Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Sovereign Feast: Christ’s Compassionate Provision for a Starving World (Matthew 15:32-39)

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The Sovereign Feast: Christ’s Compassionate Provision for a Starving World (Matthew 15:32-39) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to another session of Reformed Thinking.
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  Glad to be here. Yeah.
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  And if you are tuning in for the first time, this is our deep
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  dive into the texts of Scripture.
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  The passages you might think you already know.
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  Right. The ones you know backward and
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  forward. But here we we slow down, we
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  stop skimming the text. We look at the Greek, the
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  historical context, the theology.
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  We want to see what is actually on the page and I should state
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  right up front for anyone new where we are coming.
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  From a theological baseline. Yes, we are Protestant
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  Christians. We hold to the Westminster
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  Confession of Faith. So we look at scripture through
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  a reformed limbs. Which means we believe the Bible
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  is the inspired, infallible word of God.
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  We are not looking for fables here.
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  Or nice little metaphors about sharing.
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  Right. We are looking for history, and
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  in that history the revelation of God.
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  And today's text is a perfect example of that.
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  We're in Matthew chapter 15. Specifically, verses 32 through
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  39. The Feeding of the 4000.
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  Yeah, and I have to admit there is this moment of hesitation for
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  a lot of people when they get to this passage.
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  The rerun feelings. Yes, a rerun because I mean,
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  didn't we just do this in? Chapter 14.
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  Right, the feeding of the 5000. So you read this and you think,
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  did Matthew accidentally copy his notes twice?
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  It is an incredibly common confusion.
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  You hear it in casual conversation all the time.
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  Even from scholars sometimes, right?
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  Oh, absolutely. Some critical scholars try to
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  argue it is just a duplicate tradition of the same event,
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  that the early church just got confused.
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  But when you actually read it? When?
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  You look at the details, yes, the location, the numbers, the
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  specific Greek words used for the baskets, which we will get
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  into later. It is totally clear.
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  These are two distinct events. Very distinct, and the fact that
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  they are distinct matters. Matthew is not wasting ink.
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  He is showing us something specific about the scope of
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  Christ's ministry. Our mission for this deep dive
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  is to show that this narrative is not just a miracle story.
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  It is a diagnostic. Yes, a diagnostic of the human
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  condition. It shows us what we call total
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  depravity. And it also reveals the identity
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  of Christ as the sovereign Creator.
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  It is a massive collision between human emptiness, this
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  bleak, desolate wilderness, and the abundant provision of a
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  compassionate king. So it is not just about lunch.
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  Not at all. The theological stakes are huge
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  here. We are talking about
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  Christology, the distinction between Israel and the Church.
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  And the danger of functional unbelief, which it's close to
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  home. Very close to home.
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  So let's start with that emptiness.
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  The setting is crucial here. Matthew tells us Jesus is in a
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  desolate place. But we need to ask where exactly
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  this is? Because the 5000 that was fed
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  near Bethsaida, right? Yeah, up in Jewish territory.
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  That this is different. It is the key difference Jesus
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  has moved. If you look at the verses just
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  prior to our sections, specifically verse 31, it
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  mentions the crowd glorifying the God of Israel, God of
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  Israel, which is a strange phrase for a Jewish crowd to
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  use. Because they would just say God.
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  Exactly. Or Yahweh.
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  That specific phrase, glorifying the God of Israel, signals that
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  we are dealing with Gentiles. So where is he?
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  He is in the Decapolis. The 10 cities, right?
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  A league of 10 Greek cities, it is thoroughly Gentile territory.
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  This is the same region as the Gerasenes, isn't it, where he
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  cast the demons into the pigs earlier?
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  That is the area. So culturally, this is not the
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  Bible build of the 1st century. Far from it.
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  This is Pagan ground, and the text describes the specific spot
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  where they are gathered as Iremia.
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  Iremia, let's break that down. It translates to wilderness, a
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  wasteland or a desolate place. Now, when you or I hear
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  wilderness today, we tend to think of a nature preserve.
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  A National Park? Yeah.
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  We think of a place you go to recharge, you hike a trail, you
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  get some fresh air. It sounds romantic to the modern
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  ear and. You go to the wilderness to find
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  yourself. But in the ancient Near East,
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  the Iremia is not where you go to find yourself, it is where
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  you go to lose your life. It is hostile.
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  Incredibly dangerous, uninhabited.
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  There is no water, no food, no shelter, just.
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  Rocks and heat. It is the place of the Jackal
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  and the scorpion. It represents a direct threat to
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  human survival. So practically speaking, you
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  have 4000 men out there. And, Matthew is careful to add,
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  besides women and children. Which means the actual number
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  could be what, 10,012 thousand? A massive crowd.
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  Stuck in a wasteland? And they have been there for
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  three days. That detail, three days, it just
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  stopped me in my tracks. It's a long time to go without
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  provisions. I get irritable if I miss lunch
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  by an. Hour, we all do.
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  I cannot even fathom the physiological state of a crowd
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  crowd that has been out in the Middle Eastern heat in rough
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  terrain for three full days. With their supplies running
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  completely. Out It is a desperate situation
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  and it begs the question, why did they stay?
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  Right. Why didn't they pack up and
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  leave after the first day when the snacks were gone?
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  What keeps a Pagan crowd in a danger zone for 72 hours?
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  I think it speaks to the sheer draw of Christ's presence.
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  Verse 30 tells us they were bringing the lame, the blind,
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  the crippled mutes and laying them at his feet.
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  They were seeing the Kingdom of God break into their physical
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  reality. They were so captivated by the
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  healing and the teaching that they ignore their own physical
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  needs until it was almost too late.
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  They pushed their bodies to the breaking point.
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  Because their souls were finally finding something real,
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  something true. But now the physical reality is
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  setting in. They are starving.
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  And this is where that diagnostic of total depravity
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  comes into the picture. The text says they have nothing
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  to eat, nothing absolute lack. This physical reality mirrors
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  the spiritual condition of humanity.
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  Let's unpack that for a second. The Reformed doctrine of total
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  depravity. It is often misunderstood.
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  Right. People think it means we are all
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  as bad as we could possibly be. Like we are all terrible
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  monsters all the time. Which is not what it means.
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  It means we are completely unable to save ourselves.
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  Every part of us is affected by the fall, leaving us spiritually
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  bankrupt. Unable to generate our own
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  righteousness. Yes, in the wilderness of the
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  Fall, outside of the Garden of Eden, humanity has no inherent
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  resources. We cannot manufacture salvation.
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  We are sitting in the dust 3 days in with totally empty
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  pockets. It really attacks the modern
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  idol of human self-sufficiency, doesn't it?
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  Thoroughly, we love to think, especially in the modern West,
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  that we can handle whatever comes our way.
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  We have insurance policies. We have savings accounts, we
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  have technology medical advancements.
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  But you strip all of that away, you put us out in the aremia and
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  we are helpless. We are fragile dust, and Jesus
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  recognizes this fragility. In verse 32 he says I am
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  unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the
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  way. He sees the physical limit
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  approaching. He knows that if he dismisses
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  them right then, they literally will not make it home.
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  They will collapse on the roads. I really appreciate that Jesus
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  doesn't just say, well I fed their souls with teaching so who
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  cares about their bodies? It is a crucial point.
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  There is a kind of hyper spirituality out there that
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  ignores physical suffering. As if only the immaterial soul
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  matters. That is not the biblical Jesus.
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  He is the creator of the human body.
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  He designed how the body works. He knows about blood sugar
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  drops. He knows about dehydration and
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  fatigue. He cares for the whole person.
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  He refuses to spiritualize away the gnawing hunger in their
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  bellies. So the need is established, it
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  is critical, it is a matter of life or death at this point.
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  Let us look at the response now. Verse 32 starts with Jesus
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  calling his disciples to himself.
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  He says I have compassion on the crowd.
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  Notice the initiative here. This is huge.
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  The crowd did not complain. They did not start a riot.
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  They did not form a committee to petition Jesus for bread.
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  And the disciples did not ask him to do anything.
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  Either they did not even notice the problem, apparently, or if
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  they did, they stayed quiet. Jesus is the one who brings it
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  up. He initiates the intervention.
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  And in Reformed theology, this is the very picture of
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  unconditional election and sovereign grace.
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  God moves toward the center before the center moves toward
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  God. Always we are dead in our
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  trespasses or in this specific narrative, fainting in the
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  wilderness. And he makes the first move.
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  He anticipates the need before we even have the strength or the
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  awareness to articulate it. And the word he uses to describe
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  his motivation is stunning. Splacnizumi.
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  Splacnizumi. Let's dig into that Greek verb.
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  It is one of the strongest words for emotion in the entire Greek
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  New Testament. Because the English translation
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  compassion. It can sound a bit soft, can't
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  it? It sounds like a greeting card.
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  Yeah, just thinking of you. Sending good vibes.
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  But Splacnizumi is not soft. It comes from the root word
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  splashna, which literally refers to the internal organs.
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  The bowels, the heart, the lungs, the liver.
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  Exactly. In the ancient world, they did
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  not locate the center of emotion in the brain, they located it in
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  the gut. You know that feeling when you
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  get sudden terrible news and your stomach just drops?
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  Or you witness something awful and you feel like you have been
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  physically punched in the gut. It is a visceral reaction.
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  That is plagnismi. It is a gut wrenching physical
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  sensation of pity and love. Jesus looks out at this mass of
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  humanity, these Gentiles who have been alienated from the
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  covenants of promise. And he feels their suffering in
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  his gut. This brings us to a really heavy
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  theological concept, the hypostatic union. 2 natures and
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  one person. We believe Jesus is fully God
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  and fully man. And this verse is a perfect
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  display of that union functioning.
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  How so? Well, think about the
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  alternatives if Jesus were only God in the sense of the Greek
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  philosophical unmoved Mover. The distant deity.
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  Right. If he were just a detached
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  deity, he might solve the equation of their hunger, but he
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  would not feel the pain of it. He would be stoic.
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  And if you were only man. If you were only man, he might
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  feel the compassion intensely, he might weep for their
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  condition, but he would be utterly powerless to do anything
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  about. It he would just be another guy
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  standing in the desert with an empty lunch box.
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  But he is both as man. He feels the profound depth of
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  their suffering. He identifies with human
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  frailty. And as God, He possesses the
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  absolute authority to alter reality, to fix it.
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  He is the sovereign who cares. He's not the distant watchmaker
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  of Deism who winds up the universe and walks away to let
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  it run down. He is right there in the dust,
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  feeling the hunger of his people.
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  So he shares this burden with the disciples.
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  He tells them I do not want to send them away hungry.
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  And this is where the record scratches.
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  It really does. Because the disciples reply in
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  verse 33, and I'm quoting here, where are we to get enough bread
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  in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd?
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  It's a question that just makes you want to pull your hair out.
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  Seriously, I read this and I just want to scream at Peter and
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  the rest of the guys. Are you kidding me?
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  You were just there. You held the baskets at the
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  feeding of the 5000. That was not ten years ago.
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  That was recent history. Inside, with their own eyes.
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  How do they not instantly turn to Jesus and say, well Lord, you
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  did it before so we are ready when you are.
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  Tell us what to do. It is incredibly easy for us to
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  sit in our comfortable chairs centuries later and judge them
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  for their blindness. It is, but the sources we are
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  looking at identify this as a classic example of functional
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  unbelief. Functional unbelief.
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  Define that for us. How is that different from just
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  outright atheism or rejecting God?
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  They are not atheists. They absolutely believe Jesus is
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  the Messiah. They believe he can.
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  He can heal the sick. They have been watching him do
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  that continuously for three days.
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  But when a new crisis hits, when a new variable is introduced
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  into the equation, they immediately revert to
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  naturalism. They start doing human math.
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  They look at the problem entirely through the lens of
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  scarcity. They count the people 4000 men
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  plus women and children a. Huge number.
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  Then they look at the location, a desolate wilderness Aremia.
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  Then they look at their supplies.
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  Essentially 0. And they calculate the outcome.
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  4000 people plus zero food equals starvation.
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  They leave the Christ variable completely out of the equation.
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  That is functional unbelief. It is confessing God with your
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  lips, but calculating your daily reality as if He does not exist.
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  As if he has no bearing on the actual material facts of the
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  situation. And if we are honest with
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  ourselves, we do this every single day.
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  That is the conviction of this passage, isn't it?
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  I can look back at my own life and see times where God provided
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  financially in a totally unexpected way.
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  Or got you through a health crisis where you thought it was
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  the end. Exactly.
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  I have those stones of remembrance, those memorial
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  moments, but then inevitably a new bill comes in the mail or
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  the doctor calls with a new diagnosis.
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  And what is the first reaction? Is it?
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  God has been faithful before. He will provide again.
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  Usually not. No, usually in a sheer panic.
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  Where am I going to get the money?
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  How am I going to handle this? What am I going to do?
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  We suffer from spiritual amnesia.
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  We forget the previous miracles the second a new wilderness
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  appears on the horizon. So Matthew places the story
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  here, right after the other feeding miracle.
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  Intentionally, yes. To expose that exact tendency in
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  us. To show us how stubbornly thick
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  headed the human heart really is.
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  It shows that miracles do not mechanically generate faith.
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  They don't. You can witness a bonafide
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  miracle on Tuesday and still be paralyzed by doubt on Wednesday.
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  Faith is a discipline. It is muscle that has to be
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  trained to trust again and again, trial after trial.
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  The disciples are clearly still in training.
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  And Jesus is so patient with them, he doesn't fire them on
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  the spot, which is an act of grace in itself.
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  He doesn't berate them. Instead, he asks them a
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  diagnostic question. Verse 34 How many loads do you
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  have? The inventory question.
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  Why does he asked that? He obviously knows what they
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  have. Notice that he forces them to
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  verbalize. He wants them to confess their
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  inadequacy out loud. The answer 7 and a few small
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  fish. It is a pitiful amount, yeah.
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  For a crowd of that size, 7 loaves is an appetizer for a
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  single family. It is mathematically irrelevant
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  to the crisis at hand. But there is a massive
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  theological principle here. Faith begins by bringing what we
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  actually have to Christ. No matter how small.
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  We do not pretend we have more, we do not hide the fact that we
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  are practically bankrupt. We look at him and say, Lord,
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  this is it. My tiny amount of patience.
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  This is my minuscule amount of wisdom.
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  And it is nowhere near enough. And he takes it, yeah, verse 35
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  says, and directing the crowd to sit down on the ground.
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  Let us pause on that detail, the sitting down.
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  It implies a specific kind of order, Kingdom, or Jesus does
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  not just magically throw the bread into the air and let them
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  fight over it like animals. He doesn't incite a frenzy.
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  He is the Good Shepherd making the sheep lie down, even if the
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  green pastures are just dust and rocks in this particular
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  instance. He calms the panic.
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  This contrasts so sharply with how the world handles scarcity.
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  Think about it, when resources are low, what do people do?
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  They panic, they hoard, they turn on each other.
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  But Jesus brings peace before he even brings the bread.
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  The sources described this as a distinctly pastoral act.
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  He is preparing the flock to be fed.
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  It is a huge contrast to some modern movements that confuse
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  chaos with the presence of the spirit.
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  The seeker sensitive or hyper emotional as crowds where
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  volatility is seen as a sign of God moving.
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  But Christ brings order. Then comes the miracle itself.
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  Verse 36. He took the seven loaves and the
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  fish, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to
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  the disciples. Let us stop at the phrase given.
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  Thanks. The Greek word there is
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  Eucharistio. Which is where we get the word
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  Eucharist. Yes, he gives thanks.
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  Now put yourself in his shoes for a moment.
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  He is holding 7 flat pieces of bread.
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  He is looking at thousands upon thousands of starving people.
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  Most of us would be complaining. We would be saying, Father, why
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  did you only give me 7? What am I supposed to do with
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  this? But Jesus blesses the Father for
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  the little he holds. He models perfect gratitude in
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  the face of absolute scarcity. He acknowledges that even this
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  insufficient little bit is a gracious gift from God.
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  It completely refutes the entitlement mentality.
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  And then the multiplication happens.
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  The text is so beautifully understated here.
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  It doesn't say. And then the bread began to glow
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  with blinding light and duplicate before their eyes.
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  It just says he broke them and gave.
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  Them it is understated in the text, but theologically it is
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  earth shattering. This is creation X Neolo.
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  Out of nothing? Well.
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  Technically, he starts with the existing loaves, but the
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  multiplication of the matter, the sheer volume of extra bread
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  and fish that ends up feeding the thousands, that comes from
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  nowhere. It does not come from a natural
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  source. It comes from His sovereign
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  authority over matter. This is the exact same authority
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  that spoke the universe into existence in Genesis 1.
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  This totally refutes the liberal theology idea that Jesus is just
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  a great moral teacher. Completely.
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  A great moral teacher can tell you how to share your bread
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  fairly. A prophet might pray and ask God
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  for manna to fall from heaven. But Jesus takes the bread and
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  multiplies it in his own hands. He is exercising the direct
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  prerogative of the Creator. He is showing that he is the
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  Lord of physics of atoms, of matter now.
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  There is a very practical point here on how the bread actually
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  gets distributed to the people. Because Jesus gives to the
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  disciples, and the disciples give to the crowds.
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  Why use middle men? Why not just ZAP the bread
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  directly into everyone's lap? He has the authority to do that.
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  This is what we call the doctrine of means.
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  God uses means to distribute His grace to the world.
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  He uses preaching. He uses the sacraments.
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  He uses the hands and feet of his people.
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  The disciples are acting as the waiters at the banquet.
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  I really like that image. Waiters at the feast.
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  It frees us from the crushing pressure of trying to be the
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  chef. If you are a pastor listening to
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  this, or a Sunday school teacher, or just a Christian
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  trying to minister to a hurting neighbor.
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  You do not have to manufacture the bread of life.
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  You can't anyway. You cannot save anyone.
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  You cannot regenerate a human heart.
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  Your only job is to take what Jesus has given you and
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  faithfully pass it on. You are a conduit, not the
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  source. The disciples had completely
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  empty hands until Jesus filled them, and then they just walked
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  out and handed it over. So the bread goes out, the fish
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  go out, and verse 37 says And they all ate and were satisfied.
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  We need to look at that word satisfied in Greek.
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  It is ecritastism. Ecritastism.
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  That is a very graphic word, isn't it?
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  It is in classical usage. It was typically used for
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  fattening animals in a stall. Wow.
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  It means to be gorged, to be filled to the absolute brim.
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  So this was not a light snack to just hold them over until they
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  got to the next town. This.
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  Was a feast, a massive banquet in the middle of a wasteland?
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  It counters the scarcity mindset we talked about earlier.
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  When Jesus provides, He does not provide stingili.
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  He creates settled, unshakable fullness.
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  And the physical proof of that fullness is in the leftovers. 7
• 19:10
  baskets full. Now we need to talk about the
• 19:12
  numbers in the baskets here, because this is where the
• 19:14
  difference between the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of
• 19:17
  the 4000 gets really fascinating.
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  In the Chapter 14 feeding the 5000, there were 12 baskets
• 19:23
  that's leftover. Sure there are 7.
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  The symbolism is hard to miss for a 1st century reader.
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  Very hard to miss in the feeding of the 5000 Jesus is dealing
• 19:32
  with a Jewish crowd. You have 12 baskets leftover.
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  Corresponding directly to the 12 tribes of Israel.
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  Jesus is demonstrating that he is the long-awaited Messiah of
• 19:41
  Israel. He is gathering the lost sheep.
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  But here in the Decapolis dealing with a Gentile crowd,
• 19:47
  you have 7 baskets. What does the seven represent in
• 19:51
  this context? 7 is consistently the number of
• 19:54
  completion or perfection in Scripture.
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  It points back to the seven days of creation.
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  But in Jewish thought, it was also associated with the Gentile
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  nation. Often summarized in ancient
• 20:04
  literature as the 70 nations of the world.
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  So by leaving exactly 7 baskets. Jesus is signaling a massive
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  theological trajectory. He is showing that his bread,
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  his salvation, is for the whole world.
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  The gospel is breaking the geographic and ethnic boundary
• 20:21
  of Israel. It is going to the nations.
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  There's also a very specific difference in the Greek word
• 20:27
  used for basket in these two accounts.
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  This is a detail that almost all English translations gloss over,
• 20:33
  but it's so cool. In the feeding of the 5000, the
• 20:36
  word for basket is kofinos. Kofinos.
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  That describes a small Wicker lunch basket.
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  A Jewish person would carry kofinos when traveling through
• 20:43
  gentile areas to keep their food strictly kosher.
• 20:46
  To keep it separate from anything unclean, it is
• 20:48
  basically a personal lunchbox. Right, and here in chapter 15.
• 20:52
  Here the word is spurus. Spurus.
• 20:54
  This is a very different object. This is a large flexible hamper,
• 20:58
  often made of reeds. It is the exact same word used
• 21:01
  in the book of Acts when the Apostle Paul is lowered down the
• 21:04
  city wall in Damascus. You could fit a full grown man
• 21:07
  inside a spurus. So the leftovers here are not
• 21:10
  just 7 little lunch boxes, they are massive 7 human sized
• 21:14
  hampers full of broken pieces of bread and fish.
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  It emphasizes the sheer scale of the provision.
• 21:21
  Christ's abundance is overwhelming.
• 21:23
  And it serves as a tangible rebuke to the disciples.
• 21:26
  They asked where will we get enough bread?
• 21:29
  Jesus answers that functional unbelief with seven massive
• 21:33
  hampers of leftovers. It is physical, irrefutable
• 21:36
  evidence that their calculation in verse 33 was entirely wrong.
• 21:40
  They did the math and they were off by a margin of miracles.
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  Also notice the stewardship aspect here.
• 21:45
  Even in this incredible abundance, Jesus does not waste.
• 21:49
  The fragments are carefully gathered up.
• 21:51
  He values the provision. Now I think we should pivot for
• 21:54
  a moment to discuss how people misread this text.
• 21:56
  Because, as we noted at the beginning, this is a very
• 21:58
  popular Sunday School story, but it gets twisted in a lot of
• 22:02
  different directions. One of the most common
• 22:04
  interpretations, at least in the last century or so, has been the
• 22:08
  social gospel or liberal view. Oh I have heard this one.
• 22:12
  I remember sitting through a sermon once that basically
• 22:15
  argued the real miracle wasn't magic bread multiplying.
• 22:19
  It was the miracle of sharing. Right, the argument is that the
• 22:21
  crowd actually had food all along, but they were selfishly
• 22:24
  hiding it under their cloaks. And then Jesus and the disciples
• 22:28
  start sharing their meager supply.
• 22:30
  And suddenly everyone feels a pang of guilt and they pull out
• 22:32
  their hidden sandwiches and everyone shares.
• 22:34
  And there's more than enough. That interpretation was
• 22:37
  incredible popular in 19th and early 20th century theological
• 22:41
  liberalism. It still floats around today in
• 22:44
  various forms. It is an attempt to save the
• 22:46
  story for a modern scientific audience.
• 22:49
  By completely removing the supernatural element.
• 22:52
  It reduces a display of divine sovereignty to a nice moral
• 22:56
  lesson about sharing your lunch. But logically and texturally,
• 23:00
  why does that fail? Apart from just our
• 23:02
  presupposition that miracles happen?
• 23:04
  Does the text itself allow for that reading?
• 23:06
  The text absolutely forbids it on multiple fronts.
• 23:10
  First, look at the setting again.
• 23:12
  It is a desolate place. There are no towns nearby to buy
• 23:15
  food. 2nd the timeline 3 days. If you are hiding a sandwich in
• 23:20
  your robe in the Middle Eastern heat for three days, you are not
• 23:23
  going to eat it. And you are certainly not going
• 23:25
  to share it. Third, look at the result.
• 23:29
  You do not get 7 human sized hampers of leftovers from people
• 23:33
  sharing trail mix and stale crusts.
• 23:35
  The text goes out of its way to emphasize the absolute lack of
• 23:38
  resources. They had nothing.
• 23:40
  To say they were secretly hiding food is to call Jesus a liar
• 23:43
  when he explicitly says they're fainting on the way.
• 23:45
  So the liberal view fails the text test.
• 23:48
  What about the prosperity gospel view?
• 23:50
  This is the other extreme. This view says Jesus multiplied
• 23:53
  the bread in the desert, so he wants to multiply your bank
• 23:56
  account today. He wants you to have a Mercedes.
• 23:58
  He wants you to live in luxury. It takes a miraculous sign
• 24:01
  regarding basic survival and twists it into a promise of
• 24:05
  unbroken material wealth. Jesus fed them to keep them from
• 24:09
  literally dying of starvation. He did not turn the desert
• 24:13
  stones into gold to make them wealthy.
• 24:15
  He met their daily bread need and notice what happens
• 24:18
  immediately after they eat. He sends them away.
• 24:21
  He doesn't set up a utopian Kingdom right there.
• 24:24
  He doesn't teach them how to manifest wealth.
• 24:26
  He sustains their physical lives so they can hear the word of God
• 24:30
  and live. And then there's a third common
• 24:32
  misreading, which is the strictly Sacramento view.
• 24:36
  Because the language here, taking the bread, giving thanks,
• 24:39
  breaking it, giving it, is virtually identical to the
• 24:42
  institution of the Last Supper. Some traditions argue this
• 24:45
  entire narrative is primarily or even exclusively about the
• 24:49
  Eucharist. Echo is definitely there.
• 24:52
  We cannot deny that Matthew wants his readers to hear that
• 24:54
  connection. Jesus is the host of the great
• 24:56
  banquet. But we have to be careful not to
• 24:58
  make it mechanical. Exactly.
• 25:00
  The physical bread itself did not save their souls.
• 25:03
  Eating the miraculous bread in the desert did not grant them
• 25:06
  eternal life. Just like eating the bread of
• 25:08
  the Lord's Supper does not save you if you do not have faith in
• 25:11
  Christ. The miracle is a sign pointing
• 25:14
  to Christ as the true bread of life.
• 25:17
  It is a signpost, not the final destination.
• 25:20
  Let's get back to the narrative to see how it closes.
• 25:23
  Verse 39. The crowd is totally full.
• 25:27
  Forged. The disciples are standing there
• 25:29
  surrounded by these seven giant baskets of proof.
• 25:31
  And what does Jesus do? The text says and sending away
• 25:35
  the crowds. He got into the boat and went to
• 25:37
  the region of Magadan. He leaves.
• 25:39
  He refuses the spectacle. This is such a consistent theme
• 25:42
  with him. In John's account of the feeding
• 25:45
  of the 5000, the crowd tries to seize him and make him king by
• 25:48
  force. Because they want a permanent
• 25:50
  welfare state. They want free bread forever
• 25:52
  without bowing to His Lordship. And Jesus refuses.
• 25:55
  He's not a cosmic vending machine.
• 25:57
  He is the sovereign Lord, He serves the crowd out of deep
• 26:00
  compassion, but he is never ruled by the crowds demands.
• 26:03
  He sends them home and he gets in a boat and goes to Magadan,
• 26:07
  which immediately sets up the next major conflict in Matthew's
• 26:10
  Gospel. It does, and the narrative irony
• 26:13
  here is just tragic. He moves straight from this
• 26:16
  massive display of absolute authority and compassion into a
• 26:20
  confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees.
• 26:23
  And what do they ask him for in chapter 16?
• 26:25
  They demand a sign from heaven to prove who he is.
• 26:29
  They want a sign he just fed 4000 men plus women and children
• 26:33
  from 7 loaves of bread in a wasteland.
• 26:35
  That is the ultimate sign. But that is the terrifying
• 26:38
  hardness of the human heart, right?
• 26:40
  You can have 7 baskets of physical evidence staring you in
• 26:42
  the face and unbelief will still cross its arms and say show me
• 26:46
  more. It proves that mere evidence
• 26:48
  alone does not convert anyone. The heart has to be changed by
• 26:51
  the Spirit. So as we synthesize all of this
• 26:53
  and wrap it up, let's bring it down to the listener.
• 26:56
  We have diagnosed the human condition.
• 26:58
  We are in the wilderness, empty, totally unable to save
• 27:01
  ourselves. And we have seen the King,
• 27:03
  compassionate, visceral, sovereign, able to create
• 27:06
  abundance from nothing. What is the practical
• 27:08
  application of this doctrine? I think there are two main
• 27:11
  applications to draw out first for the Weary St.
• 27:15
  Maybe you are listening to this right now and you feel like you
• 27:17
  are hitting that three day mark in your own wilderness.
• 27:20
  You are tapped out. You have absolutely nothing left
• 27:23
  to give to your family, to your job, or to your church.
• 27:27
  You are fainting on the way. The tremendous encouragement
• 27:31
  here is that Christ sees you. He knew the crowd was fainting
• 27:35
  before any of them said a single word.
• 27:37
  You don't have to scream to get his attention.
• 27:39
  He knows your frame, he knows you are dust, and his response
• 27:43
  is Splacnezomi deep gut level compassion.
• 27:47
  He invites you to bring your 7 loaves.
• 27:49
  Bring your incredibly inadequate strength.
• 27:51
  Lay it out and let him multiply it through His means of grace.
• 27:54
  And the second application is for the person who might not be
• 27:57
  a believer or who is just kind of on the fence about the claims
• 28:00
  of Christ. The application is both a
• 28:02
  warning and an invitation. The wilderness we have been
• 28:05
  talking about is not just a geographical place on an ancient
• 28:08
  map, it is the current state of your soul without God.
• 28:12
  You cannot get back to safety on your own.
• 28:13
  You do not have the supplies. The call here is to stop
• 28:17
  calculating. Stop looking at the natural math
• 28:20
  of your life and trying to figure out how to save yourself.
• 28:22
  You need to look to the compassionate King, the one who
• 28:25
  spreads a feast in the middle of the wasteland.
• 28:28
  We have to move from asking where can we get bread to asking
• 28:33
  who is this man? That is the fundamental shift,
• 28:36
  moving from the math of need to the Messiah of abundance.
• 28:40
  You trust in His sovereign provision.
• 28:42
  I want to leave you with one final thought, a provocative
• 28:44
  detail that the sources highlighted and it ties us all
• 28:46
  together. We talked earlier about how the
• 28:48
  disciples forgot the feeding of the 5000.
• 28:51
  Right, we'll spoiler alert for next time.
• 28:53
  They are going to forget this one too.
• 28:55
  It happens almost immediately. In chapter 16 they get into the
• 28:57
  boat with Jesus this and they realize they forgot to bring any
• 29:00
  bread for the trip. And Jesus warns them about the
• 29:03
  leaven of the Pharisees. And what do these guys do?
• 29:05
  They panic. They say to each other, it is
• 29:07
  because we brought no bread. They just pick up 7 human sized
• 29:12
  hampers of leftover miraculous bread and they're having a panic
• 29:17
  attack about a missed lunch. It is completely absurd, but it
• 29:22
  is US. It is a perfect mirror of our
• 29:24
  own hearts. And the challenge for you
• 29:26
  listening is this. Will you remember when the next
• 29:30
  crisis hits your life, whether it is tomorrow or next week?
• 29:34
  Will you remember the seven baskets?
• 29:37
  Or will you succumb to the amnesia of unbelief?
• 29:39
  That is the daily fight of faith, to remember what the
• 29:42
  sovereign King has done in the wilderness.
• 29:44
  That is exactly why we do these deep dives, to bring these
• 29:47
  truths to mind for each other. Thank you for spending this time
• 29:49
  with us today looking at the bread in the wilderness.
• 29:52
  This has been reformed thinking. Grace and peace to you.