Morning Message Text: John 6: 1-15
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
1 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias),
2 and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.
3 Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.
4 The Jewish Passover Festival was near.
5 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?”
6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,
9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).
11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.”
13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
Morning Message:
The questions for today: First: Who do we depend on? Second: Who should we depend on? I have listed four things in my sermon title, and for the first three, I believe the first place we look is to ourselves. We, for the most part, feel like we can guard ourselves. Who better to take care of me than me? We do realize that there are times, when guarding ourselves, is difficult, if not impossible. For instance, when we are sleeping, how can we guard ourselves when our eyes are closed? Well, I have a home security system. Let me say that again so everyone knows. I have a home security system, and I set it every night before I go to bed. I consider myself a faithful person, but I know that I live in an evil world and God never told me not to use common sense. No matter how many precautions you take, you cannot completely guard yourself.
The same can be said about protection. Part of guarding ourselves is being able to protect ourselves if something unforeseen happens. It makes no sense to be guarded if you can’t defend yourself. We can take classes, learn martial arts, buy some forms of self-protection, but nothing is foolproof. Protecting yourself is a personal decision. To be perfectly honest with you, if the circumstances arose and I needed to defend myself, my family, or anyone else, I would have no problem trying to do that. I think most people are like that, I could be wrong. I knew one person, a fellow pastor, who said he was so against any kind of violence, that even if someone broke into his home and was going to harm him or his family, he would not be able to take measures to harm another person. I will take him at his word, but I have a hard time believing that if push came to shove, any human being would revert to the primal instinct of self-preservation. Let’s be honest, there is only so much we can do to protect ourselves.
Provider. I think that most of us want to be self-sufficient many times to a fault. I know that in today’s politically correct world, it is not proper to think of men as providers. Anyone can be a provider, we all know that, but men instinctively want to provide, or at least they should. We have those who don’t, but that is a whole other sermon. Providing for ourselves and our families is a good thing as long as we don’t forget that all things come from God, even the strength that we have to work and provide.
I know that I have said this many times. The twenty-third Psalm is for us, the living. It is a beautiful reminder of how God will guard us and protect us and provide for us and ultimately save us. We take this Psalm for granted and we are happy just to hear it at funerals. I am convinced that if we would recite it, read it every night, we would experience such peace of mind. I was reminded of this by my devotional and another scripture from the gospel of John. John 10: 9 says, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” Listen to what the devotional says: In the ancient Near East, kings were often referred to as shepherds. In the Old Testament, God was referred to as the “Shepherd of Israel”, the One who would do what Israel’s failed earthly shepherds would not do — care for the people. God rebuked the leaders of Israel repeatedly for not caring for His people. It is against this background that Jesus not only declared Himself to be the Good Shepherd, but He also said that He was the Door of the sheepfold. That meant anyone coming in or out of the sheepfold had to go through Him. He was not the guardian of the door; He was the Door itself! Those who enter His sheepfold will be saved and can go in and out to find pasture. This is reminiscent of His words in John 14: 6: “No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus, as the door, gives you salvation, guards and protects your soul, and makes sure you are provided for.
So much of modern American life and news coverage is focused on problems, perceived problems, but what if these perceived problems, are, in reality, symptoms of a much deeper issue. Violence, polarization, addictions, unrest, strife, sex trafficking, family breakdown; these are all societal problems for sure. But what if many of these problems are not, first and foremost, political issues. But, in fact, are heart problems. Sin problems. What if these kinds of things can’t be solved by government, preachers and pundits? What if our main problem is our vertical relationship with God? What if the truth is — if we don’t pay attention to the vertical relationship with God we never will make any progress with the horizontal issues with each other, no matter how much money we might throw at them? There is one and only one person who is the Source of life, and is indeed—the way, the truth and the life.
Two thousand years ago there were 5000 plus people up on a hill in Galilee who had just been blown away by a miraculous feeding. They were convinced they had discovered their economic, political, and spiritual dream candidate. You might not remember what came next. We always get so caught up in the miracle that we miss the human reaction. “Perceiving then that they were about to take him away by force to make him King, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.” People today are exactly the same. Jesus was on a mission to save all of mankind. His death and resurrection made it possible for us to be saved and reconciled to God, but all the people could see was a guardian, a protector, a provider. They couldn’t push past their human needs to claim a Savior. Can we? We must look past our earthly needs and wants, take care of our vertical relationship with God, and allow him to take care of the horizontal.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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