Feeding the Multitude

8/2/2026

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Back to School Blessing

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

Opening Prayer:

God of abundance and power, we confess that we doubt Your ability to provide for our needs. We wrestle with fear and fail to trust in Your care. Forgive us and remind us that You are more than enough. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Call to Worship

Leader: Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to our cry.

People: We call on You, for You will answer us, O God.

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

People: We come to be nourished by the one who provides abundantly.

Leader: Come, let us worship the Lord who feeds us with His Word and Spirit.

All: Alleluia! We rejoice in God’s provision!

Scripture: Matthew 14:13-21

Matthew 14:13–21 NIV

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” 17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. 18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Feeding the Multitude

Movement 1: Happy Meals

I have a scary thought to share with you this morning. Did you know that there are people in our country walking around with gray hair who have never lived in a time without Happy Meals? I can personally admit to being one of those. The Happy Meal was introduced nationwide in June 1979, about 3 years before I was born.

That was a significant moment because it meant kids were no longer just ordering from a special selection on a kids' menu. Their food, their entire meal, and the fun toy that went with it were bagged and boxed separately from the rest of the family. That has become a cultural practice for us for almost 50 years now—half a century, a whole generation.

At the same time, families find it harder and harder to have those big reunions like they used to have in the days before Happy Meals. Some of you still host and attend those big family reunions where you have to plan for well over 100 people. You know how much preparation that takes. In fact, you've probably been working with a plan that's been adjusted slightly for years. It may have been a plan that you inherited from whoever was in charge before you. Most of us, however, start to get really worried if we have more than a couple of dozen people to worry about, because we are used to having regular meals with a handful of people or less, and sometimes we wonder if we have what it takes to take care of more.

Movement 2: The Multitude

For Jesus and the disciples, the Kingdom of God was growing. People were beginning to see how incredibly valuable it was, and it was all very messy. At the end of Matthew 13, Matthew tells us that not everyone appreciated Jesus. The crowds did not understand him the way his disciples did. They gathered around him, and, right in the middle of what looked like a wonderful success story, a message was passed to Jesus personally. His cousin, John the Baptist, who had been imprisoned by King Herod, was dead. Through the sinful machinations of the royal family, John the Baptist had been executed.

To Jesus, John was more than a cousin. They were both miracle babies in their own ways, and their parents dedicated their lives to serving God. They shared the same mission, even though they were not in the same place most of the time. John's role was to prepare the way for Jesus. He was as close as a brother, a kind of best friend, and a companion in the mission of Jesus. And suddenly, he was gone.

So here, while the kingdom is growing, valuable, and very messy—not just in parables, but in real life all around him—Jesus received this terrible news. In his loss, he wanted and needed to get away and be by himself.

But there were thousands of people gathered around him that day. They gathered there to hear him preach and teach about God’s kingdom. They were looking for answers to all their problems, and Jesus seemed to be the one who had them. In that moment, the only thing holding them together was what they hoped they could get from Jesus. And it was getting late in the day. The people were getting hungry.

You and I know that when a large crowd of people is hungry, their potential for doing something bad usually outweighs their potential for doing something good. It was about to become a big mess with thousands of people, and the disciples were worried. There was no food and no plan, and Jesus had just received terrible news and wanted some time alone. What were they to do?

Movement 3: Taken and Blessed

You've probably heard the saying, "God helps those who help themselves." That's not in the Bible, and that's not the way Jesus treated people. But as evening was approaching, the disciples realized they had no way to feed all these people out in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, when you run out of ways to help, it seems like the best thing you can do is encourage everyone to take care of themselves. It was time to send everyone home.

But the disciples weren't in charge. They weren't the ones that all these people had come to see, and those people weren't going to listen to them. Jesus, even in his grief, was there among them, showing them compassion and healing them. They came to Jesus there, perhaps thinking that, in his grief, he is just going through the motions and doesn't know how to stop. He doesn't know what time it is or where he is. This isn't working anymore. Jesus, it's getting late, and everyone is far from food and shelter. Send them away so they can go and get food for themselves.

That's a hard thing to say to Jesus when there's still a line of people who are sick or hurt, waiting to receive healing from him—some of whom had been waiting all day. But I think it might have even been harder to hear Jesus' response: "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."

Jesus saw that moment differently. He saw the people and their needs, and he probably felt it even more than the disciples because the people were there for him, not them. He felt his own needs in that moment as well, but he looked at all of it—all the people, all their needs, all that hope and anxiousness—pointed right at him. But that didn't faze Jesus.

One of the disciples pointed out the provisions they had available to them: "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish." There were so many people in the crowd that day that they could have used that food without making the slightest dent in the hunger of the people.

"Bring them here to me," he said. He told the people to sit down, right where they were in the grass. He saw the little that they had. He took those five loaves and two fish from the disciples, and in the midst of that mess, he gave God thanks.

Movement 4: Broke and Shared

He broke the bread and he gave it to the disciples, dividing it among them, and directed them to feed the crowd. It was completely common: breaking bread the way he did, dividing up the fish, and even the blessing that he gave. It was all the most normal thing that had probably happened all day long. Everyone did it every day before they ate.

The miracle was that the meal fit for one family fed so many people. I can't explain how everyone got a bite, let alone was satisfied. But that day, Jesus took a crowd of thousands of people who'd come from all over Israel, who didn't know one another. And in that moment, there were only two things they had in common with each other: they all needed to eat, and they all needed Jesus.

And Jesus took from their poverty and blessed it. He broke it and returned it to them. The hands of the disciples that brought Jesus their little offering were the same hands he sent out with that offering, redeemed.

There are days when we feel like the first miracle was that someone was willing to offer up their fish and loaves to begin with, and bring them to Jesus. Those disciples got to witness the miracle coming through themselves, even though they had no idea how it was happening.

And in that moment, everyone was family.

Movement 5: Room for More

Matthew ends this passage by telling us that there were more than 5,000 men, not counting the women and children they brought with them. He shows us both how big the miracle was and also how big God's kingdom had grown in such a short time. What started as something small and common, 5 loaves and 2 fish, became a feast that ended with 12 baskets left over. There was room for more.

That meal, that miracle of provision, showed everyone how much the family of Jesus was growing. It brought them all together when the only thing they had in common was Jesus, and that was enough. The disciples, who were certain everything had grown too big to handle, were shown how God provides through their own hands in ways they could not understand. They didn't have enough. But they had Jesus, and that made it enough. He could handle what they could not, and he worked through them and their fear of not being enough.

God's Kingdom is still growing. It's still valuable, and it still gets messy sometimes. And Jesus is still there, right in the middle of it all, inviting us to bring what little we have to him and join him for a picnic in the grass. We watch him make an abundance out of our not enough.

When you come to Jesus, what do you carry with you?

Watch him receive it, give thanks to God and bless it, break it, and return it to you to share with more than you could count.

The same hands that brought Jesus the little got to hand out the more-than-enough. Today, we recognize we don't have enough, but we bring what we have to Jesus. He blesses it. He breaks it. When he gives it back to us, it is more than enough. It is more than we asked or even hoped for, because when we have Jesus, he is always enough.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus, When we see and feel the need around us and within us, When life overwhelms us, Thank you for being enough. In your holy name. Amen.