Matthew

Have you ever had to make something with nothing?

I had this idea for a new cooking show one time in my room

The Great College Experience

Really that does not even compare to what Jesus can do with what we would consider to be nothing. What I love is when I read Jesus takes what little we have and does something amazing with it. That is what we get to read about today

Matthew 14:13–21 ESV

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Matthew 14:13–14 ESV

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

First we have to address something here that I think is easy to skip over. The this that Matthew writes about is the death of John. That His family had just been killed. Rightfully so, Jesus wants to take time to mourn that loss.

I think too often we know and say they words “Jesus understands what we go through” but then we have this image of perfect Jesus, everything is good around Him, just angels and doves all the time, but we forget that He walked on this earth as well. He lived through loss as well. He is a savior that intentionally left His throne in Heaven, where there is not this pain of loss, and chose to come down here where there is. When we skip over moments like this in the Bible, we often skip over a little kernel of the beauty of the gospel. A little piece that our savior chose to come down in to this and walk through this life. If that does not show you how much He loves you, I am not sure what else will.

The second thing we see here right at the start is that people will not leave Him alone. I mean He is Jesus, who would right, but why are they acting this way? Why are they just following Him around? People do not just do things without some sort of reason behind it.

Matthew 9:36 ESV

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus has the same feeling towards these people earlier in the book of Matthew when we read about Him healing the people. He saw that they were hurting and broken, and both times use this same word

Compassion

This word is incredibly important for us, because in both times, it is a word to describe what Jesus was feeling when He saw His people. In fact, the greek word here is more than just a “I am sad that they are hurting” but like a deep feeling and aching in the bowels or kidneys. No, not food poisoning, but the deepest sense and pain for their brokenness.

Jesus was broken over seeing His people broken. And before we look at how this applies to us, more of getting to see who Jesus is.

Ezekiel 34:1–4 ESV

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.

This was a prophesy given to Ezekiel at the time when Jerusalem was falling, but when we look at Israel even in Matthew, we look at the Pharisees and see something similar right? That they were not taking care of the people. They were putting burdens on people, they were not being the shepherds that they were called to be.

Then the Lord says this in the same chapter of Ezekiel

Ezekiel 34:15–16 ESV

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.

And then Jesus says this in John

John 10:11 ESV

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy all those years ago. He said that He would shepherd His people, and here He is shepherding His people.

But going back to the word compassion, because I read this and I then start to ask the question of myself “Do I have the same compassion for people that Jesus did?” Do I look out for the hurt, the broken, the marginalized. Even when I am hurting, am I still looking at others like Jesus? Which brings us to our first application point

See others like Jesus does

I think this is something that we all struggle with honestly. We get so caught up in our lives and what we want, or what we are doing, that we miss looking and seeing others how Jesus does. Yes, some of it can be assumptions based on how they look. I am just as guilty of trying to do everything I can to avoid the look of the person asking for money on the side of the road, or even assuming that they are trying to “scam me”, but I think to often not seeing others like Jesus comes from something else…Pride

We are far too self-centered in our lives. Everything revolves around our lives and what we are doing or want to do. If it does not fit into our calendar, we do not do it. If serving someone is just outside of what is convenient for us, we don’t do it. If it causes us just one little bit of discomfort, we do not do it. Far too often are we looking in word rather than first looking at Jesus, and then asking Him to give us the eyes to see His people the way that He sees them.

When we start seeing people the way that Jesus sees them, it becomes so much easier to serve them, because then we become filled with that same kind of compassion that He had for His people.

Then we continue on

Matthew 14:15 ESV

Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

I love the disciples here, just because I honestly relate to them so much in these moments. Rightfully so, they pointed out something obvious here. They were in a desolate place, and the people were going to get hungry. Honestly, not a bad heart or thought, and we do not see Jesus scold them here either, so it appears that the disciples are trying to point out something to care for the people. Sound great, and this is probably where most of us live right?

We can often see a lot of problems around us that we know are a problem. The homeless guy on the side of the road. That coworker who is always having issues with their car and running late to work. The kid at school who eats alone all the time, or the kid who doesn’t have any food to eat. It is super easy for us to see problems in this world, if we just take time and look, we will see a few super easily.

Something I was taught at a young age though is that if you bring a problem up to a boss, you better come with a solution too. The reason for this is because what good is it to just identify the problem? What good does it do to say to someone “Hey your car doesn’t work”. Yeah they know that. “Hey people that are here to see Jesus, it’s getting late, and if you do not leave, you are going to get hungry.” Thank you…we know.

And Jesus points this out in verse 16

Matthew 14:16 ESV

But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

The disciples pointed out the problem, and it was a problem, and going to be a bigger one. I do not think they had bad intention bringing that up, but what Jesus was trying to get them to recognize, and I believe the same applies for you and I today church, is that often we are placed in that place to be the solution to those problems that we see around us.

Which brings us to point two

See others like Jesus does

Meet the practical needs

What a blessing it is when someone meets those basic needs in your life right? I love the fact that our church is so fast to set up meal trains for those in our family that are in need. Someone has a surgery, we provide food for weeks. What a simple practical way to meet a need. While we do that great within the walls of our church, how well do we do that outside of our congregation?

It is far to easy to sit and think “I helped with the meal train this month, I am meeting the practical need” when there is a family that you work with that is struggling to have running water because they can’t afford a plumber and do not know how to fix it. That coworker that is always late is stressed out because they do not know what to do, can’t afford a new car, but still has to get to work. Have you thought about giving them a ride?

I am not saying that you have to take over their lives, but when you hear of a problem, have you offered to just meet the practical need they have? It will for sure take you out of your comfort zone, but that is where we are called to be as believers. Besides, how easy is it then to have that conversation about the gospel? That door just became way more open for that convo.

I think about our Memphis mission trips that we go on most years. It is a great trip where we put on what is called Bible Club for the inner city kids in Memphis. It is awesome and I could talk for hours about that ministry, but when we are not doing Bible clubs, we are doing other things. Sometimes it is cleaning the school that we are staying at, or praying over the different parks that are there, but my all time favorite is the laundromat ministry that we get to do.

The ministry that we work with has become good friends with the owner of this laundromat there, and we take a bunch of quarters, go there for a couple of hours, and pay for peoples laundry. It is that easy, but what is cool is, we then get to have conversations with these people. We get to know them, and some of them bring their kids, so then you’re running around just playin with these kids. But these are people who are struggling to make ends meet and having to pay to just wash their clothes.

To many times have we sat there and had conversations with people for them to tell us something to the effect that because we did this, they can buy a little extra food for their family this week, or they can put a little extra gas in their car to get to work, or buy a bus ticket to get to work, and all kinds of other stories about how this impacted their lives. It breaks my heart each time, but it encourages me so much because I get to see how just one little practical need changed someones life for a moment. Further than that, we got to have intentional conversations with these people about the gospel. Not everyone gave their life to Jesus, but at least they heard it. That is one step closer. We were able to pray over the things that were hard for them, God knows, but now they get to see physically that God cares, because here I am, this white kid from Colorado, in the middle of Memphis, paying for their laundry because I want them to see just how much God cares about them. To show them just how much Jesus loves them.

We as believers are called to serve and love those around us, and often we do that by simply meeting the practical needs of those around us.

Then sometimes we look like the disciples again as we keep reading.

Matthew 14:17–18 ESV

They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.”

Maybe that is you right now “ok Mason, I know that I need to meet the practical need, but I only have xyz.” Well, Jesus told the disciples to feed them, and they had the same reaction. They only looked at what they had, without realizing that Jesus didn’t call them to take stock, He called them to feed the people. To meet the need. So when they bring this point out, Jesus tells them to bring them to Him. Why?

If you have grown up in church, you know what is about to happen, but if you do not, it gets really cool here in a second, so hold on. But the point here is this

See others like Jesus does

Meet the practical needs

Bring everything to Jesus and let Him take care of the rest

The disciples have no idea what is about to happen here, they see that these people are hungry and in need, they know that Jesus is telling them to feed the people, but they are looking down at what they have and doing the math on how many people are there seeing that it is not going to even come close.

This is us more often than not right? We get so locked up on the little things because it does not make sense to us. “God how are you going to use me when this is all I have.” Honestly, we probably have a little bit of fear too if we are honest right? Fear that maybe we heard God wrong, fear that we do not have enough, fear that we are not enough, and so in this instead of being obedient, we stop doing what God has called us to do, which is to serve.

I have to wonder here in this moment, if the disciples would have just started feeding the people if the results would have been the same. Either way, God does not tell us that we have to figure out every little detail, what He is calling us to do is to be obedient to Him and bring everything to Him, and He will take care of the rest.

You see the thing that we do not think about here is that when we stop because of the “things” that get in the way, what we are really saying is that we do not believe that God can take care of it. We are then putting a limitation on what God can and cannot do, and that is not ok.

Because when we bring our everything to God, and let Him take care of the rest, He does things like this.

Matthew 14:19–21 ESV

Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Jesus then took what the disciples had and took it way further than expected right? I mean it says 5000 men, besides women and children. So if every many has one wife and one kid, thats 15,000 people right there.

We do not know the exact number, but we know that 5,000 people is still a lot, especially when you consider that it came from 5 loaves and 2 fish. That is not a lot, and should never have made it to that many people, but it did. Even more so, what does it say on how the people left. He left them satisfied.

More than that, the disciples took up 12 basketfuls after

See others like Jesus does

Meet the practical needs

Bring everything to Jesus and let Him take care of the rest

Jesus leaves us satisfied, and then some

While we read this passage, and there are directives for us as believers to know, there is also something awesome that we see about who Jesus is in this passage too. While we are called to see others, to meet the practical needs, to bring everything to Him, we see that Jesus ultimately sees us in our broken and in need state, and wants us to come to Him.

In Matthew 6 Jesus says to not worry because if He provides for the sparrows, He is going to provide for us as well, meaning that He will meet our practical needs in some way shape or form. And we see in all of it, that He leaves us satisfied, and with some left over.

This satisfaction may not always come in the form of a full belly, or a fat wallet, but it does come in the form of peace that makes no sense. When our world is full of chaos, we have peace because we know that Jesus has us. Hope. Hope that our next breath is better than the last because it is one breath closer to Jesus. Hope that is founded in the fact that because Jesus died for me, and because I put my faith in Him, I get to spend eternity with Him one day. That this world is the worst that it is going to get. And Joy. Joy which we talked about being contentment outside of circumstances. Joy in knowing that the savior of the world, the creator of the universe loves me as much as He does to send His son to die on His cross. That in my brokenness, Jesus had compassion for me like He did those people, and He did what only He could do, and that was pay the price for my sins.

When we look at passages like this, it can be easy to get caught up in asking “why have not seen this happen today?” instead of looking toward Jesus and seeing how He has done these types of things in my life. How has He left me satisfied and more?

In total though, if there was only one thing that you take away from this whole passage it is this

God is not intimidated by the magnitude of our problem

Too often do we think that we have to handle our problems on our own. That we have to try and carry the weight of them, or figure out the little details that go on in the problems, but in reality, God has it taken care of. He is in full control of everything, and He is not scared, or surprised. He might just be waiting for you to finally let go and bring to Him.

So what is your problem today? What problem have you not brought to the Lord that you need to? Further more, church, God might be calling you to use you as the answer and solution to someone’s problem that they are bringing today.

Salvation call here