Loaves+fishes

Sermon of Charles Price/March/2012

Giving thanks always,  and never ever  utter please--as Our Lord did!.

The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Jesus recorded in all four Gospels. Just before that, He had healed a man by the Pool of Bethesda who had been paralyzed for 38 years. Between that event and the feeding of the 5,000, there is a crucially important dialogue between Jesus and the Jewish people, who were angry with Jesus because He had healed the man on the Sabbath.

Jesus explained to them why He did what He did and how. He gave them this answer, `I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does` (John 5:19). 

 Jesus had reflected the responsibility away from Himself to His Father.Uncomfortable as it was to the Jewish people, Jesus was not healing this man to provoke them, but because He was solely on His Father’s agenda. In verse 17, He says to them, `My Father is also at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working`. In verse 30, He tells them,`By myself I can do nothing.`

In other words, what Jesus does cannot be separated from what the Father is doing. As a man on earth, He relates every situation to His Father and demonstrates His Father working through Him.

By this, Jesus illustrates how human beings are supposed to work and live. In complete union with His Father, and dependence on Him, Jesus performed the miracles and taught the people. In the same way, it is with complete dependence on Christ and union with Him that we are to live if we’re going to experience the working of God in our lives.

In the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus decides to test His disciples. A great crowd had followed Him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. He went up a mountainside and sat down with His disciples.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?` Philip answered, `Eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!` Andrew steps in and says,`Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?`

What does that tell us about Philip and Andrew? They had no more resources than the unbelieving, because they had related the situation to themselves and their own capabilities.  Though they were professing disciples, they were practicing atheists.

The demand for food far exceeded the supply and they were at a loss, so they suggested they send the people away to a neighboring village to buy food. The very crucial missing ingredient of their assessment of the situation was God, Himself. They believed in God, but He remained a silent partner.

A silent partner is one who lends his name and his money, but doesn’t actually do any of the business. It’s very easy to slip into a relationship with God where He becomes the silent partner. Yes, we give Him all the glory because we are sufficiently instructed to do so in Scripture, but in reality, the way we are confronted with difficult circumstances is reduced to a workable, manageable human enterprise for which God is not necessary.

Jesus didn’t think in terms of Himself, but only in terms of His Father.

As He told His disciples in John 15, the only explanation for you as a genuine disciple will be Me at work in you.

`I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing` (John 15:5). 

 If our Christian lives can be explained in terms of ourselves; what we think, plan, do and accomplish with our own resources and abilities, we are living a substitute life. If our church activity can be explained by personalities, gifts, discipline, finances, scholarships, dedication and sacrifices, it will quickly burn itself out. Dependence on Christ alone is what accomplishes His purpose through us. In the face of every difficulty Jesus was panic-proof and being panic proof is one of the characteristics of a person who is genuinely living in union with Christ.

Philippians 4:6-7 says, `Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.`

 The young boy with the two small fish and five small loaves of barley bread had worked this out more so than Philip and Andrew. Jesus was all-important to him, and though the food was totally insufficient in his hands, what would it be like in the hands of Jesus? Jesus accepted the food, had the people sit down and

He gave thanks.

The food was distributed, the multitude had their fill, and twelve baskets of left-over scraps were gathered.

Along with complete dependency upon His Father, Jesus affirmed His faith by giving thanks, not after His petition but before. He never once used the word please in making requests of His Father

 ‘Please’ is a tenuous word and expresses uncertainty, but ‘thank you’ expresses the quiet confidence of faith, and demonstrates dependency on God. Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John confirms the importance of giving thanks when, in verse 23, he describes some boats from Tiberias landing near the place where the people had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. He doesn’t describe the place as where `Jesus had miraculously fed a multitude of 5,000`, which most of us would, but where `Jesus gave thanks`.

 

1 Thessalonians 5:18 tells us, `Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.` Ephesians 5:20 says, `….always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.`

The act of saying `thank you` is a vital key to the working of God in our lives. It is putting the situation in His hands with the assurance that He is sufficient. That is not to say that when we give thanks everything we would like to happen will happen, because we never prescribe to God what He should do.

 We simply allow Him to be God in our lives. It also doesn’t mean everything will go smoothly. Throughout all of history, God has never done that, but we trust Him to make things go according to His plan and purpose.

A multitude of 5,000, two small fish, five small loaves of barley bread and no one had left the gathering hungry that day. For our every need and resolution, we need to bring Jesus in, and in the quiet confidence of faith, give thanks for His presence and sufficiency. He knows our hearts and He listens. Believe in Him and He answers.