If you have your Bible with you, please open it up to the Gospel of John, chapter 6.
We're continuing to work our way through the story of Jesus.
We're going kind of slow, but we're milking it for all it's worth.
And this morning we're in chapter 6.
Last Sunday we finished up the conversation that Jesus was having with the religious leaders
after he was challenged for healing a man on the Sabbath.
And if you remember back to last Sunday, the big question under the surface that Jesus
seemed to be responding to was, why should we believe you?
Jesus had been making some pretty big claims.
He claimed to have power and authority to raise people from the dead, to give them eternal life,
and to do the work of final judgment on his Father's behalf.
Why should we believe you?
And Jesus told us that his Father has himself been testifying that what Jesus says is true.
And we talked about some of the ways that the Father has testified about Jesus, his Son.
One of the clearest and most significant statements that Jesus made was in chapter 5, verse 36.
He said,
So Jesus made it clear that the evidence that all he is saying is true is the works that he is doing.
He is doing things which no one but God could do.
He is doing things that fulfill the prophecies made long ago.
This should be taken as confirmation that he is the Son of God.
If Jesus is in a courtroom right now and on trial and the world is seated in the rows watching,
then according to Jesus, God the Father himself is a witness who brings a testimony.
And a big part of the testimony of the Father is that he has given Jesus these special works to do,
and some of them are miraculous.
Well, this morning, John wants to tell us about one of those truly spectacular works
that Jesus did sometime after this conversation.
And even though this particular miracle that we're going to look at today is well known,
and it had been included in all the other gospel accounts written before John,
John could not leave this out because it was truly amazing.
Let's read what John writes in chapter 6, starting in verse 1.
Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee.
That is the Sea of Tiberias.
So Jesus is not in Jerusalem anymore.
He's gone back into Galilee, and sometime later he's crossed over to the other side
or to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Verse 2,
And a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.
So there's this vast multitude of people that is now following Jesus as he journeys about.
They're following him.
They're following him even out into the open country, across lakes.
And John tells us why.
Because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick.
Literally, they were following him because they were seeing the signs that he was doing upon the sick people.
Notice a couple things here.
First, Jesus has drawn the attention of this vast multitude, not just because they've heard some good things about him,
but because they were seeing.
Like with their eyes, they were seeing repeatedly again and again the signs.
The signs plural, not just one sign, but many signs that he was doing upon the sick people.
And again, in the original language, not just one sick person, but sick people plural.
Jesus wasn't just fooling a few gullible people here and there until it all swelled up into some hype and excitement,
like some of the phony faith healers of our day.
No.
The sense we get here is that people who were sick or ill with all kinds of conditions, sicknesses, diseases, disabilities,
they were going out to Jesus from all over the place, either on their own or with the help of family or friends.
They were going out to Jesus and people were seeing repeatedly again and again these illnesses being healed right in front of their eyes by Jesus.
And if you carry a hint of skepticism here, I understand that.
There have been many so-called faith healers over the years who have not helped.
If you wrestle with that, I want to encourage you to look closely at many of these modern-day faith healers and their healings
and then look closely again at the healings of Jesus, the ones that are recorded in the scriptures.
There's a massive difference.
I was watching a short BBC documentary on YouTube just yesterday and they followed this woman named Emily Yates.
She was born with cerebral palsy and was unable to use her legs for her whole life.
She was in a wheelchair.
And Emily went to one of these modern-day faith healers, a man by the name of John Meller in Australia.
And I watched in this documentary as he prayed and declared the power of cerebral palsy broken in Jesus' name.
At the same time, John had his strong helpers trying to lift this woman up out of her chair onto her feet.
But she wasn't able to stand.
She wasn't able even just to support her own weight on her legs, let alone walk.
Even though she hadn't had any pain in her feet prior to going up to the front, Mr. Meller made a big deal of how God had done something because she doesn't have any pain in her feet after standing with the help of two big, strong men for a couple minutes.
Eventually, they had to let Emily sit back down in her wheelchair.
And she wheeled herself out of the service, disillusioned and disappointed.
At the end of it all, this is what she said in tears.
She says, I keep hearing of all these amazing miracles that are happening.
And all these people with these horrendous illnesses that are getting healed.
And she had attended a number of meetings before she went up to the front.
And all we saw was people with sprained ankles and headaches and frozen shoulders feeling better.
I went on John Meller's website and ironically, meetings have been suspended due to the coronavirus.
I couldn't help but think, well, if he is able to heal people, why not just go to the hospital and do it for those who are in the hospital right now with coronavirus?
Instead, he's put a 90-second video clip on YouTube where he prays and declares the power of coronavirus broken over whoever is watching.
This is not how Jesus healed people.
He didn't do it with a, well, sometimes it works when I pray and ask the Father to do it and sometimes it doesn't.
No, the people flocked out to him because they were actually seeing people that they knew and loved healed of conditions and illnesses, many which had been permanent and devastating.
They were seeing it happen again and again and again.
The lame walking without the help of others after 38 years of being unable to walk.
The man at the pool of Siloam, the blind seeing after decades of not being able to see.
These are not the kinds of things that the modern day faith healers do today.
Even the religious leaders saw some of the signs that he'd been performing and they could not refute them.
Just as Nicodemus said, we heard this last week,
We know that you are a teacher who has come from God.
For no one could perform the signs you are doing unless God were with him.
If even Jesus' opponents, many of whom were bent on discrediting him and killing him, getting him killed,
if even they had to admit that there were real healings happening and could not disprove his miracles,
it tells you something.
The miracles of healing actually happened.
In fact, the other gospel writers tell us that since they couldn't disprove his many miracles of healing,
they instead decided to acknowledge that he was doing them,
that people were getting healed, but tried to make him look bad by saying it was by the power of the devil
that he was doing them.
His miracles of healing were undeniable.
And it's one of the big reasons this morning why thousands and thousands of people
were following him around the Judean countryside.
So here Jesus is with a huge crowd following him around on the far side of the Sea of Galilee.
And John tells us that one particular day, let's read it in verse 3,
Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.
The Jewish Passover festival was near.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him,
he said to Philip,
Where should we buy bread for these people to eat?
He asked this only to test him,
for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him,
It would take more than half a year's wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite.
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up,
Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.
But how far will they go among so many?
So here Jesus is with a huge crowd coming out to them.
And I love this story.
I want you to imagine for a moment that you're Philip.
And Jesus turns to you as this crowd is coming out and says this to you,
Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?
How are you feeling at that moment?
How would you like to be put in charge of hospitality for thousands of people out in the middle of nowhere?
So what does Philip do?
He decides to do a bit of mental math.
And you can almost just imagine his eyes just go wide all of a sudden as he's thinking about this.
And then he responds after a minute,
It would take more than half a year's wages.
Like half of what I make in a year.
More than that.
Just to get each person a bite.
Most of us have probably been to a wedding or a banquet.
These things aren't cheap.
Even a few hundred people can easily be thousands of dollars.
Philip is doing the math here.
This is not going to happen.
We can imagine how his mind must have been racing.
Do we want to spend that kind of money just to give this huge crowd a little snack?
Do we even have that much money in the purse?
Judas.
What's the balance?
Even if we could afford it, how are we going to get all that bread from the nearest town out here?
I know they ate a different kind of bread back then, but just to get a sense of this in my head,
I was just imagining a loaf of wonder bread with 15 slices.
Chop each slice up into four pieces.
That's enough for a mouthful for everyone.
We're talking like 250 loaves of bread.
How are we going to carry all that here?
Do we rent a cart?
Philip is doing the math.
Then there's Andrew.
We don't know exactly what he's thinking,
but at least he has the good sense to figure out what they already have and take a bit of inventory.
Here's a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.
But how far will they go among so many?
And what's funny about this is that John tells us even before Philip and Andrew respond
that Jesus was only saying this to test Philip.
So what kind of test is this?
What would it mean for Philip to pass the test or fail the test?
We don't know.
John doesn't even tell us.
We're kind of left to guess.
But if there's one thing that Jesus seems to want them to realize,
even before the crowd gets here,
it's that feeding this large crowd a lunch or a supper or even a light snack is impossible.
At least by ordinary means.
That's the conclusion that Philip really comes to.
Half a year's wages wouldn't be enough to buy each one a single bite.
We can't do this, Jesus.
It's impossible.
Then there's Andrew.
Let's take inventory.
We've got five little loaves,
which are kind of more like buns in this boy's lunch kit,
and two little sardines here.
How far will that go among so many?
Even if we slice it like this,
it's not going to last long.
It's not possible.
And perhaps that's what Jesus' testing question was meant to reveal.
John tells us that Jesus knew what he was about to do.
Verse 10.
Jesus said,
Have the people sit down.
There was plenty of grass in that place,
and they sat down.
About 5,000 men were there.
Now that's a lot of people.
Then we flip over to Matthew's gospel,
his record of this very same event,
and we read this.
The number of those who ate was about 5,000 men,
besides women and children.
That's a whole lot more people.
I don't know why they just counted the men.
Maybe that was just easier to do in such a large crowd.
Some scholars will guess 15,000 to 20,000 people.
Who knows?
Not everybody had probably a wife or a child or husband who was there,
and some probably brought the whole family.
So let's just be conservative and imagine that it was 10,000 people,
with all the women and children included.
And let's try and visualize this.
Here's a picture of 3,000 people in a theater.
Don't miss the people in the balcony.
There's probably tons of them up there that we can hardly see.
Times that by three-ish.
10,000 people.
Here's a picture of 10,000 people at a sporting event.
Again, don't miss the people that are way up here in the back there.
And then there's all the people out of the shot,
out of the picture,
on this side of the stadium that are watching.
10,000 people.
If you've been to Mosaic Stadium in Regina,
what does it hold?
I think 30,000 or something like that.
Imagine a third of Mosaic Stadium packed.
That's a lot of people.
Have the people sit down, says Jesus.
Okay.
Verse 11.
Jesus then took the loaves,
gave thanks,
and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted.
He did the same with the fish.
When they had all had enough to eat,
he said to his disciples,
gather the pieces that are left over.
Let nothing be wasted.
So they gathered them and filled 12 baskets
with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over
by those who had eaten.
You read that and it's like,
hold on a second here.
Like, what just happened?
Jesus takes the five loaves and the two fish.
He gives thanks.
He prays and thanks God for the provision of them.
And then they begin to distribute them in the baskets
to 10,000 or possibly more people.
And it says that each of those people
had as much as they wanted to eat.
And then after all that,
there were 12 baskets filled with the pieces left over.
What just happened here?
Out in the middle of nowhere,
Jesus miraculously multiplies a boy's lunch
to feed 10,000 or more people
as much as they wanted to eat.
And at the end,
there was even more left over than they started with.
This is impossible.
I was thinking about this.
I would challenge any and all of the world's best magicians
to come together to a location of my choosing.
They wouldn't know what's happening in advance.
And then when they get there,
say, okay, we got 10,000 people coming in 30 minutes
and you have to feed them all.
Here's five loaves and two fish.
They couldn't do it.
Penn and Teller,
David Blaine,
David Copperfield,
Houdini,
they couldn't do it.
This is impossible
by any ordinary ways of doing things.
What Jesus did that day was supernatural.
It was a true miracle.
Something only the power of God could do.
It's one of those miracles,
probably more than any of the others,
that I wish that I could have just been there
to see what happened.
How did it look up close?
Were the loaves just kind of growing back
as they were pulling pieces off of them?
Did they all close their eyes to pray
and then bam,
all the baskets just started bubbling up
with fish and loaves out of thin air?
Where did the bread and the fish come from?
The only thing that the disciples could point to
was the five loaves and two fish
that they had started with.
They couldn't describe it.
Think about the size of that crowd.
They would have needed more fish
than they had caught
when Peter first came to follow Jesus
and the boats were sinking.
As far as miraculous goes,
this is a whole other level.
Back there in the sea,
Jesus made all these fish appear
where they couldn't be seen
down under the water
and then, oh, there they are in the nets.
Fish live in the water.
This is a whole other level.
Jesus causes all of this food
to appear out of nowhere,
right out of thin air,
on land, fish on land.
It's amazing.
It was a phenomenal sign from God,
a work that God gave Jesus to do
that testifies that Jesus has indeed been sent
by his Father, by God,
and is the Son of God.
For those who will only believe
what they can see
and touch and taste and feel,
it doesn't get any more tangible than this.
Each of them there that day
had the evidence that Jesus was sent from God
in their hands,
in their mouths,
in between their teeth,
in their stomachs,
and not just a little bit,
but as much as they wanted,
John tells us.
It's as though the call for seconds
and thirds and fourths went out,
and eventually people just stopped
asking for more.
They were full.
Got me thinking about
the Olive Garden restaurant.
When you go there,
they give you this
warm, freshly baked bread,
and their thing at Olive Garden
is that you can have
as much of that bread as you want,
and as much salad as you want,
and then your meal comes,
even after you finish the main course,
you can keep asking for more bread.
It's bottomless there.
It's unlimited.
But eventually you have to stop asking
because even though the supply is endless,
you can only eat so much.
Jesus made that kind of a meal moment
happen for 10,000 people
out in the middle of the Judean countryside.
And the people recognized
that this was a miracle.
Verse 14.
After the people saw the sign
Jesus had performed,
they began to say,
surely this is the prophet
who is to come into the world.
Not just any prophet
or a small p prophet,
but the prophet,
the one Moses wrote about.
Back in Deuteronomy 18,
God told Moses
about a coming prophet.
The Lord said to me,
what they say is good.
I will raise up for them
a prophet like you, Moses,
from among their fellow Israelites,
and I will put,
this is the Lord speaking,
I will put my words in his mouth.
He will tell them
everything I command him.
I myself will call to account,
says the Lord,
anyone who does not listen to my words
that the prophet speaks in my name.
The people that day
didn't just see a miracle,
they participated in it.
And they understood
that it was a sign from God.
At least some of them,
if not many,
they began to say,
this is the one
that God told Moses
he was going to send,
the prophet.
Verse 15,
Jesus,
knowing that they intended to come
and make him king by force,
withdrew again
to a mountain by himself.
What a response from the people.
Not just the prophet,
but the Messiah,
the son of David,
the one who would be king
and sit on David's throne.
It seems like that's what many of them
were thinking.
So much so that John tells us
they were literally about to come
and grab him
and so that they could make him king.
The time sense is a little unclear here.
It could be that this was right after the miracle
or it could be that the,
this was after the crowd had gone home
and word began to spread about Jesus
and perhaps they started thinking,
man,
we got to go back there.
We got to get him.
We got to start the coronation right now
and march this guy up to Jerusalem.
I'm not sure which it is,
but it seems at this moment,
one thing is for sure,
they wanted to get Jesus installed
as their new king
as soon as possible.
But again,
we see that Jesus knows
what's going on
in the hearts and minds of people.
He knew that was their intent
and so knowing this,
it says he withdrew
by himself again to,
to a mountain.
We might wonder exactly why
Jesus didn't just go along with it,
but I imagine he probably
would have said something like,
my hour has not yet come
or the son of man came
to give his life
as a ransom for many.
As we'll see in the weeks ahead,
many of the people in the crowd
that day
may have believed something true
about Jesus,
but many of their,
many of those people's faith in him,
there's something not quite right about it.
We'll continue the story next Sunday.
But what's here for us this morning?
Well, again,
if you're here this morning
and you're not sure
if you fully believe in Jesus,
maybe you're kind of sitting on the fence,
maybe you believe in part
or some things,
but not all of it.
Maybe you're skeptical
about some of the miracles.
Maybe you just feel like
you're not ready
to surrender your whole life to him,
to give your whole heart to him.
I want to ask you this morning,
do you see the amazing sign
that Jesus did that day?
The people were right.
He was and is
the prophet
that God told Moses
was coming
long ago.
one who would speak
God's very words
to people.
That's what the miracle
that he did
points to.
That he is that one.
Do you hear the words
that God spoke
long ago
through Moses?
I myself
will call to account
anyone
who does not
listen to my words
that the prophet speaks
in my name.
Whether you believe
Jesus' words
and listen to them,
take them seriously,
respond to them,
obey them,
has serious implications.
So if you're sitting
on the faith fence
and maybe only
kind of believe,
I want to call you today
in the presence of God
to get off the fence
and to put your full trust
in Jesus,
to embrace him
and everything
that he said
is true.
For the rest of us
who do believe
like that,
I don't know about you,
but this is one of the
miracles of Jesus
that we are most
familiar with.
And I'll be honest,
even as I was preparing
to preach
or before I had started
my preparation,
I was kind of thinking
the feeding of the 5,000.
I have heard
so many sermons
on the feeding
of the 5,000.
I've read this
so many times.
What could I possibly say
to make this fresh
for us this morning?
Sometimes we just
get so familiar
with things
that we lose
the wonder
of what happened
that day.
Maybe not lose
the wonder
of what Jesus
did that day
for that massive
crowd of people.
even as I got
thinking about that,
I started to wonder,
maybe that's part
of the problem
for many of us
at different times
and in different
seasons of life.
Perhaps even
for some of us today.
We've become
so familiar
with the story
of Jesus
that we've
lost the wonder
of much of it.
It doesn't live
in our hearts
like it used to.
It doesn't spark
the wonder
and amazement
and joy
and thanksgiving
to God
like it used to.
And then I got
thinking about
how losing
the wonder
of Jesus
can affect
every area
of our lives.
Joyful service
of Christ
becomes
begrudging duty.
A feeling
of strength
and energy
in our relationship
with Jesus
becomes a feeling
of tiredness
and weariness.
Joy
is replaced
with boredom.
Thanksgiving
is replaced
with a quiet
grumbling
and discontentment.
Being a Christian
easily changes
into being
all about
what we need
to do for God
now
rather than
about what
he has done
and continues
to do
and has yet
promised to do
for us.
Heartfelt prayer
is replaced
with just
repetitious
sayings
that we do
out of habit
before a meal
or before bed.
Going to church
becomes mainly
about just
seeing other people
rather than
to sing
to and hear
from
Christ himself.
And evangelism
sharing the good
news of Jesus
with others
well
let's put it
this way
we like to
share with people
what we are
most excited
about.
we like to
talk to people
about what
does live
in our hearts
what gives us
that feeling
of wonder
and so if it
isn't Jesus
anymore
then what
is it?
Movies?
Television?
Politics?
News?
the latest
purchase?
Our current
project?
If Jesus
had come
in our day
and he did
this miracle
we would have
caught it on
camera probably
we'd have
these phones
just imagine
him doing it
at Mosaic
Stadium
and you were
there
it would have
gone viral
social media
would be on
fire
why should
we believe
Jesus?
Look at the
things that
he did
the signs
that he
performed
all things
that point
to this
wonderful
truth
that God
himself
has sent
him into
the world
because he
desires a
relationship
with you
have you
lost the
wonder of
our Savior
if you
have
do you
want it
back?
There's
lots of
reasons why
we might
lose the
wonder of
Jesus
maybe like
Jesus said
in the
parable of
the sower
it's the
weeds that
are choking
out the
word of
God so
that you're
not really
hearing from
him anymore
like you
used to
things like
the worries
of this
life
the deceitfulness
of wealth
or simply
the desires
for other
things
which Jesus
says can
come in
and choke
out the
word
there could
be lots
of reasons
but I
think whatever
the reason
it is for
you whether
you know
it or
not
Jesus would
simply say
probably the
same kind
of thing
to you
what should
you do to
get back
the wonder
come to
me
come to
me
come to
me all
you who
are weary
and burdened
come to me
all you who
are thirsty
hungry
those of you
who long
for more
in life
and I
will give
you what
you've been
missing
what you've
been lacking
how do we
do that
we do that
very simply
through prayer
it's a
humble prayer
and opening
his word
to read
and reflect
on what
Christ has
said to
us
as we
do that
in faith
in humility
God's
spirit
makes
his word
fresh
and he
puts the
wonder
into our
hearts
again
and he
keeps it
there
so let's
do that
together
now
Lord Jesus
we come
to you
as a
church
Lord
you know
each of
our
unique
situations
and exactly
what's been
going on
in our
hearts
this week
we come
to you
now
you know
what we
long for
you know
what we
desire
we want
a living
and vibrant
relationship
with you
we want
the joy
that we
read about
so often
in the
scriptures
and that
we heard
you talk
about
we want
the deep
needs of
our souls
met
and so
we come
to you
would you
meet us
here
would you
bring back
the wonder
that maybe
some of us
have lost
and would you
sustain that
in us
not just
for a moment
but for
throughout this
whole week
let it
spill out
of our
lives
too
especially
as we
bump into
people
neighbors
friends
co-workers
we ask this
in Jesus
name
amen
and
turn
board
up
in