August 27, 2023

 Let's start from verse 30 once again, the apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught, and he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. Last week we focused on the aspect of the passage that centers on Jesus's compassion. Jesus sees the people who are like sheep without a shepherd and he has compassion on them.

And so we talked at length last week about the compassion of Jesus upon the people. The, the compassion that he feels as his love for the people comes together with his realization of their misery. And the result there is this compassion of Jesus. So this week we see that the compassion of Jesus actually starts before he sees the people who are like, Sheep without a shepherd.

His compassion begins with the apostles, with the disciples. He has compassion on them. Come away to a desolate place, that same word again, come away to this desolate place and rest a while. So we're reminded there that this is once again a reminder for us that this is God's favorite place, his preferred place for meeting with his people, and that is the wilderness.

Countless times it seems throughout the Old Testament scriptures, we see the same thing repeated. And it's this, this instance in which God wants to meet with one of his children. He wants to set aside a servant. He wants to meet with them, and his preferred place to meet with them is the wilderness, this desolate place.

We could talk about Moses in the bush and how Moses sees the bush and goes and encounters God and meets with God there. We could talk about Jacob, remember the dream with the staircase to heaven, or we could talk about Elijah meeting with the son of God in the wilderness and many other instances, but we could, and seeing these, we could also just recognize that this is how the gospel of Mark started with John, the Baptizer going into the wilderness and inviting people to come into the wilderness and encounter God in the wilderness.

Or we could look down to just four verse 46 at the story that's going to follow this one. And we'll see once again that at the conclusion of this story, we read that immediately he made his disciples to get in the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd. And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

So once again, Jesus goes again to a desolate place, to a secluded place to be with, to encounter his father. Or we could remember both way back in chapter one, as all of this really got started in chapter one, chapter one verse 35. We read that Jesus at the conclusion, or the next morning after the long day of healing, rising very early in the morning while it was still dark, he departed and went out to, and there's the same word again―eremos―the desolate place, the wilderness or the desert to pray.

So God has shown us again and again, we'll see the same thing with Paul. As Paul, before he begins his church planting ministry. He goes to the wilderness For years we see that God. Calls people to this place of seclusion to encounter him. It's important to God. When God wants to communicate, when God wants to commune, it's important that he get his people to a place that's distraction free, A place that is without the distractions of people around them or happenings going on, going ons around them.

So he calls them into this desolate place. He says, come with me. Let's go aside. Let's separate ourselves to this desolate place and rest a while for many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. Verse 32. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot while all the town from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

So last week we made note of the fact that what's most likely happening is that the boat is traveling along within sight of the land, and as the boat is traveling along, they've recognized. That Jesus and the apostles are on this boat, and so they're watching where the boat's going. And as the boat is traveling along, this crowd goes along and each little village and town that it goes near, more people get together and they're watching where the boat's going, and they're going to get there ahead of Jesus in the apostles verse 34.

And when he went as shore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them because they were, like we said last week, like sheep without a shepherd. So here was where we stopped ourselves last week and we talked at length about the compassion of Jesus, how he sees the people as sheep without a shepherd.

And this seeing them as sheep without a shepherd evokes from him this emotion, this deep and profound emotion of compassion and how what the compassion is both in Jesus and in us. What compassion is, is the intersection of love and misery. When a person is loved and the loved one is encountering misery or suffering, then the result of that is compassion.

And the more love that's present, the more capacity for compassion. Likewise, the more misery that the loved one is in, then the more capacity for compassion. So Jesus's compassion upon these who are like sheep without a shepherd is the maximum compassion that he can feel. And he feels this or experiences this compassion upon them.

We're told because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And now seeing the compassion of Jesus and from last week, understanding something about the depth, the profound nature of Jesus's compassion, seeing these people upon whom he has such compassion, I. We would might, we might would be surprised to see what the next phrase is that follows that we might think that Jesus feeling such compassion on these people would then stop to begin healing them of their infirmities or cleansing their leprosy, or restoring their sight, or restoring a broken or withered arm or a leg.

We might think that Jesus's compassion would move him to address such things of physical suffering and physical misery. But instead, we are taken quite by surprise when we read the next phrase, seeing them like sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion and he began to teach them many things. So we have a choice as we look at that phrase there.

Jesus saw them sheep without a shepherd. He had great compassion and he began to teach them many things. We've got a choice to make, and the choice is this. The choice is, did Mark just have this run-on sentence? This one thought flows into another and he's just putting together these episodes. Jesus looks, he has compassion on them.

And then the next paragraph, Jesus began to teach them many things. Is that how we should read this? Or rather, having now experienced for six chapters, something of Mark's, fluidity of thought, of Mark's, preciseness of thought. Seeing how Mark is putting together the episodes and the stories in such a thoughtful way, should we rather then conclude?

Well, it seems to me that this phrase is following the previous phrase for a reason. And what would that reason be? That would reason. That reason would be just simply cause and effect. And I think that's precisely how we should see the flow of thought. In Mark's writing here as cause and effect, there's a cause, and the first cause is Jesus seeing the people as sheep without a shepherd.

And that's the cause. The effect of that is what the compassion. So Jesus sees the people, sheep without a shepherd. That's the cause. The effect of that is this compassion that wells up in him. Then that becomes another cause. So the cause is the compassion and the effect is the teaching. And that's the part to make sure that we don't miss.

There. There's a cause and effect. The cause is Jesus's compassion. The effect is his teaching them many things. The teaching is precipitated, is caused by Jesus seeing them in such a state of shepherd. So it says that he began to teach them many things or. Well, that could be also translated. He began to teach them at length, so he either teaches them many things or he teaches them at length.

Either way it's, it's really getting at the same thing Jesus teaches them as a result of seeing them in such a state that evokes compassion from him and seeing them in the state. He then teaches them, but he doesn't teach them sort of maybe some passing moralistic sort of proverbs gives them a few proverbs to take with them.

A few pithy little sayings maybe tells a story. Instead, he teaches them, like I say, either many things or at great length. Jesus taught them substantive teaching. He taught them at length. He spent hours teaching them, as we saw earlier, through the parable method. He's teaching them many things. He's teaching them in depth, substantive teaching, so he sees them in great need, and his response is to meet the greatest need first.

Because Jesus is of course, the perfect Prioritizer and seeing the sheep as sheep without a shepherd, Jesus, the perfect Prioritizer is going to meet their greatest need first, Jesus is not the shepherd who is going to give his sheep a bath before he feeds them. He's not going to give the sheep a vaccination before he gives them some clean water to drink.

Jesus is not going to meet a secondary me need before he meets the primary me need. Jesus is not going to feed the sheep before he drives away the wolves that are the predators because he's the perfect Prioritizer. So what this is showing for us is that Jesus recognizes that their greatest need is for the teaching and the preaching.

Of the word of God, and that is the one of the most, one of the most profound things that comes from this passage we've seen from chapter one, that Jesus's priority from the time he began his ministry, to the time that he makes atonement for our sins on the cross. His priority was preaching and teaching.

It wasn't miracles, it wasn't healings, it wasn't casting out demons, it was teaching and preaching. Here we see that plain and clear, and right out front Jesus sees them. He feels compassion for them and his compassion moves him to begin meeting their deepest and most profound need, which is to experience the teaching and the preaching of the word of God.

Your greatest need is the preaching of the word of God. That might sound like a fantastical type of statement, particularly coming from one who does that, who preaches the word of God. But nevertheless, the scriptures show us the greatest need of mankind is the proclamation of the word of God. The greatest need of mankind is to have our thoughts and our minds introduced to the truth of God through his word, and having our minds introduced and taught the truth of God.

Having that transform our souls in a real way of speaking. Your greatest need, of course, is forgiveness of your sins and atonement for your sins and deliverance from the penalty of your sins. But in another way of speaking, the way that that comes to us is by means of the word of God of the preaching and the teaching of the word of God.

Romans 10 in verse 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And so the greatest need of humankind is to have your thoughts conformed to the reality of the God who created you and who directs every aspect of your life. That is the greatest need of humankind, and Jesus will meet this greatest of needs.

First. He understands that the mind is this window to the soul. Romans 12 and verse two, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And so Jesus will feed into their minds the truth of the Word of God. So two points of application that we can take from this. First of all, It's clear to see the primacy of preaching, the primacy of preaching, the the primary role that preaching is to take within the kingdom of God.

God has determined that his kingdom will always advance, his kingdom will always exist and always go forward by means of the proclamation, the preaching of the Word of God. The Church of God will never advance to some new point at which we leave behind the preaching of the word of God. When a man who is raised up by God stands before God's people opens God's word and says, this is what God says to his people, and this is what it means, the kingdom of God will never progress Beyond that, God has determined.

That this is how his kingdom will not only sustain, will be gsustained, but also progress forward the primacy of preaching. This is why God has told us in places like Ephesians four, that he has raised up preachers and teachers because God, God doesn't say to us, here's my word. I've made my word understandable, and I've given you my word.

Now, why don't you just go home and everybody read my word and know my word, and then we'll just all be Christians together. God doesn't say that. Instead, God says that he will always have those who stand before his people and open his word and say, this is what the word of the Lord says. So let's think for just a few moments about what this means and what this doesn't mean.

One of the things that we know to be true is that God tells us that his word is understandable by his people. That's what one Corinthians two tells us. God's word is supernatural. Hebrews uh, four verse 12 tells us that it's a living and active word, and so it tells us supernatural realities that the natural man cannot understand.

However, if we are possessed of the Holy Spirit, then the scriptures teach us that his word is understandable for us. God didn't give us a book of riddles and enigmas. He didn't give us a book of puzzles that only scholars and PhDs or numerologists can understand. He gave us a book that all of his people are capable of understanding.

It's plain and clear and straightforward. However, if God's word is plain and clear, and all of God's people who are possessing of the Holy Spirit are able to understand his word, then why the need for preachers and teachers? Why doesn't God just say, well, you got the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is your teacher.

Now just go home and read your Bible and. And enjoy your communion with the Holy Spirit. Why does God still say there? There will be those whom he always raises up to be proclaimers of his word. Well, the best way I can put this, I'll use the words of Alistair Begg, who in handling this scripture in his quaint little Scottish way, puts it like this.

God has made his word clear and understandable. However, the explanations of God's word, God's word doesn't wear that on its sleeve. He says, now what does that mean? That that means that God has put forth his word in such a way that those who are possessing of his spirit can understand his word and receive his word.

Yet God has still designed his church, his people, to work in such a way that he communicates to you most powerfully and most plainly by raising up one who preaches his word and putting into his mouth, thus says the Lord. And this is what that means. That's not to say that God's word is beyond understanding for those who aren't raised up to be the proclaimers, but it is to say that that's how God has designed the economy of his church to work.

Can you take your Bible on your own and read it and understand it on your own? Absolutely. Yet, at the same time, God has determined that his people will be fed by his under shepherd, standing for his people and saying, this is what the word of the Lord says, and this is what the Lord of Word of the Lord means.

And so God and His wisdom has declining, has designed it in such a way, and so this emphasizes for us the eternal primacy of the preacher. But another application that we see coming from this is the primary task of the under shepherd. If God has determined that the proclamation of his word will be how his kingdom is sustained and how his kingdom progresses.

Then it goes without saying that the primary role of the under shepherd is the proclamation, is the preaching and the teaching of God's word. That is the central task. That is the fundamental, the foundational task of those who are called to be under shepherds of God's people is the study for the proclamation of God's word and the bringing of God's word to his people.

And so God never puts any sort of percentage on this, but, but I would, I would say something like, I don't know, 95% of the time of God's under shepherd really should be devoted to that is the primacy of preaching and teaching. Now the Western Church exists in a culture today in which we have come to see the pastor in many, in many aspects of the, the Western church.

Today we've come to see the pastor, the role of pastor as sort of a, a conglomeration of someone who knows the word and can preach and teach the word, but also well is a good organizer and is a good effective communicator and perhaps is good at com community organizing and is good at budgeting and can be good at casting visions and foreseeing the future and making plans and getting people organized around him.

You see, isn't that the description of the successful pastor in many Christian circles today is this man that is multi-talented, multifaceted. Who has skills in many different areas, and he's a good leader. He's a good organizer, he's a good communicator. He can rally people around him. He can get people excited about his vision and his plan, and he can also teach the word and folks, that is just not the, the description of the under shepherd that we find in the scriptures.

Two Timothy four in verse one, Paul says to Timothy, an under shepherd of the church and an Ephesus, he says, here is your primary central task. Preach the word. Or we think back to Acts chapter six, when God creates the office of Deacon to take some of the load off of the under shepherds, the Apostles and the office of Deacon was created so that the apostles could devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word.

And yet somehow we've, we've developed this, this opinion of a, of a successful, of a, a good pastor, of a, an efficient leader of God's people, of an under shepherd, of God's people as this person who's so multi-talented and just a natural leader and people want to follow him and rally around him. And I just want us all to see that that's just an absolutely unbiblical picture of a pastor today.

That's not to say that God can't gift a pastor with, with other giftings that the church can make use of, but it is to say, to beware of the church that places such a description, such an idea on what a pastor should be as this multifaceted type of role. Let me share with you a rather embarrassing, humiliating story from our past that just really emphasizes this whole thing for me.

Some years ago when we began to feel, began to sense that God was leading us to plant. We had a, at least I had a number of connections in Arizona and as we, we began praying through planting a church and where would we go to do that? What, where would we do that? We, we had these connections to Arizona and I kept thinking about Arizona and praying about Arizona and we, we finally felt like we should really go and explore and, and just see what God might, maybe he would have us to go there.

So we went to Arizona, spent some time there and we made some connections with some church planting organizations there and felt like, well, this is worth taking to the next step to see if God would, would want us to do if this would ha be what he would want us to do. And so we got connected together with the sending organization that, that plants churches, that helps fund church plants.

Fund church plants in that area. And at the time it was a sending organization. Everybody in the room knows the name of this organ organization. I'm not going to say it, but the sending organization was outsourcing to a, a private company, the vetting of its potential church planters. And we know, you know what I mean by the process of vetting.

So we submitted to that and it was a long drawn out process to be vetted by this secular. Well, I mean, it wasn't secular. They claimed to be Christians, but, but it was a, a private organization that was being paid to vet candidates. So we go through this long process of, of being vetted and everything culminated in this three day event, this three day conference in Nashville, in which all the candidates were there.

And they went through this grueling three-day evaluation in which we were evaluated, or I was for the most part, I was evaluated in eight facets, eight aspects. There were eight evaluations of me to determine whether or not I was suitable church planting material out of eight evaluation segments, one of them had to do with preaching.

And so I was evaluated entirely on one 10 minute sermonette. Devotion, I would call it one 10 minute devotion, was the entire evaluation of my ability to handle God's word in front of people. The other seven evaluation means weren't, they weren't unimportant to pastors. I mean, one of them was evaluating our marriage and, and other aspects, and that all of that's important, but one out of eight was deemed to be worthy of this evaluation.

And then the whole process culminated on the final day, the final session, which was a, and this is the embarrassing part, it, it was a completely a surprise. Nobody knew it was coming. It was a surprise at which the, at the end of the, the, the three days, the candidates got on the stage in front of a couple hundred people and completely unprepared.

We were asked a series of questions, and those questions were things like, what sort of budget do you need for the first year? What's your budget for the second year? What's your plan for promoting this new church in this new city? What's your plan for advertising?

And I made, I was embarrassed. I had no answers. I mean, am I, is this true? I, I said, I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea what a budget for a church plant would be for the first three years. I have no idea what sort of promotion strategy I would take. But you know what? I can handle the word of God and God has raised me up to handle his word, and that's what I feel like an under-shepherd should be evaluated by.

I'd say that story just as by way of communicating to all of us, just how distorted. Some of us within the church circles have gotten into, into how we think a pastor, what sort of a person the under shepherd should be, what the skills of an under shepherd should be, what the training of an under shepherd should be.

Jesus sees their deepest and most profound need, and he says their deepest need is to hear the word of God taught and explained. And that is the primary principle task of the under shepherd. That's not to say other things can't be helpful and important, but it is to say, beware of the church that places priority on their under shepherds.

That is anything other than the handling of God's word. So he sees this deep need, he has compassion. He began to teach them many things, verse 35, and when it grew late, So that's the end of the Jewish Day, about to begin a new Jewish Day at sunset. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place.

There's that same word again, amass. This is a wilderness. This is a deserted place, and the hour now late. Verse 36, send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. So take away, number one, we don't tell Jesus what to do. Amen. I mean, is that just a basic takeaway from that verse?

They're telling Jesus, Jesus, here's what we need to do. You need to send them away. They're all listening to your teaching. It's time to wrap it up. Jesus, send them away so that they can get home in time or get to a village in time before it's dark, before every, all the, the Jewish shops have closed up and they can buy themselves something to eat.

They give Jesus these orders, these instructions. And in essence, they want Jesus to bless their plans. They want Jesus to bless their, their well, let's just put it for what it is, their disrespectful command to him. Now, we can see this a couple of ways. We can say, well send them away and have them buy something to eat.

We might say, well, we can't read the tone of their voice in that. How do we know that they're being disrespectful? I think we know that because this is the context that Mark has built up from the beginning. Mark has consistently showed the disciples as not getting it, not understanding, and in fact, oftentimes being quite rude and disrespectful to Jesus.

Think about chapter one. Chapter one. After the day of healing, Jesus goes off before the sun comes up. He's praying. They come and they say, Jesus, everybody's looking for you. And they don't say it as though you know, Hey, Jesus, we're so glad we found you. We're so excited. Everybody's, everybody's asking for you.

No. Here's their tone. Jesus, what are you doing here? We got this thing going yesterday. Now what are you doing here? You, you're messing all this up. Jesus. As though they are Jesus's counselor and instructor. And then of course that continues on as we hear from the disciples. They say, don't you care that we're about to drown?

I don't know how you spin that in any other way other than disrespectful and unbelieving. Don't you even care Jesus, that we're about to drown a little bit later? The disciples are going to show their, their misunderstanding and their impulsiveness when they take it upon themselves to claim that they know the mind of Jesus when Jesus is teaching, and some people bring some children and they say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

The the master doesn't have time for this. He's only got time for the adults. Take these children away, and Jesus rebukes them in essence to say, you don't know my mind. So we see again and again that these disciples, you know, if you had this picture in your mind of these disciples as these super holy 12 people that Jesus picked because they were so holy and they were so with it and they, they were so close to God, get that out of your mind.

But that's not why Jesus picked them and that's not who he picked in many ways. It's though he picked the est ones he could pick. He picked the ones with the least amount of spiritual insight because he wants to take them from that and he wants to instill with them his spirit, which will then in Acts chapter two, as Peter will stand up and declare to the crowd and the sermon of Pentecost, what a change we see over that man then.

So we see that, send them away, Jesus. They say to Jesus, send them into the countrysides and so they can buy themselves something to we, I hear something of their impatience there with the crowd. Maybe the, the disciples have sort of had their fill of the crowd at this point. So let's be a, I guess maybe a little bit understanding of the disciples.

They do sin against the people as they want to send the people away. But let's be a little bit understanding because Jesus himself recognized that the disciples were very exhausted. Remember it was Jesus's idea that they go away for a time of rest. So Jesus himself has seen that they are exhausted and in need of rest.

So it goes without saying that if Jesus said they needed rest, that they did need rest. And we can imagine now that they didn't, oh, not only did that, they not get the physical rest, but they're now at the end of another long and tedious day and they've, they're just exhausted. So in this, we see, I think something helpful just to remind us of something that you instinctively know.

If the spirit resides within you, you instinctively know this. It's this. You have different areas of influence in your life. When you sin, it's nobody that sins but you. When you sin, it's your own heart that sins. Nevertheless, there are recognizable influences. There are recognizable temptations in our life, and we can understand that not all influences in our life are the same.

For example, picture in your mind a bullseye target. So, you know, you have, you have this bullseye in the middle, and you have these concentric rings, and the further you get away from the center, you know, the, the less the further it is from the bullseye. As you get further from the center, just think about the influences of your life and how they, they exert less influence over you.

So on the outside, you have influences in your life that that might influence you to sin, such as demons, the demonic realm those sorts of things. They can exert an influence over you, but quite frankly, not a lot. If the spirit resides within you, then that's not a great deal of influence at all. But inside of that, you have another circle of influences and that has a much more powerful influence over you.

In that circle, let's put family and friends and peers and culture that that's a pretty big influence, right? When your friends or loved ones or a spouse, that's a great deal of influence and you can be, again, if you sin, it's you, it's your heart and nothing else. But nevertheless, you can be influenced more by a spouse than you can someone something on the outside circle.

Okay? So as we come further in, we have more and more influence. So in the very center circle, again, if you sin, it's only you, but the very center circle that which exerts the most influence over you is your body. And you know this to be true. You're tired. You don't feel good. You got a bad, cold, bad sore throat, headache, hungry you hadn't eaten for 10 hours.

Don't those things exert a great deal of influence? Aren't those the times that you most quickly sin with your mouth when your body doesn't feel good? So that's just something for you to know about yourself, that you have your heart is the only thing responsible for your sin. Nevertheless, there are influences, but they're not all the same.

And the most powerful influence is your own body that within which you reside. And so these disciples, this is exactly where they are. Their bodies are tired, their minds are tired, their voices are tired. They've been talking all day. It's probably hot, uncomfortable, and they're just exhausted now. They answer, Jesus, send them away to the surrounding countryside and villages to buy themselves something to eat.

Verse 37. But he answered them. You give them something to eat. Now that's the most shocking statement in the story. You give them something to eat. Remind yourself of the immediately preceding context. The immediately proceeding context was what the apostles return after being sent out by Jesus and having been given the same miraculous powers as he has been performing.

Do you remember that? That just happened at the beginning of this whole episode? Was they returned and they returned beside themself with excitement saying, Jesus, what you said is true, the dis the demons. They run. When we cast them out, we healed sick people. We cleanse lepers. Right on the heels of that, the disciples come and they say, Jesus, send these people home.

They're getting hungry. We don't have food for these people. And Jesus answers, why don't you feed them? What did you just get done doing? You give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of food or bread and give them, give it to them to eat? So the denarii―we’re probably familiar with the fact that that was considered the wages of one working day for a working man.

So, so 200 days worth of working income, you want us to spend that much money and even then only have enough for, for everybody to get just a little bit. So they ex, they express to their Jesus to Jesus, their inability to do what he just commanded them to do. He gives them this impossible command.

And they expressed to him, how are we going to do such a thing as that? That reminds us of the words of Moses. Remember the words of Moses Cha number chapter 11, when the people are in the wilderness and God has been feeding them with the manna and they've been eating manna for morning, noon and night for week after week and month after month.

And they're so sick of manna. They've cooked manna every way they can think of cooking manna. And there's they, they're just sick of it. They're so tired of manna. And they come to Moses and they say, give us meat to eat. And Moses cries out to God. God, where am I going to find meat for these people? How am I going to feed these people?

And here are the disciples coming to Jesus saying, where are we going to feed these people? Where are we going to get food for this people? You see the connections. Jesus is the greater Moses. Jesus is the good shepherd. He is the greater Moses. He takes the people into the wilderness. He teaches them. As Moses taught them, he feeds them as Moses couldn't feed them.

Moses could call to God and say, God, your people need food, and God would feed them. Jesus, however, is the greater Moses. He takes the people into the wilderness and he himself feeds them, and it's his disciples who cry to him. How are we going to feed these people? And Jesus will then feed them. You see how Jesus is being shown to us as the greater Moses?

How are we going to feed these people? Jesus, 200 denarii won't buy enough for each person to have just a little bit. Now in John's gospel, chapter six, Jesus actually probes them with the question. He tests them with the question. Take a look at John chapter six, verse five, lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him.

So Jesus, this is the beginning of the teaching day. He sees the crowd forming, and in advance of this long day of teaching, Jesus turns to Philip, Philip. You see these people coming, how are we going to feed them? And then John goes to on to say, he said this, to test him for, he knew what he was going to do.

So you see what Jesus did there? At the beginning of the day? He leans over to Philip. Philip, this is a big crowd. I'm going to be teaching all day. How are we going to feed him? Now, Philip's been thinking about that all day, probably all day. Jesus has been teaching and, and Philip, he's reminded from time to time, as as maybe he gets a little bit hungry and he thinks, oh yeah, Jesus asked, how are we going to feed these?

I don't know. How are we going to feed these people? He's been wrestling with that question all day because John says Jesus wanted to test him, and he put it to Philip. Philip, these people who are coming to me, these people whom God has called unto me are going to have needs. How are we going to meet them? And as Philip is wrestling with this, the same thing is what God does for us.

God wants us to wrestle with this question. He wants us to feel the need to sense the need of those whom God is drawing to us. And he wants us to, to wrestle with this question, how we will, how will we meet the needs of those whom God brings to us? And there's only two answers to that question. The only two answers are, look within yourself or look to God.

Those are the only two possibilities. Look to yourself or look to God. And this is the point. This is the central point of this section of the story. You can look to yourself or you can look to God. When God brings people, when God draws people unto his church, those people will come with needs. How are you going to meet them?

Well, you look unto yourself. Or will you look unto God? You give them something to eat. So notice how Jesus, of course, recognizes the truth that James brings to us. James chapter two, verse 15 and 16, if a brother or sister's poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warm and filled without giving him the things needed for for the body, what good is that?

What good is it when hungry people come to you and all you give them is spiritual food or one John chapter three. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his B brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how will God's love abide in him? So Jesus, of course, as we said, recognizes the primary need, the central fundamental need, but he nevertheless doesn't ex ignore the secondary need, which is to say their bellies are empty.

I. So you give them something to eat. He gives this impossible command, simple but impossible. And then he watches to see to where they will turn to have the need met. And where do they turn? Verse 38, he said to them, how many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they went and found out, they came back and they said, five and two fish.

So the direction that it's turned to is inward. What can we do? What can we gather? How much money do we got? Let's pull our resources. Could we pull this off? If, if we wanted to, how, how many people could we feed? How much food could we get for each person? What, what could we do? So they turn inward. They turn inward.

First of all, what do we have? So they find the five loaves and the two fish. Now as they come and they say five and two fish, what, what sort of attitude do you think that, that that statement had? I think that statement had an attitude, don't you? I think it was, we told you so, Jesus, we, we told you, Jesus, we told you to send them home when it was still time for them to get home.

Now I, I told you all we got is five loaves and two fish. So I kind of hear that consistent with how Mark is presenting to us. The picture of the disciples. They come to Jesus with this sort I told you so attitude, five and two fish. And there's our statement now, now we know where the five loaves and two fish came from, right?

Mark doesn't tell us, but John tells us about the boy who had the five loaves and the two fish. So, um, I hate to do this, but I have to bust some bubbles so we all know, don't we? The story of the boy who shared his lunch with Jesus. How many sermons have you heard about the boy who shared his lunch with Jesus?

And so the point is, give Jesus what you've got and he will multiply it. Everybody heard that? Alright, so John is the only one who mentions the one who has the loaves and fishes. And John says in John chapter six in verse nine, there is a boy, this is the disciples talking. There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.

But what are they for so many, that's all that said about the boy who shared his lunch with Jesus. Now the word that John uses for boy is just as often translated young male slave as it is boy. So it's at least equally likely that what they were reporting to Jesus was not a boy willing to share his lunch.

But what they were share, what they were telling Jesus was that they found a young slave selling food. You know, um, anytime there's a crowd, what's going to happen? Somebody's going to be selling something, especially a third world country, right? Whenever there's a crowd, somebody's selling something. And in this crowd there are.

Young slaves that are selling food. There's a big crowd, big market there. So I find it much more likely that what the disciples are reporting is that there's one last person selling food, and all he's got left is five loaves and two fish. I. So do you see how difficult it is to build a whole theology about give Jesus what you've got and he'll multiply it?

This story is not about giving Jesus what you have, and he will multiply it. That's not the point of the story. The point of the story is that you can either look to yourself or you can look to God one of the two, but you can't look within yourself and say, well, I've got part of this. Let me give it to God, and God will expand it.

It. If that's the point, then you miss the point. Because the point is not about a boy who shared food supposedly with Jesus and Jesus multiplied it much more likely as the disciples are saying, well, the last bit of food that somebody's selling is five loaves and two fish. So we can get that. But everybody else has sold out.

So the point is not share with Jesus the little that you have and watch him expand it. The the point is either look to yourself and fail or look to Jesus and have Jesus succeed. So five loaves and two fish, verse 39. Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass, so he commands them all to sit down.

Why did Jesus do this? Well, I think two reasons. One is a very practical, pragmatic sort of reason. We all have seen the images or videos, haven't we, of a hungry crowd. And the food truck shows up and the back of the food truck opens and what happens? About six people get everything. And the rest of the people are left with nothing.

So I don't think Jesus wants that to happen. But that's a secondary, I would say, pragmatic sort of reason. I think the real thing that's going on here is Jesus is once again hearkening us back to Moses. because you'll remember when Moses was instructed to divide the people and sit the people down in a similar fashion.

So Jesus I, I think, is once again haring, harkening us back to Moses. You remember all the connections we talked about last week, the connections with the Old Testament. So he commanded them all to sit down and group some green on the green grass. Luke's gospel said that Jesus commanded the disciples to have them sit down.

So what Jesus is doing, he's inviting the disciples to come and join him. Jesus is going to feed the crowd, but he's inviting the disciples. You can come and join me with what I'm doing. Jesus is going to share with him, this is what I'm doing. Come and join me. Which by the way, That's the only way that God's people ever do any true ministry is by joining God in what God is doing.

But don't we so often get that backwards? I mean, exactly backwards. Don't we so often take the approach, we want to do this for God, we want to start a food truck, or we want to start a food kitchen, or we want to start a blood bank, or we want to start a a, a a whatever, and let's ask God to help us to do this.

You see how that's the reverse? But Jesus says, this is what I'm going to do. Come and join me. Have the crowd sit down. He involves them in what he's doing. Now, this is, I think, the key for us to understand why it is. We mentioned last Sunday why we're told that this is the second time that the apostles, we specifically were told they didn't have time to eat.

Isn't that strange that Mark twice now has said that the apostles did not have time to eat? Do you remember that episode in John's gospel? In John chapter four? When they come to Jesus, the apostles come to Jesus and they say, Jesus, we noticed you hadn't eaten. How about some food? Why don't you eat some food?

And remember Jesus's response, I have food that you don't know about. My food is to do the work of my father. I think we can read this in connection to say, this is what Jesus is drawing the disciples into.

Jesus says, my sustenance is to do the work of the Father. Twice we're told that the apostles didn't have time for sustenance, but yet Jesus brings them on this little trip. And don't think for one minute that Jesus was surprised that a crowd was waiting for him. But he takes them on this little trip when they were supposed to be getting their rest.

So here's the question. Did the disciples rest or not? The temptation is to say, oh, those poor disciples, they missed the, they needed a day of rest and they didn't get it. But the larger point is that Jesus is inviting the disciples to find their deepest sustenance, just as he does to find their deepest sustenance in doing the will of God.

Now, that is not to say that God does not value physical rest and command us to physical rest. God created the passing of time in such a way as to have built-in cycles six days, one day, six days, one day, built-in cycles for rest. So God believes that you should rest. Nevertheless, isn't there a greater truth here to be seen?

And the greater truth is Jesus is inviting the disciples, come with me and experience the deeper rest of pouring yourself out in service to God and his kingdom. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And so this is what Jesus is inviting them to do.

He commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. Did you think when you read through that story, why it was that Mark said green grass, did that sort of stand out as odd to you that Mark mentions green grass? And then furthermore, did it seem a little more odd that we were told that this is in a desert?

Twice we were told this is in a desert, an amass wilderness, deserted place. But yet we're told that they were commanded to sit not just on grass, but green grass. Mark's the only one who adds that detail. Matthew tells us that they, they sat on the grass. John tells us that they sat down because there was much grass.

Only Mark tells us that there was green grass. So they were told to sit on the green grass. What do you think that might be saying to us?

You think that might be drawing us to think about the shepherd psalm? You know the shepherd psalm, we usually call it the 23rd Psalm in which we're told he makes me to lie down on green grass. Do you think that maybe Mark puts that there by Peter by way of Peter. Peter tells him, put in there, mark. He told us to, to sit them down and the grass was green.

Here's, here's what Mark is not saying. Mark is not saying that Jesus miraculously created an oasis in the desert for these people to sit on. That's not what he's saying. That's not the point. Instead, the point is that we see that what Mark is thinking about, what Peter is thinking about is the shepherd Psalm.

He is the great shepherd who makes me lie down on green pastures, and here he made us sit the people down on green grass. Do you see the connection? I saw that connection and I, it made me start thinking over the last two weeks as I was thinking through this message, it made me start, start thinking that is a clear connection to the shepherd Psalm, and this way Jesus is a fulfillment of the 23rd Psalm.

What the 23rd Psalm spoke of, the Lord is my shepherd. And then the 23rd Psalm goes on to give all these statements that are true, because the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want, he prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies. He anoints my head with oil, all these statements that are true because the Lord is my shepherd.

Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of this statement. He makes me lie down in green pastures. And I started to think, well, what other statements is Jesus also the perfect fulfillment of? And so I just sat down and I began to think of them. I put them in your, in your notes. I put them on a separate sheet because I thought, well, I don't know, maybe somebody might want to take that and put it in your Bible at the 23rd Psalm and maybe meditate on this.

We don't have to go through all the, in fact, we cannot go through all this because you'll see each one of these lines is a sermon in itself because each one of these lines here of the shepherd Psalm, Are instances that God brought to my mind of how Jesus was a specific fulfillment of the, of the Shepherd Psalm, of the 23rd Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd. Well, the shepherd, the good shepherd is broken hearted over the shepherd, less condition of the sheep. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. John chapter 10 is foundational. It's fundamental where Jesus says, I am the good shepherd. I'm the door parables of the lost sheep.

We could talk about feed my sheep. Jesus says to Peter, but because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Makes me think of, well, do not be anxious for anything. Don't be anxious for what you're going to drink or what you're going to eat or what you're going to wear. Your father knows you need these things and he'll provide them for you.

Or of course, the food. Multiplication miracles. We could talk about Jesus describing himself as the Lord of the Sabbath. He makes me lie down in green pastures again. He commanded them to sit on the green grass. Or we could think perhaps of the care given by the good Samaritan to the one who had been beaten.

He leads me beside still waters. I thought of Jesus calming the storm in just the previous chapter. Or we could talk about Jesus walking on stormy waters to the disciples in order to calm their fearful hearts. He restores my soul. Is there a greater instance of a restored soul than the man known as Legion, whose soul was in unspeakable torment?

And Jesus restores his soul to perfect peace. He leads me in paths of righteousness. Well, I thought of, well, the whole sermon on the Mount. In which Jesus teaches, these are the paths of righteousness. But he not only teaches that, he calls people to follow him. In that, as he says in John 10, my sheep hear my voice.

They recognize my voice and they follow me. Or we could talk about Jesus's continued instruction to the through the Spirit, or we could talk about how Peter himself describes the good shepherd. He himself was our example for us to follow in second, first Peter chapter two. Even though now on the back page, even though I walked to the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil.

Well, I thought of when Jesus rebuked his disciples for fearing drowning, for their fear of dying on the water, and Jesus rebukes their fear. Even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, they were certainly in the valley of death that Jesus, Jesus says you will not fear. Or I thought about Jesus' battle with the tempter in the wilderness where he goes to battle against the fear of death for us, or Jesus's battle in the garden.

Or I thought of Jesus's resurrections in which our greatest fear, our greatest enemy, the enemy of death is the enemy that he shows us. I, I have power over that enemy. I have power over all of these enemies, most especially the enemy of death. And I'll show it to you by raising these people back from the dead for you are with me.

I thought of Jesus' radical redefinition of family in John chapter three, or in Mark chapter three, where his apostles, his disciples are there with him and his biological family comes and they can't get to them. He sends them away to say, I will not leave these people to go with you. These are my people.

I will not leave them. They are with me. Or I thought of I thought of the Mount of Transfiguration, the whole Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and Peter, James and John saying, let's build tents so that you can stay here with us. Or, I thought about, the word has become flesh and dwelt among us. I have shown you the father, he says in John 14 that, that they may be one.

As you and I are one John 17 or John 14. I go to prepare a place for you that you may be with me or we could go on and on for your rod and your staff. They comfort me. Now for this, John, chapter 10 is fundamental because in John chapter 10, there's that extended teaching in which Jesus calls himself two things.

He says, I'm the good shepherd and I'm the true door, and he contrasts himself against the thief and the robber who are here to steal and abuse, and the wolves who are here to destroy you. He says, I'm here to protect you against those because I'm the good shepherd. I am the true door. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. Well, I thought about the Passover that Jesus turns into the supper and how Jesus' enemies are in a sense at the gate because they will arrest him that night. While Jesus is breaking bread with his disciples, Judas is conspiring to kill him.

So he prepares this table. Or I thought about the, the feast that Jesus prepared in the home of Levi as the enemies are right outside talking about them. Why is he eating with that sinner? Or I thought about the feast for the welcoming home feast for the prodigal son as the enemy who is the elder son is right outside seething about the whole thing.

Or I thought about the Feast for the Marriage Festival for the Lamb, or you anoint my head with oil. So in this I thought about Jesus's sending of the spirit to the church. You anoint my head with oil. What could be a greater fulfillment of that than Jesus's giving of the spirit to the church or Jesus' breathing of the Spirit onto the apostles in John chapter 20, or I thought about also the care of the Good Samaritan as we're told specifically that he pours oil, he anoints oil on the injured man, my cup overflows.

Well, I thought about the water, the water to wine miracle there or I thought about when Jesus says to the Samaritan woman, if you knew who was speaking to you, if you knew the gift of God and who was saying these things to you, you would be asking me for living water that will well up within you into springs.

That would never ex be exhausted. Or I thought once again, of the feast of the prodigal son who returns, or of course the marriage festival of the Lamb. Now what? What these are. This is not exhaustive. This is what God brought to my mind, but I assure you this is not all. And so perhaps you might want to take this and you might want to think and pray over this and have God show you other ways, other specific ways in which Jesus is the perfect fulfillment of the shepherd.

Psalm, the shepherd Psalm says, the Lord is my shepherd, and because he's my shepherd, this, this, this, this, this, and this, and Jesus comes and does all those things. Maybe you won't look at Psalm 23 again in the same way. Psalm 23, the most beloved Psalm, how can you know God and not love? Psalm 23, we know Psalm 23 is speaking of the care of our Father, but the perfect fulfillment of the Father's Shepherd Lee care is Jesus.

And he shows it meticulously in every way. So perhaps we can come back together on Wednesday. And God has shown us more fulfillments of how Jesus is the fulfillment of the shepherd king. He is the shepherd king. He is the fulfillment of this Ezekiel 34, verse 11. For thus says the Lord God. Behold, I myself will search out for my sheep and I'll seek them out.

Or Isaiah 40 in verse 11, he will tend this flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those who are with young Verse 40. So they sat down in groups by hundreds and by fifties and taking the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and said a blessing.

So he looks up into heaven. He proclaims this blessing. It would've been probably a standard Jewish blessing. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The standard Jewish blessing of the day went like this. Praise be to you, oh Lord, our God who makes bread to come forth from the earth. And who provides for all that you've created.

Isn't that an appropriate prayer? Praise be to you. You are the one who makes bread come from the earth in order to provide for all that you've created. And so he looks up to heaven and he says this blessing, but let's not miss this point. Why do you think Mark said he looked up? Do you think that that's just in there by coincidence?

We've learned to say no. Right? There's nothing in there by coincidence. Why do you think Mark said he looked up? Was it because Jesus did something different? Well, because the people saw Jesus looking up to pray, and they say, nobody looks up to pray. No. Everybody looked up to pray. The the Jewish man looked up to say the blessing over the food, so Jesus did nothing abnormal.

What he did was completely normal. What's not so normal is the fact that Mark draws attention to it. Why does he draw attention to it? Because this is the whole point. The point is, look up instead of to yourself. Look to him to meet this need. Don't look within yourselves. Look to him. Look up. Don't look within yourselves.

Look to God, because God specializes in doing what we deem to be impossible. In fact, we can go further to say that God leads us into the impossible in order for him to be seen as the God who does the impossible on our behalf when we look to him to do it. This is why Jesus looks up. Up. I mean, he looks up because Jews look up to pray.

But this is why Mark says this as further emphasis. This is what Jesus is teaching. Look to the father. Don't look to yourself. God will lead us into these impossible situations to test us to see. Will we look to him or we will, we look to ourselves. Let me share a story with us. Uh, we, we, in our church, we, we have had a number of opportunities to meet some large and some profound needs of, of some people within our church and some people with, with not within our church, but all of those instances.

We have met all of those needs with something we already had. In every situation we have met a need God has led us to give, and we've always done it out of what we have. I can recall two instances. Yeah. And which I was part of a situation which God led a need to be met and the resources to meet the need we didn't have.

One of them was in a previous church, a previous church. And we were, we were led, we felt to there was a, a church planter in Chicago planting a church in Chicago. We, we were supporting this church planter and his house needed a new roof. We were led to help him with that, or we, so we thought, and we had about $2,500 and we said, let's, let's send this to this church planter in Chicago.

But then we said, wait a minute. His new roof is going to be about $8,000. Let's give him a whole new roof. And so we committed to doing that without the funds to do it. And the funds came quickly and easily. Wasn't a struggle. But Let me just share another instance in which I was indirectly a part of this.

It was an instance in which a church was led to meet a need. It was a specific need. For which the resources were not available. This was when we lived in Colorado. The church that we were part of there in Colorado was, was a church that supported about I don’t know, maybe a dozen missionaries overseas.

Missionaries. And those missionaries, you know how it works for missionaries, they'll come home for furlough and they'll be a period of a few months and in those few months they don't have a house and so they have to stay somewhere. And so there's uh, churches that maybe have missionary houses or halfway houses.

Well, we were led since, since we were a church that had about 12 missionaries in foreign countries and we frequently had missionaries coming. We were led to endeavor to seek to purchase a missionary house for these missionaries to stay in for weeks or months at a time, whatever the need was. And it just so happened that right after that burden, so to speak, that that desire being implanted into the leaders, leaders of this church, there came available a condominium that was well this was in Colorado, in central Colorado, in a place where, you know how the real estate market recently here has gotten kind of crazy and there's not enough real estate for people to buy.

It's always been like that in Colorado. And so we were, there wasn't a lot of real estate, there wasn't a lot of purchase opportunities, but there came this condominium and it wasn't just a condominium, it was the perfect condominium because the parking lot of this condominium literally touched the parking lot of the church.

It was perfect. Perfect size, everything. Good shape. And I think the price, I, I was thinking back, I think it was like $140,000, but we, we, this came on the market. We felt the, this church felt the need to purchase this, and here comes this condominium available and we prayed about it, the people talked about it, and we committed to buy that condominium having about $50,000 available to us to put towards that.

The price was 140. So we did this real estate contract. We entered into contract, and the, the church was led to enter into the contract. I think the closing was something like five or six weeks away. We, we entered into the contract having 50,000 of the 140,000 needed to close, and the church committed to no loans.

There were, we didn't apply for any loans didn't seek financing in any way. We're going to pay cash. So we started this fundraising thing. You know how that goes, and money started pouring in and it went from 50,000, 60,000, 70,000. Next thing you know is 90,000, 95,000, and then it broached over a hundred thousand.

It got to about a hundred, just short of 110,000. So we were about $30,000 short and closing was something like a week away, and we'd applied for no loans. Plus there was a contingent offer on the property so that if closing the closing day came and we didn't have the cash, all the cash, then there was a contingency offer already in place, meaning that somebody else had the property after that.

So we were still $30,000 plus within a week of closing. Now this church in Colorado, we were in the central part of Colorado, so we were. 10,000 feet above sea level, long winters, lots and lots of snow. So a lot of people, wealthy people, I should say, would live in Texas for the winter and then live in the high country of Colorado for the summer.

And so this particular church had a lot of halftime members that were there for the summer. And it just so happened that all this was taking place in the winter when a large portion of our people were in Texas for the, the Texas winter. And my wife can vouch for the story. The story goes like this, that the closing date was approaching.

And literally, I'm not making this up. The day before closing, we were still $30,000 short. And they go to the post office and they open the post office box. And in the post office box was a letter from a Texas resident member who hadn't been to the church since the whole thing started. And in the letter, the letter read something like this.

I'll paraphrase. I was praying and God brought Rocky Mountain Bible Church to my mind and he put on my heart to send you this check. And in the envelope was a check. I kid you not to within a dollar the day before closing. That is God placing on a church a need,

and the church looking to him first before it looks to what you have.

God has blessed us tremendously and he has allowed us. To meet many needs, but this is just an encouragement to say, you know what? There's something more out there. Pray that God would place upon our hearts, a need he wants to meet. That exceeds what we have of,

that we might do not as the disciples did, which is to say, what do we got? What, what? What do we got? Let's look around. Let's take an inventory. What's, what's the balance? How many loaves and fishes do we have? Instead, look first to him and say, Lord, is this of you? If it is, it doesn't matter if we have 5 cents in the bank or $500,000, it matters not if it's of him.

All the resources in the world are his. This is the central point. He wants the disciples to look to him. First, you give them something to eat. I just empowered you to do that. Look to him. First, he looks up to heaven. He breaks the loaves and he gave it to the disciples to set before the people and they, he divided the two fish among them.

Now, somewhere in that phrase there, he broke the lee, the loaves gave to the disciples to set before the people. He divided the two. Somewhere in there is the miracle.

I'm not exactly sure where, but it's somewhere in that between the, he spoke the blessing, he broke it, gave it somewhere in there. There's a clue in in the sense that that's a long string of verbs there. Taking the five loaves, look to heaven, set a blessing, broke the loaves, gave to the disciples, divided it before them.

There's a long string of verbs there. All of them are in the aorist tense. Now the aorist tense just simply means something that happened instantaneously and it was done. All of them are in that tense except for one, and the verb is give, which is in the imperfect. So literally he broke. He said the blessing, looked to heaven, broke and then gave and kept on giving, and kept on giving, and kept on giving and kept on giving.

Maybe that's a clue. He broke the bread and then the miracle comes as he's, he's just giving and giving. There was one breaking and then an extended giving brings to my mind the cross. I don't know. Maybe this is a connection that's too far to make, but I don't think so. It brings to my mind the cross one act of breaking and then all of the giving for all who come.

Jesus is not re broken on the cross. Jesus is not re broken each time a sinner comes to him and he was broken once. And the giving, and the giving and the giving continues on in verse 42. And they all ate and were satisfied. That's the most beautiful statement of the passage. They all ate and they were satisfied.

Mark never mentions his typical thing, but Mark always likes to mention the astonishment of the crowd. Everyone was astonished, everyone was amazed. Mark doesn't mention that here probably. because most of the people didn't realize it was a miracle. They just were hungry and Jesus was passing out food and they didn't realize where this food was coming from.

But nevertheless, Jesus here is creating food from nothing. Jesus didn't need the, the starter loaves and the starter fish. He's creating the food from nothing. Just as he created all things from nothing. And notice what he created. Jesus didn't create wheat. And say, here, here's some wheat. Go pound it into, into some grain and make some dough and bake.

He didn't create raw dough. He created baked bread. He didn't create fish eggs and say, oh, there's, I just created some fish for you in, in the sea, right there. Go catch them real quick. We'll pass them out to the people. Kind of like that when you throw the net on the other side sort of thing, and all the fish, the net's full of fish, go do that.

Jesus didn't say that. He created bed bread that was baked and ready to be eaten and fish that were mature and ready to be eaten prepared, broiled or, or, or stewed or however they prepared they were ready to be eaten. Now, we're not told this, but I think back to John chapter two. Remember the, the water turned a wine miracle and how Jesus created the wine, but it wasn't just any old wine.

Everybody came and said, this is the best wine we've ever had. Maybe this is the same thing. Maybe the people are eating and everybody, there's all these little conversations taking place. Wow, this is really good bread. Have you ever had bread this good? This fish is scrumptious. How did they make this fish, you think?

Maybe. So they all ate and they were all satisfied and they took up 12 baskets full of broken fish of brick pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men. So it's not ironic. It's not coincidence. 12 baskets left over. 12 is 12 disciples. 12 apostles. I take it to be that this is the apostle, this will be the apostle's lunch for the next few days.

So the point there is easy to see. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And guess what? All these things will be taken care of. You won't be hungry. You won't be hungry. You won't go without, you won't be hungry because you gave yourself to the service of God. But they took up these 12 baskets of broken pieces and of the fish.

And if Jesus takes all this care to pick, to take up even the broken pieces of bread to take up just the broken pieces. If Jesus caress about picking up broken pieces of bread, is there anything in your life that he doesn't care about? If he doesn't waste even the broken pieces of Miracle Bread, is there anything in your life that he overlooks?

Is there anything in your life that he misses? But lastly, they all ate and they were all satisfied. All four gospel accounts include that detail that they didn't just make do until they got home. You know, like you tell your kids, just, just get a little, I'll get you some crackers till we get home. Let's just make it till we get home.

They left satisfied. Now, what does that mean? I think that what that is saying to us is that all who came to Jesus on that day got what they came for because the crowd is comprised of people who are Jesus'. True called out followers. It's also comprised of those who are just seeking to have their curiosity satisfied.

Reminds me of the manna. You remember the story of the manna where we're told that some gathered much, some gathered, gathered little, but when they ate, everybody had enough. All who came, got what? They came for all who they, all who came were satisfied. That says something to me about the proclamation of God's word.

In this room are a variety of needs in this room, are a variety of backstories and problems that you brought in here with you. I have no way of knowing those. I might be aware of one or two. I have no way of knowing all the complexities of what's going on in your life, but you know what? Somehow the proclamation of God's word just always seems to meet that need.

Usually when I'm not even aware of it, I can't count the number of times that I have preached a message. Afterwards, someone came to me sometimes in tears to say, that was just what I needed to hear. You just have no idea when, when you said this and, and you said this. That was just what I needed to hear, and I thought, I didn't say that I,

that's not an example of somebody. Dozing off and maybe got a earbud in their ear and hearing somebody else. That's an example of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the Proclamation of the Living Word of God that says to you as the proclaimer of God's word, I don't have to know all of your problems to apply God's word to it, because his word is living and active, written by the Spirit who is himself, the one who implants that into your heart, and so all who came got their satisfaction in the same way that all of God's people who come to the proclamation of his word also get what you need.