry. By the time I got
there last night, just eating all those coffee beans and didn't
sleep too well either, by the way. So you get through though
and you eat and you're hungry and you eat and there's more
and you eat it and there's more and you eat it. And then you're not
even eating because you're hungry. You're eating because of the
way it tastes. And then you're just eating because you're afraid
it won't be there. You know what I'm talking about? You men especially.
You ladies don't understand that. Where if you don't get up slowly,
you're going to vomit. I mean, you know. The Bible calls
it gluttony. I call it stewardship of food.
Just get it. That's the way we were taught.
Don't you get up until you eat it all. Yes, ma'am. You know, the
ninth ounce. But you stretch and you learn
to get it. You know, that's how when you're 29, then you're 265
pounds. dry. You know, hey, where did all
this come from? Oh, yeah, I finished my plate. So these people ate
all they wanted. And then they couldn't eat anymore. And Jesus goes around because
they took all they wanted and then they ate all they wanted
from what they took. And then when they were done,
Jesus says, gather up the leftover fragments. Keep in mind, If you
bit the bread and you lay down a piece, we pick that up. That's the police. Come on, let's
get saved. Gather up the leftover fragments
that nothing may be lost. Now, there's there's I don't
know if my Bible has it in there. No, it doesn't. But there is
an illusion here. Not illusion, but an allusion
to an Old Testament prophecy, to an Old Testament expression
of the people of God gathering up the fragments from the feast. And I can't remember exactly
where it is, but look at it for a minute, listen to what he's
saying, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be
lost. Now, Church, I don't know about
you, but for me, I know he was talking about the food. But then
because of the number of things that they picked up, I see an
absolute provision of when Jesus says, I came to seek after the
lost. I came to seek and save the lost.
I have sheep that are not of this fold. I think this miracle
of food is a very huge expression of a deeper theological theme.
And it's not just because I think it is because Jesus talks about
it in a minute. Gather up the leftover fragments
that nothing may be lost. Jesus didn't come to lose things
that he gave. One, Jesus doesn't lose those
who he finds. He doesn't lose those whom he
saves. He doesn't lose those that eat
of his flesh and blood. And Jesus, when he gives his
grace, he doesn't waste it. The grace of Jesus Christ, the
grace of God and Jesus Christ is not just blanketed upon the
earth and hope people slip in it. It's given to individuals
who are seated, hungry, ready to receive it. You see that. So they gathered them up. What
do they gather? Not the people, the fragments
of food and filled 12 baskets. from the five barley loaves left
by those who had eaten. Now, keep in mind what happens. They ate all they wanted, they
received all they wanted, they were full, and he picked up twelve
baskets. Why is that significant? Well,
there's another time he feeds a multitude of people, four thousand,
and he picks up seven baskets of food, two separate feedings. What's the significance of twelve?
So that was a perfect number of the nation of Israel, the
tribes of Israel. So there's a provision there, if you will,
in a sense, what he's about to go preach has been exemplified
through his through his through his miracle. Every time Jesus
does a miracle, every time Jesus does a miracle, it is to it is
to teach. And then undergird expressively
through experience, The truth of the doctrine that he's about
to proclaim. You see that? I want water. Give me water. I'm living water. You have thirst
in your heart, woman, that you cannot quench with the world
or with lovers or with popularity or with absence thereof of your
community to stay away from the ridicule. You cannot satisfy
your soul with these things. I'm the living water. And she
goes and says, I've met a man who's told me everything I've
ever done. You can't just profess the truth
that you believe that's true, Nicodemus, you've got to be reborn
by the Spirit. So he does something, he says
something. He teaches that he's the better
bridegroom. He teaches that he's the temple.
He teaches that he's the satisfaction of all lusts. He nullifies them. He quenches them because he's
the living water. He teaches that he is indeed
the judge of the world. He's the Savior. He's the lamb. He is the one who is doing the
work of God. He is God. Now he's the bread. No matter what, you're full today. And now there's 12 baskets picked
up, one for each of the disciples, one in a metaphorical sense for
each of the tribes of Israel. There's a provision to see the
completeness of the salvation of Jesus Christ. And it's not
wasted. I won't get into dispensational
ideals and I won't get into Kingdom Israel and Kingdom Gentile and
all that kind of twilight figure stuff. But I will tell you this. In
verse 14, it says, When the people saw the sign that he had done,
they said, This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the
world. Now, who are they thinking of? I would say they're thinking
of Messiah. The one who comes in the spirit
of Elijah, John the Baptist. No, I'm not Messiah. No, I'm
not Elijah. I'm the one who comes and proclaims. Make ye way. Make straight the
paths of the Lord. This is indeed the prophet who
is to come into the world, the one for whom we have been waiting.
This is he. So then they were about to come
and take him by force to make him king. What's happening here? They see and profess that he
is the one. And by their actions, they show
their unbelief. They did not want the Messiah
of Scripture, they wanted the Messiah of culture. They wanted
the Messiah that they've been talking about for years, for
generations. It comes from the glory of God
in the face of Messiah to the glory of Jews. by the hand of God and His prophet. Think about it. That's why they're
still, as Jews, they're still looking for a Messiah. They're
still searching Scriptures. They're still eating the manna.
They're still standing in the proximity of God's glory and
cannot see that it is Christ. I would dare to say this in closing, Every one of us in this room,
including me, if we were honest and we looked very lightly, sometimes
you have to close your eyes to think and you have to sort of
relax and breathe, because if not, your thoughts might hurt
your head. You ever been there? I get there a lot. If it's not my thoughts, it's
my children. If we really look, we will see
in some facet of how we want Jesus to be for us. We'll see, we'll we have a picture
of of what Jesus is to be for us. And we can't stop it. We can't
stop that picture from invading our conscience. But what we can
do is stamp it out. Because the Scripture is gracious
to teach us who He is. And that He came to give glory
to the Father. And in doing the miracles that
He did, it was to teach the fullness of His fullness as Messiah. As the face of God. As the glorious
Christ. Who's the master of the wind. And though we might not grasp
the idea of having a king. Or even if we tried to somewhat. Patronize our metaphors and say,
well, it'd be nice to have Jesus as the president is still damnable. It's damnable because. Christ, according to Paul and
Colossians, is the creator of all kings and kingdoms. He's
not going to sit on one. He's not going to sit at the
head of one. There's no king but Christ, there's no kingdom
but God's and all other kings and kingdoms will do their due
at the hand of God and fall on their knees before him. Especially Israel. Who is all
who are in Christ, according to Romans 9. So when we get to perceiving
and the idea, and I want to hit this slowly because I don't want
to leave until I get it out. Well, I said, well, how am I
making Jesus King in this way? I can't tell you how you do it,
but I can tell you how it looks. It looks like. When circumstance
A comes along and we say, oh, Jesus will do this and we don't
know that Jesus will do that because scripture doesn't teach
us that, we make Jesus into something he's not. When we say, OK, Jesus
says there that I will not That I'm going to come and judge
and those who believe in me will believe my words and abide in
them will have eternal life. And we go, OK, that's good. And now this Jesus will come
to me on my terms and we'll do things this way. Or we'll see
John six. When he feeds these people, we'll
say, well, I don't like what you just preached and we'll say.
That's not the Jesus I know. The Jesus I know would not just
heal one man out of a thousand. The Jesus I know wouldn't just
feed people to prove a point. Well, He did. The Jesus of the
Bible did. The Jesus you know, if He didn't
do those things, isn't the right Jesus. And in the parting shot, I would
say this, if the Jesus of your heart is not the Jesus of this
Word, He is not the Jesus who is your Savior. But we have trusted
in the wrong Christ. How many are there? Many. Many
come saying they are the Christ. Jesus even says that to the Jews
here. And the father who sent me has himself more witness about
me, his voice you have never heard, his form you've never
seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you and you do
not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures
because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it
is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to
me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have
the love of God within you. I've come in my father's name
and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name,
you will receive him. How can you believe? when you
receive glory from another and do not seek the glory that comes
from only God. Do not think that I will accuse
you to the father, there's one who accuses you, Moses, on whom
you have set your hope. See, the Jews had false Christ
for ages coming in and they believed them. And then the Christ comes
and they reject him. Because it didn't fit their purpose.
It didn't fit their mold, and they salt the Scriptures to twist
them to make them work for them. That's what we call in my house,
making the lie work. That we believe something so
hard that we have to look at everything through that lie or
through that lens so that everything fits that way. Well, through what lens do you
see Christ? Do you see Him as the sovereign Lamb of God that
takes away the sins of the world by His grace? Or do you see Him
as the one who's coming and begging you to come in your way? He doesn't
do that. Father, we are so overwhelmed. I get tired thinking about what
I should say next. I'm thankful, Lord, that you
are sovereign over it all. And even in rambles and chases
of rabbits and everything else that we do, Lord, you remain
constant. I thank you that you've ordained
this moment for this time, for this day, for these people, for
us as we have come and sat down to hear you teach us. So, Lord, melt that which is
essential into our hearts and minds that it might take root
and grow and wrap around us in such a way that it strangles
out the world. And gives root to a life that
is shining and glorifying and gloriously beautiful and powerful
and empowering to those around us who just cower with fear and
doubt. And that when we stand at the
corner of our lives and we look back, we go, God, you did all
that. And I was just on the ride. Help us not think more highly
of ourselves than we ought to, but. Humbly stand in the light
of your grace. Embracing the fullness of your
love. Jesus Christ, the righteous. Who not only advocated us for
your wrath on the cross, but advocates for us today against
the accuser. We rest in Him, our eternal hope. Jesus, the righteous. Amen. Amen. Amen.