A
Study of the Book of John
“That You May Believe”
Sermon
# 18
“Little Is Much When God Is In It!”
John 6:1-15
“After these things Jesus went
over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. (2) Then a great multitude followed
Him, because they saw His signs which He per-formed on those who were diseased. (3) And
Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. (4) Now the Passover,
a feast of the Jews, was near.”
Although John begins his account with the
words “after this things” he does not tell us
what “this things” are. But the parallel accounts
do, Matthew connected the Lord’s retreat to the desert place with his hearing the
news of John the Baptist’s death (Matt. 14:13).
Mark (6:30-31) gives us an additional motive, the Disciples had just returned from their
mission, and they and the Master needed time for refreshment
of body and spirit.
So to get some rest from the crowds that
followed Him and seeking time to deal with the news of the murder of John, Jesus and His
disciples withdrew by boat across the Sea of Galilee from Capernaum to Bethsaida.
But a great crowd followed Jesus into a
deserted (uninhabited) area. Verse two tells us why the people followed him, “Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs
which He performed on those who were diseased.” The three verbs in this verse
are all in the imperfect tense indicating continuous action. It
would read literally, “A great multitude was following
Him because they were
seeing His miracles which He was doing.”
When the people found out where Jesus was
bound for and while Jesus and His disciples made the trip by boat, the people followed
along the shore and actually got there before He did. When He arrived He found a large
crowd to greet Him. The presence of these huge crowds entirely defeated the whole
intention of making this trip.
In a way the story really begins with a
problem. The problem was that there was a large group of people, they were in a deserted
place, it was late in the afternoon and everyone was hungry.
I
don’t know about you but, when I am faced with a big problem in my life it is hard
for me to see anything wonderful about it. What I usually see is yet another demand
being placed on me and frankly, I wasn’t looking for another demand. I was looking
for a little relief. Has anyone else noticed that life can get a little demanding?
Now here is the problem, the disciples have
5,000 hungry men on their hands. Matthew tells us (Mt
14:21) that this number does
not include women and children so the total could be as much as 10,000 – 20,000.
John says in verses five and six, “Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming
toward Him, He said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?"
(6) But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.”
John tells us that Jesus said this to test
Philip. I think that it is essential that we understand that Jesus already knew
what He was going to do. He did not need Philip’s advice, he wanted Philip’s
confidence, he wanted his heart.
Jesus used this as an opportunity to teach
the Disciples. What we have here is a
test of faith. Yet, when the Lord tests our faith it never in order that He might
know what we would do. The test of faith is to reveal to us the condition of our faith and
the truth that our trust is never misplaced when it is placed upon the Lord. We often say
we believe something and really think we do in our heads but we only really know what we
believe when we are forced to stand on them in real life. God knows what His plans for us
are, and yet He does not often let us in on His plans before hand.
In today’s text we will discover three
important truths.
First,
Christ Desires That We Live In Dependence.
(vv. 1-9)
God’s
desire is always that His people live by faith. We are told in Hebrews 11:6, “But without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes
to God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek
Him.” As I have already said, the story really begins with a problem, what to
do with all these hungry people. And as always when we are faced with a problem believer’s
are faced with the dilemma of whether or not they will live by faith. As we look at the
story we see the disciples display three different responses to the problem that faced
them.
· The
first response was to attempt to
How shocked the disciples must have been to
hear Jesus’ response (Luke 9:13): “You give them something to eat”. The
disciples thought that acquiring food was the people’s problem. Jesus told the
disciples it was their problem.
· The
second response of the disciples as
In his answer Philip says that two hundred denari would not be sufficient for this need
(KJV uses the word “penny”) – the denari was a silver coin that
was about the normal day’s wage for a working man at that
time. So if a denari was the equivalent of a day’s wages then two hundred denari
would be about eight month’s wages.
Perhaps Jesus had hoped to hear Philip say, “Lord, You Can Get Us Through This.”
Instead Philip thought the problem was bigger than both of them and backed down. Philip
calculated, he calculated that wasnot enough resources to take care of the problem, but Philip
calculated without faith.
John tells us that Jesus asked Philip about
food to test him and certainly it is implied here that Philip failed the test.
In effect Philip said, “Yes I know that at Cana you turned the water
into wine. I know you healed the nobleman’s son. I know you made the paralyzed man to
walk. But I am not sure You do anything now.” We do that too. We have seen God
work in other people’s lives, but we do not let that knowledge carry over into our
lives. Or we know that God has worked in the past, but we are not sure that God can take
care of us now.
· The
third response was to expect Jesus
Andrew is also overwhelmed by the magnitude
of the problem but he takes a different approach than Philip. Andrew did a little better
than Philip. At least he looked around to see what could be done and had the nerve to
mention one resource so small that he must have been afraid that the other disciple would
laugh it off.
We are not told who the boy was, or how
Andrew found him. Nor are we told whether the young boy offered his lunch or whether
Andrew had to persuade him. What we are told is that he had “five
barley loves and two small fish.” We need to not misunderstand the word “loaves” it is not referring to the kind of loaf we
might buy at the supermarket or bakery. He is talking about something much smaller like a dinner roll. We are also told that these loaves
are made of “barley” which is the cheapest grain and tells us that this boy was
from a poor family. Andrew reveals his
thoughts when he says, “but what are they among so
many?"
Jesus’ command to feed this crowd
reminds us that faith is seldom learned in the classroom, but is learned in the crises
experiences of life, when we must obey God without all the visible means available to do so. The
disciples need to see that they can accomplish things they never dreamed of doing through
their association with Jesus.
The two greatest faith killing phrases heard
in the church of today is “We have never done
it that way before,” and “We could
never do that.” These statements have a way of limiting our vision and squashing
our ability to see with faith because of practical concerns or because of traditional ways
that things have been done in the past. When we are in a pressing situation we often tend
to focus on what can not be done and so the disciples respond in verse nine, all we
have is “…five barley loaves and two small fish, but
what are they among so many?"
Perhaps the saddest thing is that the
disciples who have witnessed Jesus perform many miracles, had no expectation that he would be able to meet
this current need. But they had forgotten that they were speaking to the Creator of the
universe, “calls those things which do not exist as though
they do.” (Romans 4:17). How like us
they are. We too remain dull to the power of Christ, no matter how many times he may have
met our needs in the past, the next crisis always seems to cause us to question God’s
ability to meet our needs. How silly!!!
The whole point of the story is the
insufficient becomes sufficient when placed in the hands of God. Or as the old song
states; “Little becomes much when God is in
it!”
Not
Only Does Christ Desire That We Live In Dependence but…
Secondly,
Christ Delights In Using That Which Is Placed At His Disposal
The only food
available is that of a poor boy’s lunch, just two small loaves and two small fish,
but it was enough for Jesus.
(vv. 10-11) “Then
Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place.
So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. (11) And Jesus took the loaves, and
when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those
sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.”
Jesus and his disciples are in an isolated
place with a large crowd of people. As I have already stated some have estimated that the
crowd that day, if the women and children were added (only the men were counted) might
have been fifteen or twenty thousand.
Mark tells that Jesus had the Disciples
Explaining Away the Miracle
There have been many attempts to explain what
happened that day on rational grounds, quite simply because some would prefer not to see a
miracle here. Some have that if there was “any” miracle here it was a miracle
of sharing! They say that when the crowd
saw the little boy’s lunch in the hands of Jesus they were ashamed for keeping their food to themselves.
Suddenly thousands of little lunch sacks that had previously been hidden, appeared and
everyone began to share with everyone else. The point of the story then becomes a lesson
on generosity, not the power of Christ to perform a miracle. Isn’t that
touching? Yet the crowd had followed Jesus in a spontaneous fashion and those there was
not time for planning ahead for packing a lunch. The text of this miracle was not that
this crowd overcame selfishness but that Jesus performed a miracle to prove that He was
“The Bread of Life.”
Others have maintained that Jesus’
teaching was so marvelous that the people fed on his word felt no physical hunger. And
while I agree that the teaching of Jesus was that marvelous, you have to feel sorry for
those whose God is so small that He cannot do the miraculous. Only a miracle would explain
the twelve leftover baskets for fragments from the meal and why according to verses
fourteen and fifteen the crowd wanted to make Jesus a king.
In verse twelve we read, “So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, "Gather
up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost." (13) Therefore they gathered
them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were
left over by those who had eaten.”
Everyone ate until they were filled and even
then there were twelve baskets full of fragments of the meal left over.
Not
Only Does Christ Delight In Using That Which Is Placed At His Disposal but …
Third,
Christ Deserves Not To Be Used
(vv. 14-15)
Verse fourteen and fifteen reveal what happens as a result of the
miracle, “Then those men, when they had seen the sign that
Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” (15)
Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make
Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.”
The reaction of the people to Christ
William Barclay makes this very clear in