Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Thanks be to God. Thanks you guys.
[00:00:03] Well, it's good to be here. We're another week at the table, as we've already said, and getting an opportunity to see Jesus come into the hearts and lives of people. Just let me step back here just for a second. Look, I found something. And just to step into the hearts and lives of people and deal with life and death realities, I mean, that's just such an important thing. And life, a lot of times we totally ignore that kind of stuff, right? I mean, we want to forget that this life is more than just what we're living in right now. And so it's important that Jesus invites people into conversations, invites people into relationship, where life and death realities are going to be talked about on a regular basis.
[00:00:45] I don't know if you've heard of Ph Lucknowma palace in Hyderabad, but apparently it houses what many describe as the longest dining room table in the world.
[00:00:59] It was built in the early 19th century, and this dining room table is 108ft long, seats 101 people.
[00:01:11] I mean, imagine the dinner party that you could throw at that place. You can actually go to this palace now, It's a hotel and you can reserve a spot at the table if you want. You could reserve all 101 spots at the table. Good stuff.
[00:01:27] But you know, when I think about what Jordan and Amanda just read, that is like chicken feed compared to what Jesus did on that lakeside terrace hill, whatever, where he fed 5,000 people. That's where we're going to be today.
[00:01:45] We're going to take a look at this story, real story. When you say story, that doesn't necessarily mean it's fiction. It's a real story about things that really happened.
[00:01:57] And it's important to understand that.
[00:02:00] Let me ask you, if somebody said to you, hey, I'm running out of town this weekend, going back to visit family, what might you say back to them? Just with that kind of information, you might say something like, oh, that sounds great, go have a good time.
[00:02:17] But if instead of I'm going out of town, I'm going to visit family, they said to you, yeah, I'm going back home. My mom's just been diagnosed with cancer. It's stage four and she doesn't have that long to live, what would your response be?
[00:02:33] Certainly not, I hope you have fun, enjoy yourself. Right? It would be more like, that is terrible. I'm so sorry. I want to pray for you right now.
[00:02:43] See, the important aspect of that conversation is the context, right? To be able to understand what's really going on in those people's hearts and lives. You got to know what the context is, and that's important for our story today. In fact, that's important for every time you read the scripture. You have to know what's going on in the moment, right? But you also have to know, like, the context of the environment that they were living in. And so today, that's where we start with the context of what was happening in those days. In Mark 6, 7, Jesus calls his disciples together, and he begins to send them out two by two and give them. And he gives them authority over the unclean spirits. I love that song we were singing. Just a minute. Things change how?
[00:03:31] Only things change on your authority. God. That was that song that Kyle was leading us in. And I think about the authority of God. He gives the authority to cast out demons, to heal people, to teach to the disciples. And so they've been in that mode for a series of days and weeks. And in verse 13, what happens is that we see these guys are being proactive.
[00:03:58] Their ministry is really going. So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. And they cast out many demons and anointed them with oil. Many. Many who were sick, and they healed them.
[00:04:12] Now, here's the thing. In the midst of all that, between the sending out of the disciples and the coming back, Jesus also hears about, and the disciples also hear about that Herod has executed John the Baptist. And so in all this kind of context, this is what's happening in this moment. As these. As these men come back, as they've been out doing ministry, as God's been using them to expand the Gospel and to expand the message of repentance, John the Baptist, who proclaimed repentance in a powerful way, is executed. And what ends up happening in this moment is Jesus sees that it's important for them to have rest.
[00:04:57] It's important for them to come back and be restored. And so in verses 33 and 34, it says now, many saw them going and recognized them. And they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. And when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd.
[00:05:16] Now, here's the thing. In verse 31, they were going away to a desolate place. They were being sent away so that they could be recharged. A love that Jesus knows what we need. I mean, they've been involved in this ministry, traveling around, tired, counting on other people being worried about what might happen to them. And when they find out that John the Baptist has gotten executed for doing the similar kinds of things they just spent a few days doing themselves.
[00:05:53] There was nervousness there. They needed rest, they needed restoration, they needed encouragement.
[00:05:59] But as according to what we just read, verses 33 and 34, the crowd was absolutely relentless, Right? They were all over. They followed him, and when they saw him, they came after him. And that was partly because Jesus was there, right?
[00:06:16] Jesus Christ. I mean, he created a spiritual frenzy as he was healing people and as he was preaching the gospel and as he was coming alongside and loving people, he created some friends.
[00:06:27] And then when you add what the disciples had just been doing, the passion and the heightened level of frenzy had arisen and they couldn't get away from them. And so this dinner party, thinking about it in those terms, grew quickly from 13 people, the 12 apostles and Jesus to 5,000 plus.
[00:06:52] And they didn't even have to send out an evite, right?
[00:06:55] No. Right. And if they did, they wouldn't have gotten any RSVPs. Does that make anybody else mad besides me, that when you send an invitation. Let's not. That's not. This isn't really about me. This is about the Gospel, Okay? So anyway, let's go back to there right now. But here's what we're going to do today to get to the truth, the biblical truth that's here, to get to the implications that of course, the biblical truth brings into our lives. And then to apply some of those implications and biblical truth, I want to break this passage into four movements. You know what a movement is, right? A movement in a play or in a opera or something like that is just the different parts. You might think of them as scenes. And so today I want to break this into four different movements, four different parts. You've got the practical movement, you've got the confusing movement, you've got the miraculous movement, and you've got the motivational movement. So if you're taking notes or trying to follow along in an outline, you just need to put those categories there. The practical, the confusing, the miraculous, and the motivational movement. And so let's start with that practical one, right? So, I mean, this is just the practical nature of what was happening in verses 31 to about 34. We already said these guys were tired, and here's what happens. The crowd actually sees them. Jesus is taking them to a place that was desolate, but there was no place desolate when people were excited about who you were and what possibly you could bring into their lives. And so they were chasing them. They actually saw them at this lakeside place. And they saw them get into a boat and they were able to see them as they traveled around the shoreline, heading to the place where they were going to land. And these people and others began to follow in this relentless pursuit.
[00:08:58] And Jesus, man, he brought it. He brought power, he brought enthusiasm, he brought excitement, he brought curiosity. He brought all sorts of different kinds of motivation to see him, but also all kinds of different people who were there with all kinds of different needs.
[00:09:18] I don't know where you were last night, but if maybe you were sitting at Fresh with some friends, listening to music, or maybe you went to some sort of game, or you were just hanging out with your neighbors, maybe making brats or hamburgers or something. And you know, if Jesus would have been in that moment with you last night, wherever you were, you know, he would have been the most attractive person there for sure. Everybody would have been gravitating towards him either because of curiosity or anger or need or whatever it was. People would be gravitating towards Jesus and they were all be moving towards him. And that's what was happening here.
[00:09:55] And so as they were doing that, in verse 35, what we see is that Jesus begins to teach. I mean, sorry, at the end of verse 34, Jesus begins to teach them many things.
[00:10:05] Jesus begins to preach, Jesus begins to instruct. Jesus begins to talk about what his purpose in life was, what the Father had in mind, that redemption was the Father's heart, that forgiveness of sins was the Father's desire. This was what he was doing. This is what he was here and what he was about.
[00:10:25] And so as he teaches, something practical happens. It starts to get late. And in verse 35, when it starts to grow late, the disciples come to him practically, they come to him and they say, listen, this is a desolate place. The hour is late. Let's send them away to go into the surrounding countrysides and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.
[00:10:52] I think that's funny in some ways because it's not like there was a chick fil a or a whataburger or whatever. You know, there were some people that had homes and homesteads and some villages. This was kind of a desolate place. So there wasn't a whole lot around. But the best thing that these guys could come up with is let's go send 5,000 plus people into this countryside and let's let them buy food from the people who were there.
[00:11:17] Now remember, it's late. Remember that this is desolate. Remember, like, this is their best option in some senses.
[00:11:27] So the Practical movement.
[00:11:30] But here's what I want to help you see through each one of these points something to remember and embrace.
[00:11:36] See, Jesus Christ works in the context of our humanity, which includes both our physical and are spiritual. Jesus Christ works in the context of our humanity. So what I'm saying by that is that these guys, these people are hungry. These people have physical bodies just like you and me. These people are in need of blood sugar being raised and nutrition happening in their lives because. And Jesus is going to take advantage of the human condition so that they can become these people who, who are understanding what his real message is.
[00:12:15] So the practical, all this stuff that these guys thought was a great idea gets replaced by the confusing.
[00:12:27] Look, what Jesus tells them, the confusing movement makes its way on.
[00:12:34] And I'll tell you, I know this is true. Oftentimes God calls us to do something that seems absolutely illogical or unpractical. And that's what happened here.
[00:12:44] These disciples are up telling Jesus, Jesus, this is what we're going to have to do. Listen, we got a great idea. We've already figured this out. We're going to send some off to the east, some off to the west, some off to the south, some off to the north. We got it done. We got to get these people some food. And we're only going to be able to do that if we send them out and Jesus hears their story. And I can just envision what his look on his face must have been when he just looks at him and he says, and brings verse 37.
[00:13:10] You give them something to eat.
[00:13:15] Hmm. That's not exactly what the disciples were looking for in this situation. Jesus was redirecting them and it was like, wait, what? We had this great idea. It was all worked out.
[00:13:29] You ever been around a bunch of people who had this great idea? You know that phrase, right? When you're sitting in a brainstorming meeting, there's never a bad idea. That's probably not true, right? And these guys must have been kind of thinking that Jesus, I, I know we want to kind of keep the whole thing open. We know, we kind of want to make sure that we understand that there's probably some good ideas. But the idea that you have right now that we're supposed to give them food, that is a bad idea. Let's just, let's just go back to the original idea, right? And, and Jesus says, no, I, I think, I think it's probably the best thing.
[00:14:01] You give them food.
[00:14:03] And so I think at the end of verse 37, where he says, shall we go where? The disciples say, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? I don't think that was really like a possibility they were considering. Number one, knowing the state of the disciples of Jesus, they didn't have $200 or $200 denarii. That's eight months wages.
[00:14:29] I think what they were saying was, Jesus, are you nuts? We don't got that kind of money. And even if we had that kind of money, there wouldn't be.
[00:14:36] Yeah, we can't do that. Jesus, well, we got to have a better idea.
[00:14:41] They were confused by this whole thing.
[00:14:44] And I think that's an important thing to remember, that confusion reigns often, but confusion reigns. And remember. This is the thing we need to remember and embrace.
[00:14:56] Confusion reigns until one thing happens.
[00:15:00] God steps in.
[00:15:03] You ever been in a confusing situation?
[00:15:05] You ever been in a situation that you didn't think was going to work out? That everything seems lost, everything seems like it's going to end in a turmoil? It's hopeless. You can't do anything about that. And it just seems every solution that you either think about or somebody else gives you, or maybe even when you read the Word of God and it tells you to live one way instead of the way you're living, you know, here's the thing. You've already set your course.
[00:15:30] You already think you have the best idea. And then Jesus sends in confusion, which actually is not confusion at all.
[00:15:39] Because Jesus sends in the power of God.
[00:15:44] We have this tendency to forget who is working with us for us.
[00:15:51] I think most of us have the tendency to forget that we are working with a miraculous God.
[00:15:59] And that leads us to the next movement, the miraculous movement. Jesus takes the stage when all's lost, when everything is wrecked, when nothing seems possible.
[00:16:13] Jesus connects our temporal lives with.
[00:16:18] To his eternal existence.
[00:16:20] Jesus connects who we are as physical beings and says, there's something more.
[00:16:27] There's the power of God that I can unleash in this moment.
[00:16:32] See, Jesus Christ wants to replace the narrative in our heads about how things can't work.
[00:16:40] I could never get to that place. It will never be. I'll never be able to satisfy my boss. I'll never be able to heal this relationship. I'll never be able to break this addiction. I'll never be able to stop doing those things that frustrate people.
[00:16:58] And Jesus wants us to rewrite that narrative, to say, not never, but in fact, in the power of God.
[00:17:07] One from eternity past can make this a Reality in your life, the truth of it.
[00:17:14] So Jesus, what does he do in this miraculous movement? He asks these disciples, hey, go figure out how much food we have. How many loaves of bread do we have? And they come back and they tell them, we got five loaves of bread. Oh, and an extra little bonus, two fish.
[00:17:30] Now, I want you to think about this in a minute. I want you to think pita bread, not wonder bread loaves. I want you to think sardines, not tuna, right? Or tuna, right?
[00:17:42] This is not a massive amount of food. This is likely somebody's lunch is what this is.
[00:17:48] And Jesus says, okay, here's what we're gonna do. Look at verse 39. I mean, it's so funny, right? It doesn't even seem like we know. How did this actually happen?
[00:17:59] Wouldn't you want to be asking Jesus, how'd you do that? What's the trick behind that? Right? How did that actually work? Well, here's the only thing Jesus says to them, really, about the whole thing. He says, okay, verse 39, I want you to go sit down in groups of down in groups on the green grass. And so they sat down in groups by 50s and hundreds. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the bread and gave them to the disciples to set before the people.
[00:18:31] I mean, here's what was going on in the moment. He was helping these people find a place, find stuff to eat to get it going. And he tells them to sit down in groups. One commentator I read said that the reason he sat them down in groups is because it looked back to the nation of Israel when they were in the wilderness. And they were put in the camp each evening according to the tribe that they were in. It was this ordered situation.
[00:18:58] And one of the things that Jesus was doing was giving the reminder and maybe even making a new way that said, while the Israelites were brought forth to bring Jesus to us, the Redeemer to us, now he was setting these people up in groups so that they could be the church which would take this message of the Gospel Jesus, that the Israelites brought forth and take it to the world. It's a beautiful picture, a symbolic picture of being seated there. And when they were seated there, I don't know how it happened, but everybody got fed.
[00:19:36] Everybody got fed. In fact, everybody got fed so much that there was more at the end left over than they started with the miraculous work of God. It's crazy, but it's the miracle working power. When you have a God who can work miracles in that way. A God who can do anything.
[00:19:59] Why would you expect that he couldn't feed a mere 5,000 plus people?
[00:20:05] I mean, he spoke creation into existence.
[00:20:09] Nobody can do that.
[00:20:12] There's a preacher that I used to love. His name is S.M. lockridge. Maybe some of you heard about him, but he.
[00:20:17] Here's how he describes God making something from nothing. He says that God reached out where there was nowhere to reach and caught something where there was nothing to catch and hung something on nothing and told it to stay there.
[00:20:32] That's a great statement. God, man. He was standing on nothing because there was nowhere to stand on anything, right? There wasn't anything to stand on. And he reached out and he took something that really wasn't there because there's nothing.
[00:20:46] And he took that nothing and made it into something. And he hung it in the world, in the universe, and he told it to stay there. You know what it did? Why? Because he has the creative power to do that.
[00:20:58] That's pretty amazing.
[00:21:00] Jesus can move in your hearts and in your life just like that.
[00:21:05] He's powerful, right?
[00:21:08] And then, not only did he do that, he took Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, and put him over Egypt. And then when time was done, the nation of Israel had been built. He split the Red Sea in front of them, and then he fed them. Think about this. There's so many themes of God feeding people. He fed them for 40 years in the wilderness every day.
[00:21:33] And the day they crossed into the promised land, having come, conquered it, you know what happened? He stopped feeding them. Because now they could now live off the land that had been planted for them. Unbelievably beautiful, right?
[00:21:48] That's what God does. He's got that power. He defeated all the enemies. At one point, Elijah was visiting this widow who had nothing else to eat, and he says to her, make me something to eat, and God will always fill your jar of flour and your jug of oil so that it never goes empty.
[00:22:11] It's not hard for Jesus to feed a few thousand people with a few loaves of bread and a couple fish.
[00:22:19] He's powerful. He works.
[00:22:23] Now, the final movement in the last few minutes.
[00:22:27] And that's really the motivation. Why? Why did Jesus do this?
[00:22:31] Look back to verse 34.
[00:22:35] When he went ashore. He saw a great crowd and he had what?
[00:22:39] Compassion.
[00:22:42] You know what happens when compassion and power come together?
[00:22:48] People's lives get changed.
[00:22:51] Do you know that People's. That God's compassion and power is not only available to Us, but he desires us to trust in it and live by it.
[00:23:07] I mean, he was so broken up, Jesus was so broken up by the fact that these people were sheep without a shepherd.
[00:23:18] I don't know if you know much about sheep.
[00:23:20] I don't really know that much about sheep. But I do know that sheep need somebody to shepherd them, to guide them and direct them, or most often they die because something will either devour them or they'll go someplace that they can't get out of, or they won't naturally move to find new places to graze. And so they'll eat the roots and the dirt and they'll die because sheep aren't that smart, right?
[00:23:51] And it's not a mistake that we are often thought of and referred to by God as sheep.
[00:23:59] And he says, I look at these people and they're a sheep without a shepherd. Which is a condemnation against the leaders of the temple and the Jewish faith.
[00:24:07] Because these Pharisees and these priests were not leading their sheep.
[00:24:13] They weren't nourishing them, they weren't protecting them. They weren't teaching them the truth about the lies of the world, about the flesh and the devil.
[00:24:22] They were just letting these sheep, these Israelites, go forth. They were lost people. Jesus was looking at them. Their lives, as Jesus knew, were unhinged.
[00:24:34] Their identity was completely wracked. They didn't know who they were or whose they were.
[00:24:41] Their priorities were warped. Their perspective was out of whack as well.
[00:24:46] And they were hopeless.
[00:24:49] And that's really not just those people that day at that lake.
[00:24:56] It's everybody.
[00:24:59] Maybe you're there right now feeling these things, this lack of identity, this warp perspective, this hopelessness.
[00:25:07] See, the thing that God wants for us to understand is that this whole thing about feeding 5,000 people is more than just about physical hunger.
[00:25:20] It's a picture actually of Jesus mission.
[00:25:24] See, Jesus was feeding them physically for the point of helping them understand that they actually needed spiritual food.
[00:25:36] They actually needed the nourishment of the gospel. See, we tend to want food in our bellies, but we really need it for our souls.
[00:25:45] You know, the big work in this miracle wasn't really the miracle.
[00:25:51] It was what the miracle was pointing to.
[00:25:54] It was the message of redemption fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[00:26:01] And you know that table in that palace in Hyderabad holds 101 people.
[00:26:08] That's a lot of people at a dinner party.
[00:26:12] Jesus actually fed 5,000 or more on that lakeside.
[00:26:20] But you know what?
[00:26:21] He has a bigger banquet available.
[00:26:25] And that Bigger banquet available has this, well, open invitation.
[00:26:33] Acts 2:21 says this and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
[00:26:42] Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will enter into that dinner party with Jesus forgiven and free.
[00:26:52] So I would love for you to remember and embrace this that if you are still separated from him by your sin, receive his gift of forgiveness by faith in what he did on the cross.
[00:27:14] And if you are already sitting at the table, remember the table will always have availability.
[00:27:26] And our heartbeat as the church ought to be, believing that God wants more and more at his table and that we can expectantly walk into conversations with people and know that God is going to move.
[00:27:49] There's an urgency about the gospel.
[00:27:52] We're living in days that are short, just like the whole history of the church.
[00:28:00] But people need the Lord and we need to invite them into that banquet. Let's pray together.
[00:28:08] God, I'm grateful for our time together this morning, for the grace that is the gospel, for the power that is you in the midst of that.
[00:28:19] And while we might get messed up in our own thoughts, in our own heads and our own narrative, God, we might be just like the disciples back then who were practically trying to solve something and confuse by the way you were going to solve it. And then seeing how miraculous you are changed everything. And because of the power that exhibited in that moment. But it wasn't just about the power. It was about your motive, which was your compassion.
[00:28:53] You love us.
[00:28:56] There's nothing you can't do.
[00:28:58] There's no length that you won't go.
[00:29:00] Thank you for that. In Jesus name, amen. Let's stand in worship together.
