Latest / Bayside Davis Podcast / The Gospel of John | John 6:1-21

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The Gospel of John | John 6:1-21 · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bayside Davis podcast.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: You are now listening to our current teaching series in the Gospel of John.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking the last couple weeks about how the fact that Jesus loves food.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loves food.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, we need to put that on a t-shirt.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: There's this commentator, Charles Barclay, famous basketball player, but he's the best commentator in all of sports.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: He wins an Emmy every year.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And whenever they come up with a great phrase, he says, put it on a t-shirt.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a great phrase.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loves food.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jesus uses food as an illustration over and over and over again in the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: And beyond just using food as an illustration, a lot of the ministry of Jesus is him sitting down at a table or reclining at a table with people and disciples and eating meals with people somehow was an impactful spiritual moment for the people that were interacting and intersecting with the life and ministry of Jesus.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So not only did Jesus love food and use food as an illustration and eat food all the time, but food was also something that God created as an important part of human life.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: We cannot sustain human life without food.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: We need food and hopefully good food.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: If you know anything about me, you know that one of my favorite things to do when I travel is eat food.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: I am a foodie by nature.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: I love plant-based food, which means healthy food.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can be a vegan or plant-based, say that, and be really unhealthy.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: You can eat chips and you know, refined grains and like lots of bad stuff.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Or you can be a plant-based foodie and healthy.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: People are like, oh, you're vegan, so you must be healthy.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, there's plenty of unhealthy vegans out there.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: You can eat donuts all day and be a vegan.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: So I love like really healthy, well-crafted, beautiful plant-based foods.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: So whenever I go to a new city, I do research like a week before.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm looking online, I'm getting on AI, I know all the websites to find.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: What I'm going to a city.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: What are the best vegan plant-based restaurants in this city?
2:38
SPEAKER_00: So this last week I was in Germany teaching, and uh I did a mental health conference, and then I taught at a church.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I did six teachings, and then I did two trainings for a church on how to build a leadership pipeline and launch an internship and all that stuff.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: We've we'll we'll end the year with about 120-something to 130-something interns at Bayside Davis, which is incredible, like beyond imagination.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And so uh I was training this church and I was doing all this ministry stuff, and of course, I had to study what were the best vegan restaurants.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm in Berlin, Germany.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: You know Berlin, Germany.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever been to Berlin, Germany?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Berlin's an amazing city.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: I come to find out it's the number one vegan city in the world.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even need to research every cafe, every restaurant, every beer garden, they call them.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I learned that when I was there, is full of vegan food.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: It was a delight.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I did a bunch of ministry and I ate all kinds of incredible food.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I went to these cafes, and by the way, they told me, I I was talking, I said, hey, let's go to a coffee shop or what have you.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: They said, don't call them coffee shops.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Because in this region of the world, a coffee shop is where you buy weed.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: And so I they said, call them cafes.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: So I made that mistake at first and then they corrected me.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not looking for that.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking for plant-based food.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: So we went to all of these cafes and and vegan restaurants.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Some of you caught that, some of you were a little slow to that.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: We uh we, by the way, this is falling apart right now.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: It might fall down, but I don't know what's wrong with it.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Lord help me.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, so then we went to all these vegan restaurants, and then they took me to have anybody ever been to a beer garden?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: So a beer garden is this basically it's this outdoor place.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: There's a big lake, and then there's all these huge tables.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like you were in a cafeteria in school, but it's outdoors, and and the tables are beautiful, not ugly, like schools.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And so we're in this amazing place, and everybody goes to this restaurant, they get the same meal, they grab their food, and they buy, they get beer too.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't there for the beer, I was there for the food.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: So, so it's this beautiful atmosphere, and there's like a thousand people outside in the afternoon.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: It's so cool because Germans have great community, I learned.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: And we're all out there eating, and they were a little nervous.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to show me this because it's such a huge part of the culture.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've seen it on television or what have you.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And we go up to order, and they have an all-vegan menu: sausage, sauerkraut, potatoes.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was delighted.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm at this beer garden, not getting beer, just food, and I'm not against if you went and got beer, that's fine with me.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, but so I'm getting this vegan food, and we sit out, and I'm watching like hundreds and hundreds of people just enjoy community.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: You're sitting at these massive tables with people that you don't know.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's just such a cool thing.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And then there's water and there's boats, and it was just an amazing, amazing time.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: I got back midnight, which would technically be Saturday.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: So I'm on German time still.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I feel great now, but by three o'clock I'm gonna be a zombie.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I ate all kinds of amazing food, and all that to say, I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my trip.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: All that to say is that this text this morning, John 6, 1 through 15, is about food.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Jesus once again utilizing food in his ministry to teach spiritual truths.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And this is a story that is found in all four gospels, which means it's a really important, well-known uh story in the life and ministry and teachings of Jesus.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: And if it's in all four gospels, then it illustrates a very important and impacting truth.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: Are you guys with me?
6:58
SPEAKER_00: Say amen.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you all these stories, and I don't know if you're with me this morning.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're tired, if it's summer, or what have you, but let's go.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: Chapter six, we're gonna pick up in verse one.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: The first thing we see, there's two movements in our story.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: The first one is in verses one through 13, where Jesus feeds 5,000 people.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: You might have questions, how did he do that?
7:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's see.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 6, verse 1.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Some time after this.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been following along with us in the Gospel of John, you realize that this is a marker of time that John uses over and over again.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in chapter 5, verse 1, it said, sometime later.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: This phrase John uses when there's not an immediate sequence of events.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a large time gap.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: So we don't know how large of time gap is here between what happened in chapter 5 and what happens in chapter 6, but there is a gap of time.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: That is the Sea of Tiberias.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Now, has anybody ever been to Israel?
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: A couple of us.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: When they say Sea of Galilee, it's not like a big ocean, it's a big lake.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: But for them they called it a sea.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Some people in ancient times called it a lake, some people called it a sea.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: And by the first century, the reason John mentions what he mentions at the end of verse 1, that is the Sea of Tiberius, was that by the first century, the Sea of Galilee was also named the Sea of Tiberius.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Tiberius was bailed by Herod Antipas around A.D.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: 17 through 18.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's uh a city on a section of the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Galilee, and so they named it the Sea of Tiberias, and then verse 2.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he'd performed by healing the sick.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: So here's Jesus.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: He's crossing this big lake, and as he's crossing the lake, the people are asking, where did Jesus go?
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Because you remember some significant events happened in chapter 5.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: So they begin walking around to the other side of the lake where Jesus had gone.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: They're following him, and notice what John describes here in verse 2, because a lot of people miss this.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: It says, and a great crowd of people, note this, circle this in your Bible, followed him because they saw, circle saw, the signs he had performed healing the sick, the signs he had performed.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Those three phrases followed, saw, had performed.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just like a one-time event that John is describing here.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Come on, Bible nerds, I want to show you something that's really important and cool.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a Bible nerd, that's a cool thing, because I'm a Bible nerd.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: The verbs that he's using here, followed, saw, had performed, are all imperfect verbs.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, Wesley, what does that mean?
10:11
SPEAKER_00: It means that John is setting a scene, not just a one-time event, but he's setting a scene of what was happening over and over and over again.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you could translate it this they kept following Jesus because they continually saw Jesus perform signs, miracles that pointed to a spiritual reality, and he was habitually doing this, healing the sick over and over and over again.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: So as the people saw Jesus perform all these signs over and over and over again and healed of sick people over and over and over again, they followed him around.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Now, if some random person showed up in Davis, California and was performing miracles over and over and over again and healing people over and over and over again, you probably would be a part of the crowds.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is so interesting.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: What is happening here?
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a doctor and you're watching that, you're gonna be like, this is so interesting, superseding the laws of nature and medicine, and like these are miracles.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus was doing, and so John is painting this picture as people had seen this so many times, they were so intrigued by Jesus.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Then, verse 3 Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: When John says a mountain, he's not talking about like Mount Everest, Mount McKinley, these massive, huge, tall mountains that we think about.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: But if you were to compare some of the mountains that we know versus the mountains in Israel, you would think like a hill.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this term mountain can be translated mountain or hill.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: But in comparison, like if you go to Oregon or you you fly into Seattle and you see the mountain as you're flying into Seattle.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: I flew into Seattle from London uh a day ago or whatever it was, and massive, beautiful mountain that you see as you're flying into Seattle.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: If you compare that to the mountains in Israel, they're little hills.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus went up to a hill.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would Jesus go up to a hill?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: There's all these people following him, he'd been doing all kinds of ministry.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture that John is painting here.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes a rabbi would take their disciples up to a hill to get away from the crowds of people so that they could personally instruct them.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: And notice here in verse 3, notice verse 3, everybody look in your Bible.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Jesus sat down.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: That was the posture of teaching for rabbis in the ancient world.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: Rabbis never taught standing up, they taught sitting down.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: But this is likely not why Jesus sat down here, because John paints a picture, and then all four of the gospels paint a picture of what was happening here.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Likely Jesus brings his disciples up to a hill, or they would call a mountain in their context, because he was tired and they were too.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: So they go up to a mountain.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: They're sitting on a hillside, they're resting, and then verse 4.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: The Jewish Passover festival was near.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: This is important.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: This is the second Passover mentioned in John's Gospel.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Three Passovers mentioned in John's Gospels.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: That's part of the reason we know that Jesus' ministry had lasted at least three years.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, for the first time and the only time during Passover, which was one of the most important religious festivals in ancient Israel.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: This is the only time Jesus isn't in Jerusalem where everybody celebrates Passover.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: He's in Galilee.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem is in the southern part of Israel.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Galilee's in the northern part of Israel, and Jesus is in Galilee.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: He's not in Jerusalem where hundreds of thousands of people are gathering to worship God and to remember what God did in saving and delivering his people out of Egypt and oppression in the Old Testament.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Moses had led them out of Egypt and they had celebrated Passover every single year.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is celebrating it as well, but he's in Galilee this time, which is a significant detail in our story.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, so Jesus is there, he's on a mountainside.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: People are gonna celebrate the Passover, and then verse 5 takes place.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?
15:14
SPEAKER_00: These people have been walking and trying to follow Jesus all day.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: If you've been to the Middle East, it is hot and dry climate.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: So these people have been following Jesus, looking for Jesus, and by the time they arrive, Jesus notices that it's late, that they're tired, and that they're hungry.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And he begins to have a conversation with one of his disciples, Philip.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: He says, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?
15:50
SPEAKER_00: The problem with this is that there were thousands and thousands of people.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: He wants to feed them, he notices something about their condition, and he asked a question to Philip, and he asked this only, verse six, to test him, for he had already in mind what he was going to do.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: Philip answered him.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So Philip says, We don't have enough money.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Andrew, notice what he says.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: He says, Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: But how far will they go among so many?
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine being on the scene?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Thousands of people.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: One guy says, we don't have enough money.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: The other guy says, we only have five pieces of barley bread, which is healthy, by the way.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: It's good, good nutrients.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: And we have two pickled fish.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Not like a fish that you're gonna fillet, but a fish that was already dried.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: That's all we have to feed the people.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: A couple of things I want you to think through with me in this text that you might think not think about with a quick reading of the text.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is the fact that Jesus goes up to a mountainside with his disciples because they're all tired and they need rest.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: But immediately he sees the crowd coming toward him and he felt something about the crowd.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: There's something in this story that reveals more about the nature of Jesus, who he is in this moment.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And I want to draw that out because all three Gospels bring to the surface who Jesus is revealing himself to be in this moment.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: Number one, Jesus, we learn in the Gospel of Matthew, was moved with compassion for the crowd.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: Isn't this interesting?
18:05
SPEAKER_00: They're all exhausted, they're all tired, they've all done a ton of ministry.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had been continually doing all this stuff, and his disciples had been helping him and supporting him.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is tired, but Jesus sees the crowds of people and he has compassion on them.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we also learn this from the Gospel of Matthew's rendition of this story.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus cared about the practical needs of the people.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: He was concerned in our story and in Matthew's story, but brings it out a little more with a little more detail.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: He was concerned that the people were hungry.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: He could have been like, I'm tired.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: These are just people.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Thousands and thousands and thousands of people.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: By the way, 5,000 men, which meant up to 20,000 men, women, and children were following Jesus on this day.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Like that's a lot of people, amen.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: 20,000 is the size of all 10 Bayside churches.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus looks at him.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: He's moved with compassion.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: He sees that there's practical needs.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: They're hungry.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: They've been traveling all day.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: It probably would not be healthy for them to go all the way back home.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Some people might get sick, some people might pass out, so on and so forth.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Then the third thing that I want to bring to light, this is in John's gospel about the nature of Jesus.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: He was moved with compassion, he cared about their practical needs.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: And notice Jesus modeled flexibility and rest.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture that's becoming so rigid sometimes in Christianity.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Even when Jesus and his disciples had withdrawn to rest, Jesus' compassion for the people took priority over his own needs.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: When he saw the large crowd, he was already thinking about how to meet their needs.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: This teaches us an important lesson where I was talking about this in Berlin this last week, how we've we've swung the pendulum too far.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: On one side of the pendulum, millennials, they worked so hard, it was hustle culture, and they did that to the detriment of their well-being.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: And then on the other pendulum, this next generation is all about rest culture.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's to the detriment of your well-being.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Because in the Bible, you can't have rest without hard work.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: God worked six days and then he rested.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: You can't be living within God's design and go so far out on the extremities of God's design and be well and healthy.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes in the current moment where everybody's talking about Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath, I wonder if there's like a Sabbath addiction.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Like there's this kind of view of hard work as a negative thing, but actually, hard work is something that God wired into his creation story.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: It is good, it is right, it gives you purpose and value, and it gives you something to do in this world to make a difference and so on and so forth.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: This is such an important thing.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And I say all that to say this.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: In our current cultural moment, people are utilizing Sabbath as something that God did not intend it to be.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: You're like, what's that, Wesley?
21:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you asked.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: It's not to be a rigid form of legalism, it's to be a blessed rhythm of rest.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never treated his need for rest as a form of legalism.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: He treated it as something that humans need on a regular, consistent basis.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: So when he saw the large crowd, he was thinking about their needs.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: What is this lesson for us?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: There must be flexibility in our rest.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: In moments of genuine human need, compassion should sometimes override our planned time to recharge.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: We can't be so rigid that we become like the Pharisees and we miss opportunities that Jesus has for us.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: We also need a more balanced, uh a more balanced perspective between work and rest.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: God said work six days and rest.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: God works six days and rest.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: This should be a part of our idea around Sabbath.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Rest is not six days and then work one day.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: It's work six days and rest one day in the pattern of Scripture.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Now in America, we're really blessed because we get five and two.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: So we're really blessed.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a single mom, you might not get that.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: I grew up with a single mom, she didn't get that.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're a single dad, you probably don't get that.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And if you're in school, I was in school getting three degrees, I played sports, I worked, I didn't get two days off, I barely got a half a day off.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: But you find pockets to rest.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: If you're a mom and you get one hour a week, you carve that out.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: If you're a student and you get three hours a week, you carve that out.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it's not supposed to be a form of legalism.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be a blessing and a rhythmic blessing for our life.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
23:31
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus modeled flexibility and rest.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, he has this conversation with his disciples, and all of the disciples come up with different ways to solve the problem.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Problem solving is great.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: But when you have Jesus in your midst, he's the greatest problem solver.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: So the disciples start to talk, you know, as Jesus is uh communicating with them and asking them questions about the food, and they come up with different approaches to solve the problem.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Notice the first approach, which you're not going to see in the Gospel of John, but it is found in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14, verse 15.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: The first approach was to dismiss the problem.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew's gospel, he says, they say, send the people away.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: They can buy food for themselves.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that easy?
24:26
SPEAKER_00: You're just going along and you want to serve the Lord, and there's a need that's so big, and you're just like, send them away.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: It's not ours to take care of.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: So they just dismiss the problem.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: That was one idea of the disciples.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: The second idea was focus on the lack of resources.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do we see in verse 7?
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Look with me again in verse 7.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Philip answered him, it would take more than a half a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: What is he saying?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: You might not see this in your text, but in the original language here, it's a denarios or denarion.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: A denarios was a Roman silver coin which equaled one day's wage.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: And what Philip is saying is it would cost us 200 of these coins, which equaled six months of wages.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: Mathematicians listen, when you factor in there was no pay on Sabbath and there was no pay on major religious festival holidays.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: It would take six months of wages to pay for food for 10,000 to 20,000 people.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: So one of the disciples is like, we don't have the resources.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: One's dismiss the problem, focus on the we don't have enough money, this would cost too much.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And then notice what one disciple said.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, this is brilliant.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: The third approach was to identify what we did have, even if it's a little.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: He said, There's a boy here with five loaves and two fishes.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: That's all we got.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: We got barley, which was bread for the poor, but it does have great properties for health.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And we have fish, which was likely dried or preserved fish, two little fish, and five barley loaves that a mom packed the lunch for the son, and he brought it to follow Jesus.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And a boy here can refer to like a teenage boy, like 17, 18, 19, or a young adult boy.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: That's how they called it in their culture: 20, 21, 22, 23.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And here's this boy.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Mom packed him a lunch for the day.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: This was only meant for him.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And he's the only one with food out of the 10 to 20,000 people.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see something.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens next in our story.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Have the people sit down.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: He begins to organize something.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Right?
27:19
SPEAKER_00: We need organizers.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: About 5,000 men were there.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: So if you do the math, you add children and women, 10 to 20,000.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then took the loaves, five loaves, gave thanks.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, sometimes we don't do this good in America, but they prayed a quick prayer, not a long prayer, because if you have a hot meal, the person who cooked the meal doesn't want you to pray a long prayer.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: They said a short prayer before the meal and at the end of the meal.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus prays and he begins to distribute to those who were seated as much as they wanted.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: He did the same with the fish.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: He took the five pieces of barley bread, bread for the poor, and two pickled fish, and he distributed it amongst the ten to twenty thousand people.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: And notice what he says here.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: As much as they wanted.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: When they had all enough to eat, nobody was lacking.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: As much as they wanted.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: When they all had enough to eat, this was Jesus' version of an all-you-can-eat buffet.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Like sizzlers.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Remember sizzlers?
28:41
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't that an all-you back in the day?
28:45
SPEAKER_00: They're still alive.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: Most businesses are gone from those days, but they're still alive.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: People still like their all-you this was Jesus' version of all-you-can-eat buffet, but there was only two items on the buffet.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Bread for the poor and pickled fish.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And everybody had as much as they wanted to eat.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: What's so important about all this?
29:19
SPEAKER_00: First, in the hands of Jesus, a little can become a lot.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: In the hands of Jesus, a little can can become a lot.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: You might think, I don't have a lot.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: What can God do with me?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: What can God do with my resources?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: What can God do with my life?
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a lot.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Don't underestimate what God can do with your little.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, with five or ten or fifteen or twenty people, Luke and Jen and me and Kelly and Deep and just a few, Bernice and so on and so forth, and Kurt and some of you in this room.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: A little can turn into a lot.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And at Easter weekend, we had over 800 people, the largest church in the city on Easter.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: And that just shows you a little can turn into a lot.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to be great.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to have it all together.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to have everything.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: We don't need to feed the 5,000 or have the resources to do it.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: We just bring our little to Jesus and He multiplies it and turns it into a lot.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: If you feel unworthy or broken or you don't have enough, you just give what you have to Jesus and watch him work in your life.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: But that's not all.
32:36
SPEAKER_00: That's not everything that Jesus is trying to teach us.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: When they all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, gather the pieces that are left over.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Let nothing be wasted.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: So then gather, so they gathered them and filled 12 baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there was so much.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: There was so much.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: Everybody had all that they needed, and there were 12 large baskets full of bread still.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: You guys think this is amazing?
33:17
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, wouldn't you want to be there?
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Shaq, wouldn't you want to be there?
33:21
SPEAKER_00: This would be amazing.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Something's happening beneath the surface that most of us aren't catching.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of parallels between this story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, showing up in four different gospels, and major moments in Old Testament history.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Let me just show you a few parallels.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Moses fed the hungry Hebrew people in the desert in Exodus 16 with manna, food from heaven.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus here fed the hungry crowds on the hillside with a miracle, multiplying bread in John 6.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Elijah fed 100 men with barley loaves in 2 Kings 4, 20, 42 through 44.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus fed thousands upon thousands of people with barley loaves in John 6.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And there were leftovers.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: The images here, what he's trying to teach us beyond just the fact that this miracle is incredible and God can take our little to become a lot.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: The images here are suggesting that Jesus is fulfilling pictures, types, stories in the Old Testament that ultimately were pointing people to Him.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Where people were hungry and they were searching and they were longing, and that Jesus would come on the scene and do miracles greater than Moses, greater than Elijah.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: There's so many connections.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to get to every connection between these stories in the Old Testament and this story that we're talking about today, or else you would be here for a long, long time.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to keep you for a long, long time.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: But all that to say is that he is talking about the Old Testament stories finding fulfillment in Jesus.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, what are they finding fulfillment in?
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Just wait, I'm almost finished.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 14 and 15.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the purpose of this sign, this incredible, miraculous moment in the story of Jesus, verse 14.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: After the people saw the sign Jesus had performed, and by the way, sign is a term used over and over and over again in the Gospel of John for a miracle that was pointing to a greater reality.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: There was something behind the miracle that provided great spiritual meaning in the life of Jesus.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: So they saw the sign Jesus performed.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: They began to say, Surely, this is the prophet who is to come into the world.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Now, you might not know he's not talking about a random prophet.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about Moses' prophecy that there would be a greater prophet than himself someday that came in to be the deliverer of Egypt.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the deliverer of God's people.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: He was a picture of a prophet who saved people out of oppression and slavery.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: But there would be a greater than Moses who would come on the scene and he would be the ultimate savior.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: The people recognize this as they're thinking about the bread and the miracle and the connections between Moses and Jesus and Elijah and Jesus, that Jesus is the prophet.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Then verse 15, Jesus.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, this is not the way that Jesus wanted to present himself as Savior, he withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not an egomaniac.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: He did not need people's praise.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: He did not need people to exalt him.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: He did not need people to make him great by force.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: He simply did ministry and then removed himself from the spotlight.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: But this is a really important moment in the life of Jesus because this sign is teaching us something.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: You're like, Wesley, what is this sign teaching us?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: It's teaching us that Jesus is our provider.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: The same God that provided in the Old Testament for the people of God on their way to the promised land as Moses was leading them, is the same God who is in the flesh in this moment.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: The same God who gave Elijah the miracle to feed a hundred men in a miraculous way is the same God who is here in this moment.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And he cares about providing our needs, for providing our needs in different ways.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I think we find both of these in this story.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Number one, he cares about our physical needs.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: We somehow diminish that as Christians sometimes.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus doesn't diminish that in this story.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: He sees the daily needs of the people and he faithfully provides for them.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: He sees our needs and he cares about our needs.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Isn't he the one who taught us in Matthew chapter 6, verse 11 to pray?
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Give us today our daily bread.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: Don't think because you're following Jesus, he just cares about your worship or your Bible study or what have you.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: No, he cares about your daily needs.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: He cares about people's daily needs.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing in our church, just our young, growing church, to see how God has prompted the hearts of people in our church to provide for the needs of people in our church.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: It's the way of Jesus.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Christiata, I brought her up here.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: She's just such an all-star for the Lord, so gifted.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: She graduated college in two years.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, genius level.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, she's starting seminaries, she's serving in our church like 20 plus out 20, 25 hours a week.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And she was sharing like some needs she has.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: And I brought her in front of the church and I shared about kind of her situation and needing a house to be able to stay here, continue to be a part of Bayside.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: She's really developing relationships at Bayside as a whole.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: What a great place to trade in ministry.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: She's going to seminary, she wants to stay here with her local church and Bayside, and she loves the church family.
39:50
SPEAKER_00: I just brought her up here and I shared about her need and she shared about her need.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And her need, somebody said, We're going to open our home for her.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: Free of charge.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Like this is the way of Jesus.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: How He how He creates a community that says some people have the means to meet needs, and some people have needs, and all of a sudden we're helping each other, we're encouraging each other, we're we're seeing that Jesus cares about our physical needs, and we're responding as the people of Jesus to physical needs.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful thing.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked more about this.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: You might want to read later.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: I was going to read this, but I don't have time.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do have time, but I also want you to go out and have a great summer day.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: But you can read more about this in Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 through 34, when he's talking about being anxious about your needs.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: Then finally, finally, he cares about your spiritual needs.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: You see, this entire story is a setup for the rest of John 6.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus sees our daily needs and faithfully provides for them.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: But not only that, trust me, you're not going to want to miss next week.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: This story is incredible.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And we deal with one of the hardest sayings of Jesus at the end of this chapter, which we're going to take up next week.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to want to miss it.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Jesus not only provided for the physical needs of the people, but Jesus is going to show himself to be not only the provider, but the very provision for every person.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: This is the sign that sets up the rest of the story that Jesus is the provider and the provision.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who provides, and he is the very substance and reality of provision that every human being needs.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say so much more about that, but I'm not going to, so come to church next week.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your provider, and Jesus is your provision.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: That will be our cliffhanger in Jesus' name.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.