Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preached on Mark 6:45-56, the account of Jesus walking on water that inspires the journey from unbelieving hearts to faith-filled worship.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark 6. This morning we're going to be looking at one of the most famous miracles of Jesus's life. Oftentimes, we hear that expression about somebody walking on water, and we speak of it maybe a little sarcastically- “It's not like he walks on water or anything like that.” We use that expression, so it's well-known. Somebody who thinks too highly of themself or others or ascribing too great things to an individual, but with Jesus it's exactly the opposite. We think too little of him. We don't understand who He is. This miracle account is written to remedy that.

I ask this every time I get up to preach. I think about this as we make our way through this incredible Gospel of Mark. Why did the Holy Spirit give us this account? What does He want us to get out of it? Again and again, I have presented before you not just the Gospel of Mark, but all four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as working together to feed us what we need for the salvation of our souls. "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in. . .” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, " but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, and by believing may have life in His name." These accounts are written for our faith, that we might believe in Jesus and have eternal life, the forgiveness of sins.

But what is the nature of that faith? Can it grow and develop? Yes, it must grow and develop. There is an initial faith that saves, that justifies, and it begins our life in Christ, but it needs to grow and develop. None of us are done being saved. We need to believe ever more in Jesus.

We have a sense of that in the disciples' condition that's recorded for us in verse 52. Look at it. You can see the disciples' hardened hearts being reflected. This is a key for me to answer the question, “Why is this text here? “ What do we, First Baptist Church, what do we need to get out of it today? Look at it. Look at verse 52, ”They [the disciples, the apostles] "had not understood about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened." What does that mean? What does it mean they hadn't understood about the loaves? What does it mean that their hearts were hardened? Could that be our condition too? We haven't really fully understood what we've been reading, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We haven't fully understood the ramifications of Jesus, the lesson of the loaves. Why? Because our hearts are hardened too.

Again and again, I've said it's very dangerous to come to any text in which some deficiencies of people are recorded, sins or conditions, and say, "I thank you, God, that I'm not like the people down here in this text." Rather it should be, “How am I like these people? How am I like the disciples? How is it that I haven't understood the lesson of the loaves? How is it that my heart is hardened toward Jesus?”

What does that mean? What is a hardened heart? I think it means spiritually resistant, fighting against what the word of God is doing. God's pulling you or moving you in a direction, and you're digging in your heels and not going the direction that the word of God wants to take you. That's what it means, like the parable of the seed and the soils, the hardened path. The seed comes and bounces. It doesn't penetrate, and so you're resisting, you're fighting. It's the nature of our sinful hearts.

This condition refers to the condition of the disciples. They hadn't understood the lesson about the loaves. What is that? That's the context here, the feeding of the 5,000, this most recent miracle that they went through that we looked at last time, the feeding of  the 5,000. Jesus fed 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish. The disciples had been directly involved in that process. They had brought the problem to Jesus. Jesus put it back on them. They couldn't solve it. Jesus miraculously multiplied the loaves and the fish and gave them to the disciples, who then distributed them to the crowd with their own hands. They were involved. They saw matter, material being created out of nothing, out of thin air. They saw it and distributed it to as many as 20,000 or more people. The people kept eating and eating and eating and eating until they were gorged. They were full. They couldn't eat another bite. Incredible. Then they were involved in picking up the broken pieces that were left over, "Let nothing be wasted." They did all that work. They filled twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. They were involved in all of that.

But the text says, the Holy Spirit tells us, they hadn't understood the lesson because their hearts were hardened. What is the lesson? What could it be? That Jesus is the Son of God? There is nothing that is too difficult for him. There's nothing he cannot do. Therefore, they should trust him fully for every condition in their lives.  That doesn't sound like anything new. I'm not up here to say new things. I'm up here to say that we need to learn the lesson of the loaves, and indeed the lesson of every miracle: Jesus is almighty God in the flesh who came to earth to save you. He will save you. He will not finish working in you until you are glorified in heaven. Every circumstance of your life has been carefully crafted to that end, and he's ruling over all of it. That's the lesson of the loaves. We need to learn it too.

Their hearts were hard. They hadn't understood the lesson of the loaves or the earlier stilling of the storm or the driving out of the legion of demons or the woman with the problem, the bleeding problem, for twelve years who touched the hem of his garment and was instantly healed. They hadn't understood that. They hadn't understood the raising of Jairus' dead daughter to life. They hadn't understood all of these things like they should. They could make a confession, a testimony, "You are the Son of God." They could say those words. We all who are claiming to be Christians can make that same kind of testimony, but we don't really understand it. That's the nature of the lesson here. Their hearts were hard so that God still has to draw them to Christ in a deeper way. That's the context of the situation we're looking at here.

Remember the feeding of the 5,000 had just happened. Before that, they had been sent out, the twelve had been sent out on their first mission, their first practice mission trip. They went out two by two, and Jesus had empowered them with a wonder-working, miracle-working power themselves. They were able to drive out demons. They were able to anoint sick people with oil and heal them. They were able to preach that people should repent. They went on that mission, and then they came back and reported to Jesus all the things they had done.

But because the crowds were huge, they continued to be huge, and they couldn't even address any of their physical needs, they couldn't get enough rest or eat or anything, Jesus said to them, "Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." So they went. Also, the context, as we said, was John the Baptist's death, the only account in Mark's gospel that doesn't have anything directly to do with Jesus, but it's important. John the Baptist had been beheaded at the order of wicked King Herod, because he was incited by the lustful dance of a young girl. So John the Baptist was dead.

All of these things had come together. They cross the lake to get alone, to get to a quiet place, but they couldn't escape the crowd. A huge crowd was there. When Jesus landed, He had compassion on them, the text tells us, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He met all their needs. He taught them many things. He healed their sick, and He fed them. He filled their empty stomachs. He did all of that. “Your needs are met. You're fine. Go home.” So He does that. He sends them away vigorously. Look at verse 45, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him. Then he dismissed the crowds." They're going to Bethsaida. He dismissed the crowd. This is a place where people aren't usually. There's nobody usually here. “You shouldn't be here. It's time to go home. Go. Go away.” So they did.

That crowd that He dismissed, we find out in John 6 was carnal and faithless. By the end of the next day, most of them would leave Jesus and never follow him again because their understanding of the kingdom was purely physical. They wanted another meal. They wanted to take him by force and make him king so He could whip up on the Romans. They had very a carnal attitude toward the kingdom of God. They did not want the spiritual kingdom Jesus came to bring in, a right relationship with almighty God by the forgiveness of their sins through the shedding of his blood on the cross. They didn't want any of that, so they're gone.Jesus sends his disciples away, sends the faithless crowd away, and finally the time has come for Jesus himself to be alone and he's finally alone. He goes up on a mountainside to pray. 

Part two, we see Jesus's powerful ministry for his disciples. Now he's going to start ministering on behalf of his disciples.  Putting Matthew's account together with this account in Mark and the account in John, if you put the three accounts together, there actually are six miracles that Jesus does here on behalf of his disciples. Six of them. We'll walk through them. There are six amazing things that Jesus does to strengthen the faith of his disciples. We're going to see Jesus's supernatural vision of his disciples in their plight. We're going to see, obviously, the central miracle, the one we know about, Jesus walking on the water.

In Matthew's account, Peter comes out of the boat and walks on the water to Jesus, doing something he could never physically do if Jesus did not give him power to do it. Then when he, through unbelief, starts to sink, Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and saves him. Then when He climbs back into the boat, immediately the wind and the waves die down just like earlier. But He doesn't say anything, they just die down. It's pretty obvious though that He has ended the storm.

Then make note of this, John 6:21. You can already start flipping ahead there. Put a bookmark because we're going to go over there, a miracle probably most of you have never seen before. We'll get there. Six miracles, an amazing array of the powers of Jesus. Not just one, but six. The one is amazing enough,  people just don't walk on water. We're going to get to that in due time.

All of this though, I want to couch in context of Jesus's ministry to the spiritual condition of his disciples. Yes, they have immediate physical needs. They're in danger again. They're in a storm in the lake, in the sea, and the wind is against them. They're not making progress. There is definitely danger. This time, He's not in the boat with them, so they're in great danger. He's going to care for them, but the text tells us to look above the immediate physical circumstances to their spiritual condition, the hardness of their hearts.  Jesus is going to be ministering to their hardened hearts, bringing them to a higher level of faith in Jesus than they'd ever known before, moving from faithless fear to faith-filled adoration. That's the movement of this passage, and hopefully that will happen for us.

It begins with Jesus's prayer time. We don't know what He prayed for or about. We don't have any content of Jesus's prayer, but I do believe that central to it always was the concern that Jesus had for his sheep, for his people, so He would be praying for them, interceding for them. Look at verses 45 - 47. "Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake and he was alone on land."

Now, Jesus had his own reasons to be alone, to strengthen himself. He loved, as we learned in Mark 1, to go to solitary places and pray, to get away from everyone and be alone and pray. That was his regular habit. He wanted that vertical communion with his Father. He loved to pray. He enjoyed his prayer times, and He got renewed in strength by praying to his Father.  Undoubtedly, He was pouring out his grief before his Father over the death of John the Baptist, his cousin, his forerunner, the one predicted in Isaiah the prophet, "A voice of one calling in the desert." This is the one who had been frivolously beheaded by wicked King Herod, and so He wants to pour out that grief. Undoubtedly, also hearing from the Father what He was to do going forward. Jesus made it very plain again and again, "I don't do anything except what the Father has told me to do. I don't speak any words except what the Father's told me to say."  We have to imagine a lot of Jesus's daily prayer times were, "What do you want me to do today, Father?" As the servant of the Lord, He listened to his Father and then did what his Father told him to do. So He's doing all of that.  But, as I said, we must imagine the centerpiece of his prayer time was the heart condition of his disciples. He must have been asking the Father to soften his disciples' hardened hearts, that they would understand not merely the lesson of the loaves, but all the lessons He was trying to teach them. Jesus is our great high priest. Hebrews 7:24-25 says that Jesus has a permanent priesthood, "Therefore he is able to save to the uttermost," [or to finish the salvation] "of everyone who comes to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father, and that includes especially the gifts of our salvation. Jesus is at the right hand of God and is interceding for you right now and praying for you that your faith will not fail, and that you will get everything you need for the sustaining and growth and development of your faith. More than anything, that's the ministry of the word. He's praying for you at the right hand of God. He is our Great High Priest and is interceding.

We could well imagine Jesus is up there on the mountain praying to the Father for his disciples. "Father, work in these men. Work in them. Their hearts are hardened. They've seen all of these miracles and they have a little faith, but it needs to grow. Father, would you develop their faith? Would you expand it? Enable me now to show my greatness to them that they will trust in me more fully." Something like that..

But then miracle number one, Jesus saw his disciples' danger. Look again, verse 47-48, "When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them." Now, you have to understand what's going on. By the time He actually walks out to them, we'll talk about this in a minute, it's somewhere between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. It's the middle of the night. It's dark and it's stormy. There are clouds. There's rain, perhaps. There's wind, certainly. They are miles away from him. He's up on a mountain, but it says He saw them.

How do you explain that? How do you explain that He sees that the wind is powerfully against them and that they're trying to row to land but they can't make any headway? You have to realize, at that moment in time, that moment in redemptive history, those twelve apostles were the kingdom of God on earth. They represented where this whole thing was going, and they're in the middle of a sea in a storm in great danger. Jesus sees them. He saw them straining at their oars. How? Well, Jesus is our Good Shepherd. It says in John 10:14, "I am the Good Shepherd. I know my sheep, and my sheep know me."

Prophets just know things supernaturally. I was reading recently the account of the life of Elisha. I don't know if you remember how that time the account in 2 Kings 5, I think it is, where he heals Naaman the Syrian. He's a very powerful, wealthy man who has leprosy. He hears that there's a prophet in Israel, Elisha, who can do amazing things. So he goes, and Elisha tells him to wash seven times in the Jordan River. He eventually does, and he's cured. He tries to pay Elisha for the healing, and Elisha doesn't want anything to do with that.  He's on his way back when Elisha's servant Gehazi says, "What do we do?" This is a missed opportunity, a missed business opportunity. So what does Gehazi do? He leaves Elisha and goes running after Naaman the Syrian, catches up with him. Naaman gets down out of his chariot and says, "What can I do for you?" He says, "Well, it turns out some of the prophets have come and they have some needs and all." "Oh," he said, "well, do you need some money?" "Yeah, maybe a talent of silver." He said, "Take two, and take a bunch of clothes." So he gives him all this stuff. Here is Gehazi trucking all this stuff back, hides it all away, and then goes back into the presence of Elisha.Now comes an interesting moment. Elisha, I always picture him not looking at Gehazi as he comes back in the room. He's doing something, over his shoulder he says, "Where did you go, Gehazi?" "Oh, I didn't go anywhere. Stop right there. Do you understand who you're talking to? You're talking to a prophet of God. You don't lie to a prophet of God, you shouldn't lie any time anyway. But this is what Elisha said, "Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from the chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money or accept clothes or olive groves or vineyards, flocks, herds, menservants, maidservants? Well, therefore Naaman's leprosy is going to cling to you and to your descendants forever.' And Gehazi went out leprous, white as snow."

Now, "Was not my spirit with you when that guy got down out of the chariot? I could see it." It's prophetic vision. Jesus is the King of all prophets. He just knows what's going on in your life. He sees everything. It's a miracle. He knows what you're going through right now. He knows what you're thinking right now. He knows everything. He knows the circumstances of your life. That's the first miracle.

Then Jesus goes out to his disciples, verse 48, "About the fourth watch of the night, he went out to them walking on the sea." He knows the incredible danger they're in and He will be with them. Again and again, God says this. He says to Isaac, "I will be with you." He says to Jacob, "I will be with you." He says to Moses, "I will be with you when you go to Pharaoh." After Moses died and Joshua took over, he said, "I will be with you." God said to Gideon, "I will be with you." Jesus said to his disciples, "I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. "I will be with you." He says it in the Great Commission. "And surely I will be with you even to the end of the age." So his coming out physically ,to physically be with them is ... we're supposed to read it also spiritually. He is with you. He comes out to you.

But as He does, He displays his power over the sea. He's walking on the sea. This is an astonishing miracle of miracles. It's an amazing stormy night, the fourth watch of the night, that’s Roman designation. It seems Mark was writing for a Roman audience. That's somewhere between 3:00 and 6:00 AM. There is no other explanation for this other than a supernatural suspension of the laws of nature. Some unbelieving commentators on this say that Jesus had actually found a floating chunk of ice and was ... I mean, really. Or there was a hidden sandbar all the way out miles out into the middle of the ... I mean, the things that people do. No, Jesus walked on the water.

If I can just tell you something, stuff sinks. Have you ever dived into a pool? You went down. The very next chapter after that whole Elisha and Gehazi thing, some of the guys there are chopping wood with an ax, and the ax head flies off and falls into a lake. They say to Elisha, "It was borrowed." He goes over and he shaves a stick and puts it in there and makes the ax head float. That's a miracle. Ax heads don't float.  This is the nature of God. He creates a world that runs by what we generally call the laws of science or the laws of nature. It's why science works because God has established the earth. It can never be moved. What that means is the way things were yesterday is the way things will be today and tomorrow. That's how science works. The experiment you did two weeks ago, if you just set everything up exactly the same way, it'll happen again. That's why we can build a body of knowledge. That is the world we live in. We're used to it. We're not reinventing the wheel like every day ,who knows what's going to happen? You guys are very familiar with the law of gravity.  You feel it. You're feeling it right now.  It's like, pastor, please don't go over the obvious. The Earth wants to pull you to its center and something stops you called the floor.  When you're on water, things are a little different, but you're still heading down that way. There's that buoyancy thing, but buoyancy's different than walking across the water. Jesus does this incredible miracle. Jesus has the power to toggle on and off laws of nature any time. He's above it, He walks above the laws of nature. He usually, I would say almost always, in his incarnation submitted to them like everyone else. What did Jesus do once he finally arrived at his disciples? He got in the boat. What did he use the boat for? Not because he needed it, but that's our normal way of living, and so He steps in and He uses it. But in this particular case, He suspends the law of gravity to walk on water.

Now, He's going to do it again at the end of his time on earth. Remember, after his resurrection. He's going to go outside the city of Jerusalem. He's going to go to the Mount of Olives with his apostles, and they're going to watch him soar up from the surface of the earth higher and higher and higher, until finally a cloud hides him from their sight. Again, He suspended the laws of nature at the ascension. Jesus is over every law.

Now, as He does this,He calms their faithless fears. He's about to pass by them. It says, "But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately, he spoke to them and said, 'Take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.’" Or, "Take heart. It is I. Don't be afraid." I must tell you, sometimes it's good for a pastor just to say, I don't know because here in the text, I don't know why the text says He meant to pass by them. I find that interesting. If any of you have any theories, come tell me. I basically punted on it. Maybe it's just how He appeared to them, but the text seems to talk about his own intentions. He's intending to pass by them, but when He hears them crying out, He goes to be with them. It's pretty obvious he wants to interact with them.

In any case, when they saw him walking on the water, they were overwhelmed with terror. They know that human beings cannot walk on water, and so they resorted to a common myth of ghosts, of spirit beings, apparitions. Jesus at his bodily resurrection is going to have to drive this same misconception out. He said, "I'm not a ghost. Ghosts don't have flesh and bones as you see I have. Touch me. Touch my body." He ate some broiled fish in front of them because ghosts don't do that either. He has to deal with that, and that's what they're thinking, so He calls out to them. They recognize his face in his voice. He literally says, "Take heart, I am." In the Greek it says “I am.’ All the English translations are going to say, "It is I." But I like” I am” better. Why? That's God's name. That's the lesson of the loaves. Jesus is “I am.” He is almighty God in the flesh. That's who He is. So He says, "Take heart, I am. I am God. Don't be afraid."

Now, in Mark's gospel account, Jesus just gets into the boat at that point. He climbed into the boat with them. Oddly, Mark omits the whole Peter venture. Scholars believe that Mark is Peter's mouthpiece, the number one human source of Mark's information was the Apostle Peter. That may well be. It could be that Peter at that point having been deeply humbled by God over those years, didn't want to present himself as one who also walked on the water. I don't know. I'm just saying it's not in Mark, but it is over in Matthew. So if you want, you can turn over to Matthew 14 and look at 28-31 or just listen.  As Jesus is still out there on the sea and says, "Take heart, I am," or, "It is I. Don't be afraid," Peter calls out to him from the boat and says, "Lord, if it's you, tell me to come to you on the waves, on the water." He doesn't take it on himself to do that. But this idea pops in his mind. It's a remarkable idea. Then Jesus gives him a command that he could not follow except that the supernatural power of God came upon Peter. "Come," He said, "Come."

If God gives you a command, then God must empower you to do it. It's no different than Revelation 4, where John sees a doorway open in heaven, and the voice says to John, "Come up here." They're equally miraculous. "Come, Peter, walk on the water. Come John, float up from the surface of the earth and see the future." Those are commands that only God can empower us to do.  Peter gets out of the boat, and by the supernatural power of Christ, begins to walk on the water. But the problem is, as he begins the journey out to Jesus, he looks around at the wind and the waves and begins to doubt, and being afraid, he begins to sink and cries out three word prayer, "Lord, save me." Those are effective prayers, by the way. There's no flourishing language here. There's a sense of urgency and need, "Lord, save me." Immediately, Jesus reaches out his hand and grabs hold of him and lifts him up, again by supernatural power. But then He rebukes him and he says, "You of little faith. Why did you doubt?" That's an amazing sub-story in the midst of all of that, and that seems to be the whole work right now at that moment in all of the apostles. "You of little faith. Why did you doubt?"

I think it's good for all of us to stand under the same rebuke or correction, to say, “I am of little faith. Now, I'm not of no faith. I'm a Christian, but I am of little faith. Help me not to doubt. Help my unbelief. Help me grow in my understanding of who Jesus is.” But there's still two more miracles to go. Jesus calmed the storm immediately, verse 51. "Then he climbed into the boat with them and the wind died down." Jesus doesn't say anything to the wind and the waves. The disciples must have understood, however, it was Jesus's power that ended that storm. He just thought it, and the storm's over, instantly done as soon as He gets in the boat.

Now, the final miracle’ is in John 6:21. In that account, we have this one statement. By the way, I've shared this with, I think, five people this week. All five of them said the same thing to me, "I've never seen that before." So here you go. Maybe you have. John 6:21, "Then they were willing to take him," [being Jesus], "into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore to which they were heading." Wait, what? What just happened? I don't know. What do you think happened? What happened to the boat? What does the word immediately mean? I looked into it. John doesn't use this word very much. It always means instantly or the very next thing. They were in the middle of the sea, miles from shore, and then suddenly they're not. Does Jesus have that kind of power? Jesus has more power than you can possibly imagine. Does He have the power to move a boat from miles offshore to the shore? Yes, He does.

Do you remember the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch? He's there out in the desert and he shares the gospel with him. Then the eunuch gets baptized. What happened next to Philip? He disappeared. Really? Where did he end up? A place called Azotus, miles away.  Now, if you'd been in that boat, wouldn't you be looking around like, wait, what just happened? How did we get here? It's incredible. Jesus has this kind of power over wind, over waves, over the law of gravity, buoyancy. He has this kind of power over every condition on earth. Those are the lessons of the six miracles.

The disciples then are moved to worship Jesus. Their hearts had been hard, but now they worship. Verse 51- 52. "They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened." The phrase “completely amazed” means literally “beside themselves.” They're beside themselves with wonder. Matthew tells us what they said. They said, "Truly, you are the Son of God." That's the whole destination of all four gospels. "These miracle accounts are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and by believing may have life in his name." They're worshiping him.

I do believe that this may have been the basis of their strength and faith in Jesus, which was really shining at the end of the next day. I told you about that faithless crowd that was there for another meal the next day and they wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king and all of those things? He has a long discussion in John 6, and then weeds out the crowd saying, "You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood. If you don't eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you." He says these things that are hard to accept and they all leave. Jesus turns to his apostles and says, "You don't want to leave too, do you?" He said that to the twelve. "Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the holy one of God.'" Jesus said, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? And one of you is a devil." But I think the 11 who genuinely believed, it was this experience that strengthened them and moved them ahead a quantum leap in their understanding of the greatness of Jesus. 

The account ends with Jesus resuming his ministry to the crowds. "When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. They ran throughout the whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages, towns or countryside, they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch the edge of his cloak. And all who touched him were healed." So this is just, again, a summary statement of a vast number of miracles. John tells us, "I didn't write them all. Frankly, if all of them were written down, the world couldn't contain all the books that would be written." So this is one of those summaries of hundreds, maybe even thousands of miracles.

I also think it's interesting about the hem and the garment. I think it was that woman with the bleeding problem that first did that and maybe news got out, hey, that's a way to get some of that power from Jesus. But it worked. "All those who touched the hem of his garment were healed," it says. 

What applications and lessons can we take from this? The Bible is written, as I said, to bring us to saving faith. There is initial saving faith when you finally realize who Jesus is and why He came to earth. He is almighty God in the flesh who was born of the virgin Mary, who lived a sinless life and did all these incredible miracles and taught all these great teachings. Why? Because you needed a Savior. Because you're a sinner. You've broken God's laws daily, hourly, and you stand under the wrath of God. Apart from his saving work, you'll be condemned to hell.

God saw that you couldn't save yourself. There was no way you could save yourself, and so He sent his Son to live this sinless, righteous, perfect life and weave a perfect garment of righteousness that he offers you as a gift to tell you to put on. If you wear that righteousness, that imputed righteousness of Christ, you will survive judgment day and no other way.

Conversely, all of your wickedness and sins and all the things you've done, of which there's a perfect record in heaven, every careless word we have ever spoken is recorded and written down, and you stand under the wrath of God, all of that, Jesus was willing to drink that cup on the cross to die in your place. You trust in him and your sins will be forgiven. Your sins will be forgiven. If that happens to you, you will never be, can never be, more righteous, more forgiven than you are at that first instant.

But then the next part starts, what we call that journey, that voyage of sanctification, of living out your Christian faith in this physical world. That's where these six miracles help us out.  First of all, realize Jesus sees you and knows what you're going through all the time. As Isaiah 40 says, "Why do you say, O Israel, and complain, O Jacob, 'My way is hidden from my God?'" It isn't. He sees everything.  He knows what you're going through, and He wants you not to be afraid. He wants you not to be anxious. He says, "Fear not. Take heart. I am. I am God." He sees you, and He comes out to you walking on the water. What does that mean? He's orchestrating this whole thing. Even the laws of nature are subservient to Jesus in his desire to save you. Everything is under his feet. He's walking above all of it. He's sovereign and in control of all of the trials of your life.

Thirdly, Peter walks on water. Jesus calls on us to do supernaturally, eternally consequential things, maybe not anointing sick people with oil and healing them or driving out demons. That record was established to show the validity of the apostles' ministry. We don't need to do all those things now, but we can do something even greater. We can share the gospel that is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Sometimes it feels like it takes as much courage for us to do that as to get out of the boat and walk to Jesus. But what supernatural power is at work in your life to do great things of eternal consequence? So walk on whatever water God has for you to walk on to do the good works he has ordained for you to do by the power of Christ.

Then fourthly, as you're going through that and you start to sink in life through unbelief because you're looking too much at the wind and the waves and you're forgetting Jesus, He has the power to reach out and draw you up. I like that just three word prayer. Pray it as often as you need. "Lord, save me. I'm drowning, I'm sinking, I'm struggling,” and He'll reach out his hand and save you and pull you up.

Fifthly, the storm ends like that. All storms end. You know that any trouble you're having in your life is temporary? Anything that's causing you distress, anything that's crossing you and making you sad or scared or fearful, all of those things, if you're a child of God, all of those things are temporary. They are light and momentary. That's what momentary means. They're not going to go on. You are going to a world where there'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. They're all temporary. At some point when they have done their work in you, the Lord will bring those trials to an end. He will end that storm. Just like that, it'll be over.

Then six, what do I make about this transmutation, this quantum leap of the boat? I'm going to venture out of the boat of sound exegesis here for a minute.  It's possible that the rowing against the tide may picture your efforts at sanctification. How's it going? How's your rowing going as you're trying to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ? Making good progress? Some days better than others. Is there a quantum leap coming for you? There actually is. Whether that's what John 6:21 is talking about or not, I know this, the moment you die, your spirit will be instantly made perfect in conformity to Christ, and you will never sin again with your mind or heart. You will forever love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you will love your neighbor perfectly. You won't have your resurrection body yet if the Lord hasn't come, but you will be perfected in an instant. Then the second instant that's coming, resurrection. You're going to get a glorified body that will shine forever. The quantum leap is coming. So whatever rowing you're doing, keep doing it. Whatever fighting against wind and tide, it is hard to grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, the Lord has power to enable you. We have to battle temptations and lusts and struggles, it's true. But that quantum leap is coming. Trust in it.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the things that we've learned today. These six miracles Jesus did are encouraging to us. We pray that you would sustain us as we struggle. Sustain us as we serve. Help us not to give into faithless fear. Help us not to give into anxiety. Help us, oh Lord, to trust in you, to look to you, constantly look to you. Feed our faith by ministry of the word of God. Sustain us and strengthen us. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen.

The account of Jesus walking on water inspires the disciples and moves their unbelieving hearts to faith-filled worship.

The post Jesus Walks on Water and Softens His Disciples’ Hearts (Mark Sermon 29) appeared first on Two Journeys.

The Ephesians, moved by idolatry, started a riot against Christianity, which ended with no incident. Paul went on to Troas teaching and preaching.

The post Acts Podcast 39: Ousted by Riots, The Ministry Continues appeared first on Two Journeys.

Jesus feeds the five thousand, showing compassion, power, and provision as He meets His people's physical and spiritual needs.

The post The Compassion, Power, and Provision of the Lord (Mark Sermon 28) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preached on Mark 6:30-44, where Jesus feeds the five thousand, showing compassion, power, and provision to meet his people's needs.

Turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 6:30-44. The Holy Spirit in its wisdom has given us four perfect records of the life of Jesus Christ. Four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Each of them give us everything that we need for salvation, all the facts that we need about the life of Christ. In those four gospels, there is a record of many, many miracles, a river of miracles that Jesus did, but only two of them are recorded in all four gospels. One of them, the most significant miracle of all, the most significant moment in human history is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the third day and the other is the miracle we'll read about today, the feeding of the 5,000. Other than the resurrection, it's the only miracle that the Holy Spirit saw fit to give us four different times, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

As with all the accounts that we read of the life of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, I believe the Holy Spirit had the same purpose, the same intention, that we would understand the facts of the Savior Jesus, and that those facts would draw from us faith. And by that faith our sins would be forgiven and our souls saved. This is the purpose of Matthew, of Mark, of Luke, and of John, that we should learn from this account things about Jesus. What does this account teach us about our savior? What can we learn of his nature? What can we learn of his character, of his heart, and of his great works, of his capabilities? How does this account glorify Christ so that we may believe in him, that we may worship him, that we may follow him for the rest of our lives? That's what's before us today?

I think the answer will be plain as we walk through it. This account puts some vital attributes of the Lord on display. First, his compassion. We're going to see Jesus's compassion throughout the account. It's openly stated and displayed how compassionate Jesus is on his disciples and on the needs of the crowd. He feels their needs at the deepest level. He feels their hunger as though it's happening to him. He feels the pain of their diseases, of their injuries. He feels it within. It moves him to his deepest level. He feels their weariness and he feels their lostness through their sins. There's deep compassion in Jesus.

We're going to see also the clear priority that Jesus puts on the ministry of the Word. While He feels all of their temporal needs, He knows their real need is the ministry of the word, so He's going to teach them many things right away. That's how He's going to show compassion for these who are sheep without a shepherd. We're going to also see Christ's wisdom in training the apostles, and we can put ourselves in their place. Though we're not apostles, we can see as Jesus draws his apostles into what He's doing, into his strategy to meet these needs, we can see his strategy for reaching the world to the ends of time, of drawing disciples, the apostles, and then after that in future generations, disciples after him to share his compassion for the poor, for the hungry, for the hurting, but especially for the lost. He desires that we would be instruments in taking his name to the ends of the earth and to the ends of time. We’re drawn into his work and we see that also.

We're going to see, of course, his astonishing power. There is literally nothing that Jesus cannot do. There is nothing He cannot do. We're going to see on plain display his power, specifically here to create matter, to create molecules, atoms, out of nothing, out of thin air. Well, not exactly. He does have a starter kit of five loaves and two fish. We'll talk about that. And the mysterious connection between the two, which I will never figure out, but I'm going to do my best to explain it. But the actual molecules that the people chewed and swallowed came out of nothing. And it gives us a picture of Jesus's original creation of the universe, “ex nihilo,” from nothing.

Finally, we're going to see his commitment to provide. Jesus has a heart to provide, to meet the needs of his people, to be their good shepherd for they were like sheep without a shepherd. He wants to open his hand and satisfy the needs of his people every day. So an application I'm going to say right from the start, for all of you who are followers of Christ, to not be anxious about your lives what you'll eat, but to trust him to meet your needs. That's where we're going in this sermon. So let's walk through it. 

It begins with the account of Jesus' compassion toward the twelve, toward his apostles. Look at verses 30 -32, "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and talked. Then because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them,’ Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place".

The context here is a little bit easy to forget. There was an intervening story. Jesus has sent his twelve called apostles. They're called here in verse 30, the apostles. That means literally, “sent ones.” He has sent them out on their first trial run mission. The apostles have been designated by Jesus in Mark 3 to be with him, to learn from him, and to be sent out to preach and to do miracles in his name. This is their first chance to do it on their own. Look back at verse 7 in this same chapter, Mark 6:7, "Calling the twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits.” These men have returned to report to Jesus how things went. In verse 30, Mark tells us they reported all they had done and taught. What did that entail? Look at verses 12 and 13 earlier in this chapter, "They went out and preached the people should repent.”  Verse 13, "They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them". The mission by the apostles must have been exhausting for them, and all it did is stir up more and more interest among the crowds, more fervor among this relentlessly needy throng. Their needs are never going to be fully met. The crowd's needs were so urgent the apostles did not even have a moment for themselves in which they could eat or meet even the most basic physical needs,  so Jesus has compassion first on the twelve, on the apostles, look at verse 31, "Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, He said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’". So that's the context. But also in the meantime, we have another account, and that is the account of the martyrdom of John the Baptist. Both in Matthew's account of the feeding of the 5,000 and in Mark, these things happen one after the other.

And so, John the Baptist has been martyred as we looked at last time. This news must have been incredibly emotional for his disciples. Some of them had been disciples of John before they were disciples of Jesus. They knew him personally, all of them knew him. They must have been deeply grieved by the news that he had been executed. Jesus himself had more reason to grieve than any of them. There was a special connection between Jesus and John, even when Jesus was still in the womb and John was still in the womb, how the baby John lept with joy in his mother's womb. John was Jesus' forerunner, and He had reason to grieve over the wicked death by Herod of John the Baptist. Jesus himself is a man just like us with emotions like ours, only pure and perfect. He felt the need to get away from the crowd and find some time to rest, a time to grieve, a time to pray and get renewed, and He knew that the apostles needed the same.

Friends, let me just stop and say we need rest. We need rest. One of the translations that's out there is, “Jesus says, ‘Come apart with me and get some rest.’” I remember hearing a preacher on this years ago make the point this way, "Come apart or you're going to come apart". I thought that's kind of memorable, isn't it? We need rest. Why is that? We have this treasure, the spiritual treasure, our soul's treasure in jars of clay [ 2 Corinthians 4:7]. So, we need to rest., we need to be refreshed and renewed. We can't just go at it all the time. Psalm 23 says, famously, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul”.  So the text presents Jesus as our good shepherd because it's going to use that same language. He's going to see that the people are like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus knows the needs of a sheep. 

Now what about you? Do you come apart with Jesus spiritually so that you can be renewed in your soul? Do you use Sundays for that? Do you have daily quiet times? Do you begin your day in the word and in prayer so that your soul, the inner person, is renewed? You need that. You've got to have Jesus restore your soul. So that is what the disciples did. Verse 32, “They went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.” Now this is not a desert. Don't imagine it's a desert in the account of the feeding.They're going to sit down on green grass, which doesn't grow in desert regions, rather the Gerasenes is a solitary place, a quiet place where there aren't huge thongs of people. That was the point, to get away from the people so they could have that time to pray and rest and be renewed.  But much to their surprise, they couldn't do it. They couldn't get away.

So we next see Jesus' compassion toward the crowd. Look at verse 33, "Many who saw them leaving, recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them." They're going around the corner of the Sea of Galilee. They probably are never out of eyesight. Scholars say it's probably about an eight mile jot around there. Some of the younger individuals could have run on foot, and made it there faster than the boat. That seems to be exactly what happened. But here we see Jesus's amazing selflessness and compassion on the crowd. When He lands, having sought to get away from the crowd and finds they're waiting for him when He gets there, think of how you would've responded and think of the exact opposite, and that's Jesus- tremendous compassion on the people. Not the slightest selfish irritation at that moment at all. His heart is moved with compassion for them.

Keep in mind, Jesus is undoubtedly grieving over John the Baptist's death. As soon as all of their needs are met and all that ministry's done, He's going to make them go away. He's going to send them forcibly away. He's going to send his disciples across the lake and He goes alone up on a mountain to pray because He needs that time with his father. But at this moment, He put their needs ahead of his own. This is so instructive for us. The reaction here is nothing but love and compassion. Look at verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. 

Matthew in his account adds these words, Matthew 9:36, "They were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd". Harassed by demons, by invisible spiritual powers of evil in the heavenly realms, harassed by afflictions, by constant chronic pain and by disease that they can't cure. They're harassed by sorrows and by bitter memories, harassed by their poverty, harassed by political oppression, by the Herods and their overlords, the Romans. Harassed by religious oppression, the scribes and Pharisees, those hypocritical blind guides who laid heavy loads on them and wouldn't lift a finger to help them. Harassed. Harassed most of all by their own lusts and temptations and desires and their own guilt. These feelings of guilt that they could never get rid of, torn and afflicted by their own conscience. They're harassed.

But Matthew also says they're helpless. They can't do anything about any of these things, like sheep without a shepherd. Now for those of you like me that grew up in suburbia or an urban setting, that might not mean much to you. Like sheep without a shepherd. One of the things as you become a Bible believing Christian is you learn a lot about sheep. I haven't been around sheep. I've been to petting zoos a few times in my life, that’s been about it. But what I learned about sheep is a lot of things, you just find out that they are slow, they are stupid, and they're delicious, and that's just a bad combination.  I don't know how Darwinism and natural selection works. They need shepherds or they're finished. They're obsolete quickly. So we people are called God's flock. We are his sheep and He is our shepherd. Furthermore, God uses the language of the Davidic kingly line, a son of David who's going to come and be shepherd to God's people, Israel. Many verses use this language. Ezekiel 34:23 gives us an example of this. God says, "I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them. He will tend them and be their shepherd". That's Jesus. He is in John 10, "The good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep". Now, as Jesus lands and sees them and he knows all of their needs, his top priority, as I've said, is the ministry of the word.

When all's said and done,He's going to meet many of their needs. Incredible. He's going to heal their sick bodies. Mark doesn't tell us anything about that, but Matthew does. Matthew 14:14, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick". He does healing ministry. Of course, He's going to fill their hungry bellies. That's today's account. He's going to feed them food, but there is nothing more important, nothing greater that they need more than the ministry of the word. All of those other things are temporary. If he heals them of some particular malady, they're going to have another one pretty soon after that, or maybe the same one a year later, and their empty bellies are going to get empty again real quick.

But their souls need the word of God. "What would it profit someone to gain the whole world and forfeit their soul?" What good is it for you to have a continually full belly and a healthy body and go to hell for all eternity? And the only thing that's going to stop that is you believing the gospel message, believing the ministry of the word of God. That's the priority. It's Jesus's priority. Look at verse 34, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began teaching them many things". The juxtapositions, not an accident. That's how He showed compassion on them as their good shepherd. Their souls were hungry for the truth of the word of God. Their salvation depended on hearing the word with faith, believing with faith. So does yours and mine.

It says He began teaching them many things, though Mark, typical of him, doesn't give us any sampling of the teaching. Maybe He ran over all the same material that we know of as the Sermon of the Mount. Maybe He taught them a lot of parables of the kingdom. We don't really know. We have lots of samples of Jesus' teaching in Matthew, Luke, and John. All we have here in Mark's is he taught them many things. It wasn't a light touch, it wasn't a little devotion, it was deep teaching for a long time.

In John's account, in John chapter 6, we see Jesus' top priority again the next day. Mark doesn't give us this, but John does. The crowd comes back the next day on the other side of the lake, and what do they want? You know what they want? They want breakfast. You fed us yesterday, feed us again. That whole thing that Moses did, do that day after day, we'll all quit our jobs.  Jesus said, "You are here not because you saw the miracle, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill". You filled your stomachs. "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you.”[ John 6:27]. What is the food of life? What is the bread of life? It is Jesus and it is Jesus's word. That's what it is. 

As we go back to the account in Mark, we're going to see Jesus does indeed care for their physical needs as well. I begins with the compassion of Jesus for the crowd and their growling stomachs through his disciples. He draws them in. Now the disciples start, and in our account here, the disciples show some basic compassion, kind of. I'm not going to give them high marks here.  But it starts with them. Verse 35- 36, ”By this time it was late in the day. So his disciples came to him. 'This is a remote place, they said, and it's already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat'", I guess. I shouldn't add that, but I don't sense a river of compassion on the part of the disciples here. Remember, they themselves have been harassed by the crowds and Jesus says, “Hey, let's get away from all these people.” They land and the people are all still there. My guess is they have reached the end of their limit. But they have some measure of compassion. So send them away so they can buy something to eat.

In Mark 8, the second feeding, the feeding of the 4,000, Jesus openly discusses his own compassion on the people for their empty stomachs. He said, "These people have been with me several days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home now, hungry, they may collapse on the way". And he openly says, "I have compassion on them". So that's Jesus's compassion for them. So do the disciples to some degree, but Jesus to a perfect degree, have compassion on them for their hungry stomachs, but Jesus has a better plan than sending them all away. The apostles don't seem to understand how much Jesus wants to be their good shepherd and meet all of their needs. They're about to find out.  

Jesus in his wisdom, is going to draw them in, the disciples, directly into the miracle. So we get to this point, the training, Jesus's training of the apostles. Verse 37, "But he answered, 'You give them something to eat’".  The apostles' faith is about to get stretched. They've already seen the power of Jesus in more ways than they could have possibly imagined, and they themselves have done amazing miracles. They come back from their mission trip beside themselves. "Even the demons are subject to us in your name." They can't believe it, it’s amazing. But now Jesus wants to involve them in a new work, something they've never done before, something He's never, it seems, done before. He directly commands them to feed the multitude. He wants to involve us, his people, in his work.

In John's account, John chapter 6, He actually asks Philip this question, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" It’s a bit of a misleading question. Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? But then John tells us He asked this only to test him because He already knew or had in mind what He was going to do. That's very important and insightful. Jesus tests us in this matter of poverty, in this matter of the poor and needy, the haves and havenots. It's a testing issue. He wants us to feel the weight of poverty, feel the weight of hunger.  He tests us, and what is the nature of the test? How are you going to address the problem? Are you going to look inward and try to find the resources within yourself, your creativity, your ingenuity, your money, your plans or not? Will you look to him to meet the need? That's the test. That's the nature of the test. 

The disciples somewhat fail the test initially. Look at verse 37, “They said to him, ‘That would take 200 denarii’". One translation says, eight months wages. A denarius is day's wage for a laborer, a worker. So that's about two-thirds of a year, about eight months wages. That's a lot of money. That would take eight months of a man's wages, we need to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat. Honestly, what else could they say? What would you say? The crowd's huge, mass huge. Now it wasn't just 5,000. I know that may be jarring for some of you because this is the feeding of the 5,000, but Matthew makes it very plain. There were 5,000 men plus women and children. The 5,000 men, probably more women than men, usually more women than men at gatherings like this. So it's another five to 7,000 women, undoubtedly children too. We're talking probably over 20,000 mouths to feed. 20,000 people. Huge. And even if they did spend eight months wages, 200 denarii on bread, each one would get a tiny portion, a morsel, a sample. It wouldn't be enough to feed them. 

Now here's the thing. When you see some vast problem like world poverty or world lostness, some big issue and you look inward to try to meet that need, one of two things is going to happen. Either you will be able to meet the need with your own resources, and you'll be arrogant,  or you will not be able to meet the need looking inward and you'll be depressed and discouraged. Those are the two options. Arrogance and depression are two sides of the same coin, and the coin is self-reliance.So the test is, will you look away from yourself, up to God to meet these needs? Jesus is training the apostles to look to his power.

This brings me to the next point, Jesus' power to provide for the crowd. Jesus at this point takes over. The first step is, He asked them what they have to work with. Look at verse 38, "'How many loaves do you have?' He said, 'go and see'." When they found out, they said, five and two fish. None of them had anything. The twelve had nothing. We know where the five loaves and two fish came from. There was a boy with his lunch. You guys all know this story, the boy with his lunch. Some mom packs a lunch for the kid.  But I find it interesting, He starts with them basically saying, what do you have to work with? It's like Moses and his staff. Remember how God asked Moses, "What's that in your hand?" A staff, and he uses the staff to do the miracles of Egypt. He uses what we have. And so, He uses this boy's lunch. 

Now when you think of five loaves, don't think of loaves. Think more like dinner rolls, like a couple of little biscuits, five little biscuits. They were made of barley and some kind of fish. I don't know if it's pickled fish, broiled fish. At any rate, just two little fish for lunch. This is a boy's lunch. That's all it is. Now, I may ask to you, why does Jesus even use them? Let me ask an easy question.  Did Jesus need the loafs and the fish? Some of you are shaking your head, no. Good. No, he doesn't need the boys' lunch. He didn't need a starter kit, et cetera. He created the universe out of nothing, but He chooses to involve what they already have in their hands.

The second step,  He organizes the crowd. Look at verse 39, 40, "Then Jesus directed them to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties." This is just for the logistics of distributing the food.  Some of you have seen in some depleted areas where a truck or a couple of trucks of food show up and the gates go down and there's a mass throng, like almost a riot. He doesn't want that, He wants to control it. He wants the people to be controlled and orderly and He has them sit down. It helps them organize and to be peaceful and to wait and to also count the crowd. We can see Jesus as a spiritual leader is intensely practical, more than most spiritual leaders ever would be. Jesus knows better than we do how practical and physical the universe is. So, there's practical steps here.

Thirdly, He takes the loaves and looks up to God and gives thanks. Look at verse 41, "Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks". Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father. What do you have that you did not receive? Jesus is a role model here. Take what you have and thank God for it. Notice that He looks up. I find this interesting because God is omnipresent. He's no more up than He is down. No more left than He is right.  But yet again and again, we have this “up” image concerning God. Jesus ascended from earth up into the clouds. I think the idea is to give us a sense of the infinite majesty of God. He is above us. He is looking down on us from above. So, Jesus looks up and gives thanks.

The fourth step is He divides and distributes the food. Verse 41, "He gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all". I want you to look closely at the words on the page there, verse 41. Somewhere in the middle of those words is the miracle. I don't know where, but it's in there somewhere.  Do you wonder how He did it? I don't know. Did He take one and break it off? I mean, you got to be more efficient than that. It's got to multiply rapidly. We've got a lot of people to feed. But somewhere in there, the material gets created, the matter gets created out of nothing but some mysterious connection with the five loaves and the two fish. The amount is stunning. Maybe as many as 20,000 or more people ate their fill. Look at verse 42, "They all ate and were satisfied." The Greek says they effectively gorged themselves like, “No, no, I couldn't eat another bite.” That's the implication. They are absolutely crammed with food. That's like between a liter and two liters of volume for each of the stomachs. Some stomachs are larger than others, some appetites larger than others. So picture 20,000 two liter bottles laid out of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. That's just the sheer quantity of food that was created out of nothing.  It's incredible, an  astonishing quantity. I'm thinking astonishing quality too. The text doesn't say it, but in John chapter 2, the wine He made was of the highest quality, so I'm thinking these are the best barley loaves ever. Don't you think?

Then there are leftovers therein verse 43,  "The disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish." These fragments are clear physical evidence of the miracle. You can't see the food inside the stomachs, but you can see the fragments that are left over. There's no doubt about it this is a miracle. Where did all that stuff come from?  Furthermore, I love in John's gospel, this command is given[ John 6:12],  “Jesus said, ‘Gather up the pieces that'll left over'". Listen to these words. "Let nothing be wasted." I just love that statement. Let nothing be wasted. If Christ cares about fragments of bread and fish on the ground and says, “let nothing be wasted,” how much more the details of your life? No encounter is wasted. Nothing is purposeless. Everything has a purpose in your life. He's not going to waste anything in your life. So that's the account. We've walked through it. Now let's get to some applications.

Before we get to the applications, I just want to make an observation. Something that's been on my mind, and I find it interesting. Some of you'll find it more interesting than others, but it has to do with the age of the universe. Recently I've been teaching a Christ and Culture class and thinking a lot about creation, evolution, things like that. How old is the universe? Science tells us somewhere around 13.8 billion years, there are different dating techniques. Earth, four and a half billion, science tells us, et cetera. There are debating points back and forth on this. I'm not getting into all that. I myself am a young earth creationist. I have lots of reasons for being that way. I just want to bring up one point, having to do with the creation of these loaves and fishes. Isn't it possible that God could create, for his own purposes and apparently old universe, not in any way to deceive us. Bothers me when Christians, Christians who are scientists and who are theists, but maybe believe in evolution or believe in other things and are trying to incorporate scientific knowledge, go immediately to “God wouldn't deceive us.” Let's just take that right off the table. That's what I'm trying to do is take it off the table.  God isn't trying to deceive us if he did in fact create an apparently old universe. Rather, He just has his own purposes. Was Jesus trying to deceive the 5,000 when the loaves appeared to have a backstory they didn't have? It appeared to be barley that grew up from a seed to a stalk, to a head and then there was a harvest. And then it got brought to a mill and got ground into flour. And then there was a certain recipe for barley loaves. And a chef cooked them for a while, a certain length of time in an oven. Not too much, not too little. They weren't burned, they weren't raw. They were cooked just right, cooked just right.  And the same thing with the fish. You would imagine these little fish, I don't know what kind they were, but grew up from being fish, eggs and then little, I don't know if the right words are minnows or something like that. And then more mature fish. Then one day a fisherman caught them and pulled them up on shore and then they were pickled or they were broiled or they were whatever verb and ready to eat. None of that ever happened. None of it. It came out of nowhere, ready to go, ready to eat. Not to deceive, but to feed. Same thing happened with the wine in John chapter 2. It was water and then it was aged wine with a backstory it never had.

Adam and Eve, instantly adults, and a backstory they never had. Don't ask me anything about belly buttons. I'm not getting into that. Fruit trees, I don't know, backstory they didn't have. There's fruit for them to eat. “You are free to eat from all this fruit.” What about when Jesus was arrested and Peter in his zeal hacks off Malchus's ear.  Jesus touched him and gave him an ear. Aren't you glad it wasn't an infant ear? Aren't you glad He got the, I don't know, the melanin right and the shape right there? I mean, ears are interesting. They're a little weird, but there's a certain family shape. Just like that. That ear had no backstory. Just a thought. Moving on.

I want to begin with applications here just to you Christians. I want to speak to you who are believers. First of all, just worship Christ for the attributes I've singled out here, for his compassion, for his wisdom, for his power, for his provision as a good shepherd. Just worship him. Worship him, and believe in him, trust in him. Let Jesus meet your needs. He knows what you need before you ask. He knows that your stomachs get cyclically empty. He knows that very, very well. I know that these are difficult economic times, some worse for others depending on what your job is. I know that the future looks somewhat uncertain. Future's always uncertain. We don't know what will happen tomorrow, James tells us. But we are all tempted in a very sinful way toward anxiety concerning our basic bodily needs. Jesus said in Matthew 6, "Do not worry about your life, what you'll eat”.  Don't worry about your stomach. Don't make your stomach your God. The reason Jesus says that in Matthew 6 is He wants to set you free from being worried about yourself and your bodies so that you can seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and be involved in kingdom work knowing that your needs are met. So the number one takeaway for us as Christians in this is, don't worry about money, don't worry about your needs. Set yourself free from that so that you can serve God. Jesus can meet your needs. He will feed you. He'll care for you. Along with that obviously, is when Jesus says, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness". What he means is that we should be about the kingdom work. Jesus involved his apostles in what He was doing.  So, set free from concern about money and concern about our bodies, we are then able to say, “Lord, here I am. Send me. What do you want me to do?” We're involved in addressing these big problems that Jesus tests us with, such as poverty and lostness. Years ago I read, Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby, and he said, "Find out where God is at work and join him". What is God doing? Join him in his work.

Also, I get out of this as I meditate on it, “common grace”. The feeding of the huge crowd is an example of what we call “common grace.” It's a miracle, but it's a picture of his ongoing provision for people, whether they believe in him or not. There was no spiritual condition for those that ate these meals and had their fill. He doesn't test them and say, according to your faith, it will be done for you. Whether they believed him or not, they ate. We know that many of them did not believe in him because the next day, John chapter 6, they departed from him and no longer followed him. Most of them didn't believe.

This feeding of this crowd, apart from their faith commitment to Jesus, is a picture of what God does all the time and feeding literally billions of people. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, whether they believe in him or not, whether they ever thank him or not. Acts 14:17, "God has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons. He provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy". Paul preached that to a pagan crowd. Yet, Judgment Day is coming, and they're going to be called to account for how they've reacted to God who has fed them every day of their lives, specifically this crowd.

Look at the next verse, verse 45. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida while He dismissed the crowd. They're going to Bethsaida. This brings me to Matthew 11, "Jesus condemned the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed because they did not repent. 'Woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would've repented long ago in sack cloth and ashes. But it's going to be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon for you." They're accountable for the miracle that Jesus did in their midst. Most of them rejected Jesus and no longer followed him. They should have repented and believed and trusted.

That brings me to the highest application. The highest application is that as you read this account, if you're not yet a believer in Christ, you should come to Christ to meet your real need and the real need, Jesus said in John 6, "Do not labor for the food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life". What is that? The food that I give for the world is my flesh. His death on the cross, that's the food. "This is the work of God", Jesus said in that same chapter, John 6, "that you believe in the one he has sent". That's what you need more than anything else. More than the filling of your empty stomach, more than the healing of your diseases or injuries, you need to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.

In the kind providence of God, we're going right from this text to the Lord supper, and we have the opportunity to partake in the Lord's supper. Though we don't believe that the bread and the juice actually become the body and blood of Christ, they are a picture of how Jesus's death and resurrection feeds us spiritually, so, every time that we have the Lord supper, I pray that the Lord would send forth his spirit and minister using these elements to feed our souls with a lively sense of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, so that we can be fed not just by the ministry of the word, but by the observance of the Lord's supper.  Now, I do want to say, if you have not yet trusted in Christ and testified to that by water baptism, we ask that you refrain. It's only for those that are believing, baptized believers in Christ. But for the rest of you, I invite you to come. So let's close this time in the word in prayer and we'll go to the Lord supper.

Father, we do thank you for the time we've had to study the feeding of the 5,000. We thank you for the many lessons that flow from it, but especially the central lesson of the infinite majesty and greatness of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, the savior of the world, whose body was given that we might live, that we might feed on it by faith and that we might live. Now as we turn from the word to the ordinance of the Lord supper, we pray that you would be in the center of this time and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

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