Jesus' Office and Operation

John 6:1-21

Transcript

And spirit, may your work be accomplished in us. We pray. Amen. Well, you might have noticed that we are in a different gospel this Sunday and what happens in this year b of the lectionary reading is we have been walking through the gospel of Mark and we will continue to do so all the way up to the advent season at the end of November. But every once in a while we are going to take a detour into the gospel of John because there's only three years a, b and c in lectionary readings that kind of get you all of the gospel and the majority of all the Bible.
And what they do is a is Matthew, b is Mark and then c is Luke and then they intersperse John throughout all those three years. And so today we take a detour and look at John chapter six, verses one through 21. And you might be familiar with these miracles. There's John couples, these two miracles of the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus walking on the water. Now what's interesting about the feeding of the 5000 is that it is in all four gospels.
You don't always have the same stories. In all four gospels you might have a couple of gospels that might share some of the miracles and stories of Jesus ministries, maybe even three of them. But to have all four, that's usually Jesus passion, death, burial and resurrection. So what is so significant and important to have the feeding of the 5000 in all four? Well, that's the question I hope to answer for us this morning is what is so significant for Jesus to be feeding 5000 with five loaves of bread and two fish?
And I think it boils down to two things. One, in the feeding of the 5000 we do see Jesus office that he embodies. And two, we see what kind of operation he has come to accomplish in that office. And that is first and foremost seen in the people's response. In John chapter six, verse 14.
We really got to expand the footprint of this pulpit here. John 614 says, therefore when the people saw the sign in which he had performed, which is the feeding of the 5000, they said this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. So whatever the miracle was, which was the feeding of 5000, it was plus 5000. Plus that was just the men involved. And they took five loaves of bread and two fish from a little boy and Jesus gave thanks, broke it and then served all them.
They collected twelve baskets full of leftover bread. And that is a miraculous thing. And seeing that and experiencing that the people were led to say this. That is this the prophet or he is the prophet that was to come that we were told. And so in the minds of those people sitting there on that grass like sheep.
And we looked at that last week that Jesus is the good shepherd and these people are sheep and he sees them with compassion. So he sits them down, they have a meal together. And in their minds those people sitting there are gonna be familiar with things like deuteronomy, 1815 that says this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen. You shall listen to him.
That's Moses saying, there is going to be one like me, like a Moses that is going to be raised up from your own people. And he is the one that you really need to listen to. So this is the prophet that's always been lingering in the minds of God's people to understand like, okay, God is going to send even a better Moses to us. And so when Jesus is feeding the 5000 and multiplying this food as if it is just food that comes down from heaven they're having flashbacks to all the way of these stories of when God gave his people in the wilderness manna to sustain their lives. And so maybe that's what's in their mind.
Or maybe it's Elijah. Maybe it's Elijah the great prophet, the one that exercised power and potency in his ability to be a prophet and steer the wayward Israel back to her God. Because in Malachi four, five and six it says, behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet. Before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. So maybe it is that they are now seeing Jesus as Elijah which we read in lectionary readings coming from two kings, chapter four when Elijah did almost the exact same thing and multiplied this food and fed people.
So maybe that's what's in their mind. But regardless of who they thought Jesus might have been we are understanding this to mean that Jesus is fulfilling these office of prophets. These great prophets of Moses and Elijah who later on appear at the mountain of transfiguration with Jesus. These great prophets is now embodied in Jesus. That Jesus is even better and greater than Moses, is better and greater than Elijah.
But it doesn't stop there. The feeding of the 5000 even stirs their hearts and their minds take flight. That make Jesus to be their king. And they want this to happen so much so that they intended to make him king by force, we're told. John 615.
So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take him by force to make him king he withdrew again to the mountain alone, by himself. And so what we have here is the offices of Christ. And these are important for us to understand and I'm going to share with you why here in just a moment. But we have to first and foremost see that in the minds of these people they're expecting a Moses like character and that's the trigger that allows them to see that this is God's promise to them and that they see what has been told in Elijah. That there's going to be one that comes in power like Elijah.
The one that will come and he will stay the wrath of God so that we will not perish by the wrath of God and be crushed. That's what the people are beginning to identify Jesus with in the feeding of the 5000 and why I think all the gospel writers are communicating this because it is important what the shadows of all the old testament that the people were so familiar with are meant to stir their hearts and help them understand. So that when Jesus is present when Jesus actually comes into the scene when he comes down from heaven and walks among us that we might be able to understand who he is and identify him. A couple weeks ago I confessed and mentioned that I, in my high school career, wrote in a journal and I did this by candlelight. And one of the things I wrote in that journal was the things I was looking for in a wife.
I don't know. You can ask me all day. I don't really know why I was so geared to, like, do all these things to look for a wife. Maybe it's because I was insecure and I just thought I would never get married. And so I'm just gonna hope it and wish it to come true.
But I don't know. But I. In the back of my journal, I almost brought it this morning but I forgot. In the back of my journal were all these attributes that I wanted in a wife and I got those from the women that I had observed in the church and even from my own mom the women that I highly adored and respected. I'm like, you know what?
That's a great attribute in a wife and one of those is I wanted somebody to love me with the exact type of love and with the exact same of level of love that I love them. I didn't want to be in a relationship where I felt like I was giving 110% or even 100%. And then that person, it felt like they were only giving me 70 or 90 because I saw the relationship that my mom and my dad had. And it seemed that my mom was very loving and caring and doing everything he had ever asked. And my dad very rarely would say thank you or reciprocate.
I wanted a relationship with reciprocation, so I wrote that down. I also loved blue eyes. I was like, we're going to write that down. And so I wrote all this list and it was all from these, the women that I was observing in the church, these shadows of the one to come. And the first crush I had.
Her name was Jill. And man, I was head over heels. And the reason why we probably never dated is because I was two head over heels and I didn't know how to curb my, hey, I said, we should get married. You're amazing. And she's like, okay, creep.
And she pushed me away. I say that because all that leads up to all these attributes and everything to the day I met Melissa. And this is one of the things that I recall when I met Melissa, that I was no longer going to compromise on this list that I originally made because I truly believed it was the manifestation of a godly woman and she needs to have these characteristics. I'm not willing to engage in marriage again with anybody less than what I knew God had laid in my heart to look for. And when it came down that I learned her middle name was Jill, I knew that all those things leading up were pointing to the reality that Melissa Jill was to be my wife.
And all these attributes of how she reciprocates was the reality of what I was longing for. And I say that as an analogy that that's how you ought to read the Old Testament. That these people thought the greatest of all time was Moses, Elijah, Noah, all these guides back in there. These guys are only shadows of the one to come. And that's Jesus Christ.
And that's the significance of why Jesus feeds the 5000 so that he can call to their attention. Do you remember when God fed the people, his people, out in the wilderness and sustained their life? Well, guess what? I am better than that. Not only can I just feed you with a simple five loaves of bread and two fish and multiply it so that you get physical nourishment in just the next few verses.
Later on in John, he says, I'm the bread of life that comes down from heaven. And if you feed on me, you will be satisfied. I will take care of every need spiritually for you, I am greater than Moses. Moses couldn't do any of that on his own. I am the one.
I am the son of God. And I am the greatest of all prophets to come and declare to you that God is here to save you. And that's just one of the aspects of why I believe the gospels. All four of them are pointing to you. This feeding of 5000 but not only that but even a greater kingdom.
To those people. King David was the greatest of all kings. He was the man after God's own heart. And yet one who comes from David is even greater than David. And they want to make him king.
They see something in Jesus that they want to make him king immediately. They're not going to take no for an answer. But Jesus knowing all things new that his time is not now and that he withdrew to be with his father because him and his dad had this plan from the beginning how they were going to redeem the people and they were going to work every angle of it meticulously. And that brings us to the whole second reason for why I believe the feeding of the 5000 is mentioned in all four gospels and is on par with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus mentioned in all four gospels. And that is because it also shows us how jesus intends to operate.
It shows us what jesus has come to accomplish. And it does so by offering to us an example of small things that point to greater realities. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked. What I mean is Luke 1610.
This is what jesus says in Luke 1610. He who is faithful in a very little thing is also faithful in much. And he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous in much and also in much. And so Jesus, in this miracle the feeding of the 5000 demonstrates something very small for him but very great to them. He says, I can take, if I can take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed more than 5000 people.
If I could do that small of a miracle imagine what I can do for you. Which is a greater thing. He is communicating a greater reality through this miracle. And these are the things that he's communicating as good news to his people. These miracles aren't just like, hey, that's really cute.
That's nice, man. That's great. That's cool that those people got fed that day. Jesus is always for the end game. And that is, I've come to bring salvation.
I'm the bread of life. He will go on later to say it says, and you can trust me that that is true, because you just witnessed something like this, the feeding of 5000. You can trust when I talk to you about spiritual things, greater things for you and your salvation because of all these miracles, because the blind see, because the deaf heard the lame walk because prisoners are set free. All those things being small in comparison to the great redeeming quality that Jesus does by dying on the cross. All that pales in comparison to that.
But all those things are meant to point to that greater reality. And that's what he's also demonstrating in the feeding of the 5000. Yesterday David mentioned the gentleman that rode his bike. And I took the opportunity because he was pouring down sweat and he was worried that he wasn't going to get any food. And he drove all the way from Bailouton Road, all the way from Beliton and I took it upon myself.
I said, hey, do you want to ride back? And, you know, and I sat here and I preached to you like when people ride with me not only do they get a free ride, I'm more than a Uber driver. I'm also going to present to them Jesus Christ. So we talked. He was a believer already, but we talked and I gave him the good news.
And the good news is something that should be on the edge of our tongues all the time that we should be able to say, here's the good news. And so when we come to these two coupled miracles how can we communicate the good news about that? What's the good news about a dude who took five loaves of bread and two fish and fed more than 5000? There's a lot of good news to that. It's such good news that.
Isn't it nice that when you're hungry and in need and there's no food around that you can believe in one who can create food from nowhere. That's good news. Because what that means is when you're incapable of providing for yourself or you're struggling or you're fainting or you're wanting that you believe in a God who can open up his hands as we just read the psalms and he satisfies the desires of all these, that's good news. Can you do that for others? Can others do that for you?
No, but a great and loving, kind God can do that for you. That's really good news to those who are starving hungry and thirsty to be saved. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, I know I've been talking a lot about the feeding of the 5000 and you're like, there's two miracles here coupled and I was trying to be very gracious to you and considerate of your time and not wanting to go into the other one because we might be here for another couple hours. But in order to get your money's worth, I do want to mention Jesus walking on the water because John here puts them both together.
They run in 21 verses. They run together. So what is that? And what that is is the fact that it's good news that Jesus can walk on water. Because if you listen to John, the way he's telling the story, and this is in three gospels, not four.
The way they tell the story, they have similar elements. The sea is raging, the disciples are fearing, and here comes Jesus walking on the water. The only account where Peter gets out of the boat is in Matthew. And what happens? We all know that Peter looks at the waves and begins to sink.
Now, this isn't the first time that happens in history. There's another time this all happens in history, and that is Noah and his ark. People are screaming because the wrath of God is being poured out on the whole surface of the earth. People are drowning, the seas are raging, the winds are blowing, and all are going to their death, with the exception of those who are in the ark that are upon the waters. And Jesus is demonstrating that I am even better than Noah's ark because I simply reach out my hand and extend it to you and raise you up and rescue you from the wrath of God.
And I do so by cleansing you of all unrighteousness for the forgiveness of sins. Because I'm going to die. I'm going to suffer the wrath of God, and I'm going to satisfy it so that you never have to experience it. I want to make atonement for your sins and so that your sins can be cast as far as the east is from the west, so that God remembers them no more. Therefore, you can stand before God justified and have a relationship with him.
That's the good news of Jesus walking on the water. Because nobody can walk on water. We all would be swallowed up. Every single one of us would drown. And it's a good news that there is one who can't drown because he's above the waters.
And it's good news that there's one who can calm the winds and the storm at the command of his voice. Dad, don't strike them. They're mine.
And it all ceases. And in John's account, they're immediately brought to the other side. They're immediately delivered to where they need to be. That's the story of the good news of Jesus. The point about smaller things going into greater things also manifests itself in our own lives.
Not to continue to be a romantic and draw attention to my marriage but I will again, one more time because we wrote our vows for one another when we got married. And one of the things that I really wanted to point out in my vow was that we all say maybe. Well, I think the majority of men would say this at their wedding ceremony is that we're willing to lay down our lives for our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. So we all say that. But that's actually the greater thing.
And what we communicate, gentlemen, when we're not willing to do things for our wives like wash the dishes for them, take out the trash or rub their feet because they're sore when we're not willing to do those smaller things it communicates that we're not really truthful on the greater thing. If you're willing to lay down your life but you're not willing to do certain things for your wife then how is she to believe you in the greater thing if you're not willing to do the smaller things? That's the hard reality.
I promised my wife that I would love her and treat her kindly every day of my life. If I'm not willing to wake up and she wants me to kiss her for more than 6 seconds because she says something does something in the brain to make her have a better day. If I'm not willing to commit myself to doing that then how can she believe that when I tell her I will sacrifice my life for you, I will lay it down? How can she believe that if I couldn't do something so simple as to care for her in a small need that she might have or be willing to put up with an attitude that she might be struggling with. If I can't do that there's no way for her to believe that I would do the greater thing.
And that's a again, the point that Jesus is making. If I can walk on water and if I can feed more than 5000 people with just some scraps then you can trust my word and believe in me that all the other great things I'm about to do you can trust and I will accomplish in you this office that I present as your king and as prophetesse and as your savior and all these operations that I've come down to do namely your salvation and sanctification I will see through to the end. And just to show you that I will, I'm doing the smaller things. So what applications do we have for our lives in looking at these coupled episodes of Jesus miracles? One is that as we study these shadows of Christ, Moses, Abraham, even all the great men of renown and faith in the Old Testament, when we study them, we begin to learn new dimensions of who Christ is.
We see pieces of Abraham and Jesus. We see pieces of Moses and Elijah and David and Noah and all the good men of faith that the Bible shares with us. And we're able to fully grasp and understand because of them more of who Jesus is. And you might be thinking, well, that's fine, but did we need all those people?
Why couldn't God just give us Christ, the pinnacle of everything? Why do we need all these shadows? Why do we need all these other men? Why does he take so long and is so patient and long suffering with us to show us the Old Testament, all these stories, and then Jesus comes, just give us Jesus. But you're forgetting one thing.
We're kind of ignorant. We don't fully see if Jesus was right before our faces. And the loving kindness and wisdom of God says, I have laid before you men that are examples of my son, so that when my son comes, you will be able to identify him, because you recognize that these men have quality of some attributes and they're going to all be embodied in a person. And you wouldn't be able to handle it if I just delivered that straight to you, right? Just like when I was young and had Melissa been in my life, I would not have been able to handle the full woman that she is because I wasn't yet ready or mature enough to handle it.
But God put women in my life to look at say, okay, that's a good quality to have. Write that one down. So that when I was ready and he presented my bride to me, I was able to receive her fully and understand how much she is my wife and that I am her husband. And that's exactly why we need to be reading the Old Testament and seeing Jesus in those things. It stirs our hearts to understand him more and in deeper, meaningful ways.
We also see that in serving others in small ways will encourage them to believe us when we communicate big things about their life. What I mean is, it's one thing to go out here and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with somebody, and I guarantee the number one comment they're going to say, like, but you didn't care about me before, and all you want me to do is receive Jesus. How? Why should I trust you. Why should I take you at your word and believe that Jesus is anything to me and has done anything for me?
Well, it's in the small things. It's in committing ourselves that we don't need to. We don't have to spend our Saturday mornings feeding people food, but we do so because there's greater realities out there that we want to tell them about. And we want them to trust us when we tell them about Jesus. And a great way to do that is in the small things.
Caring for other people in the small little ways, offering them rides, giving them food, being there when they need somebody. All those little things do build up an account so that they're ready to hear the greatest thing that they can ever hear. And that is the good news of who Jesus Christ is. That's an application for us from these stories that we need to be involved in doing some small things for other people. We need to be loving others so that they can learn how much God loves them.
And then they reciprocate that love back to God because they are so thankful. That's what we need to be doing. Which pretty much tells us that our faith should be both seen in small ways and in big ways. That it might be the big thing to do, to come to worship on Sunday. That's the big thing where we display most of our faith.
But what about in the mundane things of life, in the daily practices of your life? Are you demonstrating your faith when your budget's gonna skew, when the money's not rolling in, when you don't have the food on the table, when your kids are ornery, they got all them teeth and no toothbrush? Like, do you exercise faith in those small things when you don't know what the Lord has next for you or what he wants you to do?
Going to church and listening to the preaching of God's word, that's the big thing. I exercise faith and I believe in that. I trust in it. And that's needed, that we are to be a people of faith. Everything we do needs to be riddled in faith.
That's what I preached a few weeks ago, and I'm learning that that is more true each and every day. That I'm not trying to force my way through life in this christian life, that I'm just believing my way through it, exercising my faith in it. And it's in the small things and in the big things that faith needs to be communicated to be the full orbed faith that God has called us to. And lastly, let us not forget the power that Jesus did these things by, the power that Jesus performs every one of his miracles. We are told in the gospels, in his baptism he receives the Holy Spirit.
This holy Spirit descends upon him, and the father speaks his blessing over his son. This is my son with whom I am well pleased. Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit and that's to signify that his whole entire life and ministry is empowered by the Holy Spirit. So him being able to feed these five thousands comes from being in tandem with the person of this Holy Spirit. That the Son and the Spirit are executing all these miraculous things together, working together, executing the will of the Father, all this is empowering Jesus life.
He can endure the cross, he can endure the shame, he can endure the wrath of God being empowered by the Holy Spirit, he can work these miracles because he's empowered by the Holy Spirit. And this is why it's so good news that when Luke writes to us in the book of acts, that when Jesus ascends to the right hand of God, he pours out his spirit, the same one that has been embodying him, to perform all these good things, he pours it out on us who believe in him. You believe in Jesus, he gives you his spirit so you are capable of doing the same things and living the same way and believing the same truth that Jesus does. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes us like Jesus. So we are able to now live like Jesus lived, because we're filled with that exact same spirit.
And that's good news. We can't just read these miracles and say, that's great, and just ponder, why is it that he does share the spirit with us? It's because as he is preparing a place for us at the right hand of God the father, he's now employed. All his people who love him say, now, go and do greater things than I did, which is what Jesus tells us, you will go on to do greater things than all these. Oh, you were impressed with that miracle, Philip.
You're impressed that I knew you. I saw you under the fig tree. You're impressed with that. I would tell you there's going to come a day where you will see greater things than these. And he tells his disciples, you will do greater things than these because I'll give you my spirit.
That's amazing. And we have a responsibility then as his church, as his bride, to go and be Christ to the world, embodying and executing the same things that Jesus, when he came into the world is doing.
And a word of caution and warning, I guess, and it's obviously not in my notes, but I feel like it needs to be mentioned is that when you do that, don't just feel like everybody is going to be overly giddy about receiving whatever you're going to be doing in the spirit to them and saying and speaking to them. And it's what I mean. When you present the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are not always going to be met with a reception of joy and they're not going to receive it. And I was reminded by the events that took place this week in the Olympics. I never use the pulpit, talk politics and I'm not.
I will point out the fact that of all the religions out there, all the very, even conservative religions that would not condone any of the modern culture and where they're going are never made fun of. The only religion that the world will seek to defile and make fun of and become blasphemous on is Christianity. And when I saw the opening ceremony in Paris and they paraded with drag queensland an image of one of the things we hold dear, which is the last supper of our Lord Savior Jesus Christ, the question becomes, why us? And Jesus warned us. He says, they hated me, the world hates me.
The world wants to kill me. And if you follow after me, you gotta be willing to take up your cross because they'll be willing to kill you too.
So I just say that as warning as we go out there to live the spirit empowered life, to live out our faith in small and big things as we go and share the gospel, the good news that Jesus feeds 5000 and walks on water, you might be hated for it.
And are you willing to say, Jesus, I'll die for you? And if you could say that Jesus, I'll die for you. My life is yours. You do what it's forfeit. Whatever you want, do it.
Do it through me. But yet you struggle to open up your bible each and every day or spend time in prayer or anything. All those other small things work on being consistent in your life saying, okay, I lay my life down for you, but I also will get out of bed and go tend to somebody today as well. Let's pray.
Jesus, we thank you that you are a God who feeds 5000. We thank you for the good news that you walk on water for these things. Communicate to us that you do possess the power and the ability to rescue us when we're in danger and to feed us when we are hungry, so that all of us who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. That's what you tell us. And we thank you.
We thank you for all that you've done for us. And now embolden us, make us strong. Fashion us into the bride you want us to be, through your word. And as we get ready to go out into the world, may we be the image that you have displayed before us in these gospel writings. May we be to the world what you have been to us.
And we'll give you all the praise and the glory for it.