Matthew 14:13-21 Feeding the 5000: The Call to Compassion, Faith, and Participation

Matthew 14:13–21 ESV

13 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. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15 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.” 16 But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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. 20 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

When we first moved to Houston I was transferring into a new position with Chipotle, my employer at that time.

My new manager reached out to tell me to talk to my wife and figure out what sort of pay raise I would need and that we could talk about it when we saw each other in a couple days.

I could have asked for $10 more an hour, aiming way out of reach so that his counter would be higher.

I could have asked for $5 more an hour, aiming for the high end of any truly possible number, hoping for the best scenario.

I could have asked for $2 an hour, happy with what would have been a reasonable number for him, and a significant pay increase for me.

After taking some time to think about it and pray about it,

I asked him for the ridiculous request of precisely $0.

I told him we could make it on my current pay.

I’m sure you can imagine the look he gave me. He invited me to ask for a raise, one that was essentially guaranteed to be some sort of a raise, for the job I had agreed to do,

and I told him I was good with the pay I had.

Now, that pay was not great, I think it was about $13 an hour, and looking back, we could not have made it on just that pay.

But through a mixture of fear to appear selfish and ungrateful,

naivete on the costs of living in the city,

as well as contentment to live on what we had been given by God,

I made the foolish choice to not ask for anything.

You see, something I didn’t realize was that this manager wanted to give me a raise. He wasn’t playing with his own money, a resource that was finite. He was playing with the money of a company worth nearly 80 billion dollars today. He wanted to give me more than I had and he certainly wanted to give me more than I had been willing to ask for.

A $10 raise, while out of the question for the position I was in, was not as ridiculous as I thought. And yet, I still asked for nothing.

In my desire to remain humble and my lack of faith in the goodwill of my new manager and in his ability to pay me much more, I chose to not ask for anything.

And even though I didn’t ask for anything, he still gave me a $2 raise.

Two weeks ago we started on a new series called “The King’s Call” where we are going to be seeing how the opposition to Jesus builds and builds and how he calls his disciples to a deeper faith and following of himself.

Our passage this morning tells of a time when the disciples were in a situation where all they had to do was ask to have a need met and Jesus would have willingly done so. Instead, Jesus still meets the need, even though they do not ask and in doing so shows us three more ways in which he calls all his disciples, including us today to follow him.

We see in this passage

The Call to Compassion

The Call to Faith

And The Call to Participation.

So, let’s begin with the call to compassion.

I. The Call to Compassion (vv. 13-14)

Matthew 14:13–14 ESV

13 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. 14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Context:

Think about the context here, where did we leave off last week?

The first 12 verses of chapter 14 detailed the death of John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus and it ends with some disciples of John burying his body and then going to tell Jesus the sad news of his death.

And we need to remember something, Jesus and John were supernaturally close. John was filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb (Lk 1:15).

John may have known Jesus better than anyone else living, even better than Mary, because he was filled with the Spirit of God. John, in his mother’s womb he recognized the presence of the Messiah in Mary’s womb when she came to meet with her cousin Elizabeth in Luke 1:41-43.

John was the one who baptized Jesus, heard the voice of God, and saw the dove descend from the clouds. The two of them being the firstborn cousins to different couples in the family probably spent considerable time together while they were growing up.

This is not some estranged cousin that has just been killed. This is a brother to Jesus.

Exegesis:

And so, Jesus does what anyone would do upon hearing such terrible news. Jesus withdraws to a place where he won’t have to deal with people, likely grieving and seeking solitude.

And yet, even still, the crowd follows him.

In fact, while Jesus and the disciples were in a boat traveling across the sea, the crowd figures out where he is going and beats them to the spot, while they were on foot!

This shows a desperation in them to be near the one who brings healing!

And when they land on the shore and Jesus sees the great crowds, he doesn’t yell at them to leave, he doesn’t get back in the boat to find somewhere else he can be alone for a while.

“He had compassion on them and healed their sick.”

Despite His own sorrow and exhaustion, Jesus responds to the crowd’s spiritual and physical needs.

This is far from the only time that we hear of Jesus’ compassion for humanity. In Mt 9:36 we see his compassion for the crowds because they were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

This leads us to a beautiful truth: God cares for his creation. He loves his creation. We see that throughout all that Jesus did on earth, but especially on the cross.

This was the greatest act of love and compassion that we have ever seen. That God would love the world so much that he would draw in people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to take part in his kingdom. And to keep back nothing in order to make that happen, not even his own son.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

And we are the benefactors of that great act of love.

Jesus is compassionate toward his people and toward the lost and he calls us to follow him in that compassion.

Key Idea: Our King’s heart is moved by the needs of His people, and He calls us to share His compassion.

But even more than the call to compassion, Jesus calls his followers, the members of his kingdom to faith in him and his ability and desire to care for them more than they can care for themselves.

II. The Call to Faith (vv. 15-18)

Matthew 14:15–18 ESV

15 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.” 16 But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.”

Context:

The disciples see the crowd's need but focus on their own limitations and comfort.

They’ve literally been watching Jesus perform miraculous healings, meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the people, all afternoon and when it came time for dinner, they look to Jesus and they say:

Exegesis:

“Send the crowds away...”

The disciples tell Jesus he should dismiss the crowds so that they can go buy their own food.

Now this looks like simply a practical suggestion based on the reality of their situation.

But if you think about it for just a minute you start to realize that these are the same men who were just before this watching Jesus heal the sick people being brought to him.

They had seen the power of Jesus day after day. They knew he was working with an immeasurable power.

But still they were probably getting hungry and they were looking for ways to get this problematic situation off of their hands.

So they make the most practical suggestion in the situation.

This is a crowd that was 5,000 men plus women and children. A conservative figure is probably 15,000 people.

The best human option is to let them all fend for themselves!

Most conferences you go to will not offer meals as part of the ticket because feeding hundreds of people is difficult, let alone 15,000!

But Jesus doesn’t let them off so easily. He responds to their practical suggestion with the most impractical suggestion possible in verse 16.

“They don’t need to leave. You give them something to eat”

Jesus shifts the responsibility to the disciples, instead of on the crowd.

This is a key to understanding the miracle because every step of the way, he includes his disciples.

And we get more detail in Mark’s account. In (Mk 6:37) they respond “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”

Now, we have to understand, this is more than half a year’s wages that they’re talking about here.

This would be a MASSIVE expense, but it’s also an impossible ask! There were no mass-producing bakeries around.

There were a couple of towns nearby with a few thousand people each and that was it.

They didn’t have access to thousands of loaves of bread.

Where was this bread to come from?

Well, in Mark 6:38, we see that Jesus has the disciples check around to see what food they have available. And when they come back they say:

“We have only five loaves and two fish”:

“we have two fish sandwiches”

For some of us that would barely cover a single meal for just us. What are they to do with such a meager offering?

Well, Jesus tells them what to do with it in verse 18.

“Bring it to me.”

Key Idea: The King challenges us to trust Him to provide.

III. The Call to Participation (vv. 19-21)

Matthew 14:19–21 ESV

19 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. 20 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Context:

This miracle calls back to a couple of events from the Old Testament

The Manna from Heaven (Exodus 16)

The lesser known story of Elisha in 2 Kings 4 where he feeds a hundred men with 20 loaves

2 Kings 4:42–44 ESV

‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ”

Jesus could have provided food miraculously without the disciples, but He chooses to include them.

He could have made it super-efficient, clapping his hands and making the food appear. Instead he uses the inefficient means of his disciples.

Exegesis:

“He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds”: Jesus works through His followers to distribute His blessings.

Now, listen, we will see in this section that Jesus is getting intentional about teaching his disciples what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

And so, God was preparing these fishermen, tax collectors, and militant revolutionaries to be the hands and feet of Jesus when he would leave them.

How terrifying! Do you see how these men doubt and grumble?

How they look after their interests instead of having compassion and putting faith in Christ?

But also, how encouraging! because how are we any different?

Jesus has invited all of his disciples to participate with him in his redemptive work

Not in being the saving power in ourselves, because Christ alone can save us, but in being faithful to minister to others!

To be his hands and feet, pushing back the darkness!

One of the great blessings of going to Houston after two years was to see how God used my little acts of faithfulness to build his kingdom.

To see that he can do abundantly more than me, but he has welcomed me into the work

To see that when I was convinced I failed, that I dropped the ball, that God was faithful to keep it going.

To see the spiritual growth in individuals and churches that God has brought out of the seeds he privileged me to toss.

I don’t say this to brag, because I’m just one of the silly disciples with a basket. I say it to hopefully encourage you to know that often it is hard to see how God could possibly work in a situation.

God delights to care for his people and to fill them to overflowing and he delights to do so through his people.

“They all ate and were satisfied”: Jesus’ provision is abundant, meeting every need with plenty to spare.

This is far from the only time that Jesus provides food for his followers and this is perhaps the richest of all the miracles Jesus performed in theological value. It reaches back into the past to . In just a few weeks we will see another miraculous feeding of thousands in Matthew chapter 15

In Matthew 26:17-30 Jesus offers his own broken body as the bread of life and bringing in of a New Covenant, one that is not dependent on the blood in one’s veins but the blood shed by Jesus himself.

And in Revelation 19 we see the marriage supper of the Lamb where the bride of Christ will be united to him perfectly. Blessed are those who see that day.

But friends, only those who are truly in the New Covenant will see that day.

Revelation 19:9 ESV

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Key Idea: The King invites His followers to join Him in His mission to meet the needs of others.

Conclusion: The King’s Call to Us Today

Application:

The Call to Compassion

Jesus models for us how to prioritize others' needs even in difficult circumstances.

Jesus shows us that it’s important to think of others as more important than ourselves.

He shows us that we must care for other people, really care for them, if we are going to be good representatives of him - If we are going to follow him.

Are we willing to be interrupted by others’ needs as Jesus was?

Do we consider those unplanned interruptions in our day to be nuisances or gospel opportunities?

The Call to Faith

How often do we focus on our limited resources instead of trusting the King’s power?

Jesus calls us to step out in faith, offering what we have, no matter how little it seems.

The Call to Participation

Jesus calls us to be His hands and feet, participating in His mission of provision and care for the world.

Do we see ourselves as outlets of God’s blessing to others?

Reflection:

Jesus, the compassionate King, calls us to:

Share His heart of compassion.

Trust Him to provide even when we feel inadequate.

Actively participate in His mission to meet the needs of others.

Key Verse for Meditation:

Matthew 14:16 ESV

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

Challenge:

What will you do with the King’s call?

Will you step out in faith, offering what little you have to see it multiplied in His hands?

Do you trust that God wants to give far more than we’re willing to ask?

Closing Illustration: The story of Alexander the Great and his general’s daughter’s wedding.

Call to Action:

Let us bring our “five loaves and two fish” to Jesus and watch Him use us for His glory in our families, communities, and the world.

Let us trust in him alone for the work to be done. Let us be willing to be compassionate, faithful, participants in Jesus’ work of Redemption.

And Let us trust that He is both wealthy enough and generous enough to give even more than what we ask for.