Sermon Tone Analysis

Let God Provide the Rest

Matthew 14:13-21

About four years ago our church was going through a rough financial period in part due to the construction which led to less giving.

During this time I was serving as an active elder.

At one of our session meetings Will Howie came to share with the session a new mission project called “Living Waters.”

Many of you may remember that he recently led us in worship while Dave and Chris were out of town.

He presented to the session a unique way to build a water filtering system for small villages in countries where clean water was not available.

The system was put together by individuals from a mission group who carried all the materials in foot lockers to the site needing clean water.

All that would be necessary for the village would be an electrical source, a water collection source and someone willing to maintain the system.

It sounded like a great way to help people in need of clean water.

So many diseases are prevalent in these small villages simply because they do not have clean water.

The problem for our session was “no money.”

How could we fund the project?

There just didn’t seem to be a way.

However, after much prayer we decided to do what we could and let God provide the rest.

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Our text today is familiar; it is the feeding of the 5,000.

This event is the only event to be recorded in all four gospels outside the passion of Christ.

If you have your Bible with you turn to Matthew 14.

We will begin reading the text from verse 13.

Just before this passage of Scripture Jesus had been rejected by the people of his home town, Nazareth, and just received news of the death of John the Baptist.

Listen to the Word of God as it comes to us from the gospel of Matthew.

“Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted 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 for them and cured their sick.

*15* When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

*16* Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” *17* They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

*18* And he said, “Bring them here to me.” *19* Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

*20* And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

*21* And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

Thanks be to God.

When I read this passage, it causes me to reflect on other events in the Bible where God provided food and the Lord’s Supper that we enjoy today.

One such occasion happened after the miraculous deliverance of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage.

They found themselves in the wilderness with no food.

The people complained to Moses and God had compassion upon them and provided bread in the form of manna.

This bread was provided daily; bread from heaven, a miracle of God.

Some of that manna was even placed in the Ark of the Covenant in order to remember what God had done for His chosen.

Later in the history of the Israel nation, the United Kingdom of Israel split into a Northern and Southern Kingdom.

God sent Elijah the prophet to the Northern Kingdom and a great drought was sent upon them by the Lord.

During this drought Elijah asked the Widow of Zarephath to feed him a bread cake with her last portion of flour and oil.

In doing so the widow surrendered all she had so that Elijah might have food.

In return God made sure she never ran out of flour and oil for bread until the drought the Lord had brought upon the land ended.

God provided for her needs daily.

In Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus has just found out that John the Baptist has been put to death.

He looks for solitude in that moment; one could suppose that he required time to grief the death of John.

Whatever solitude he enjoyed was short lived as the people came to him from the cities and the towns so that they might be made whole again through his ability to heal their infirmities.

The people had need of not only his healing power, but as the day came to an end they were in need of food for their physical hunger.

Jesus had compassion on them and asked the disciples to get them food.

The disciples, forever underestimating the power of Jesus, could not perceive that there was a way to feed all these people.

Jesus told them to gather what they could find but according to the account in John 6 there was nothing among the people there but five loaves of small rye buns and two small dried fish and it was a young boy that offered his lunch to the disciples.

The disciples still could see only the impossibility of the situation.

There was only enough for one small boy.

How could this possibly feed the over 5,000 gathered here?

What could be done?

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Today, we who live in America, enjoy excellent health care and an abundance of food so that our bellies are hardly ever empty because of an inability to obtain food.

Still our society goes to and from work or other activities each day passing by people who hunger for food and shelter from the elements of nature.

Maybe we choose to ignore a woman in torn and tattered clothes pushing a shopping cart around with all her earthly possessions in the cart.

She may never look up and she is so common in the landscape that we have begun to not see her at all.

It is if she doesn’t exist.

Or, maybe there is a man standing at a corner that we pass each and every day.

He is dirty and like the woman with the shopping cart his clothing is disheveled and dirty as well.

He holds a sign; “Will work for food.”

We ignore him trying not to make eye contact.

He too is a part of the landscape of today.

Is he really hungry?

We ask.

We turn on the television and there is a child with his belly swollen and flies hovering around his face.

He sits listlessly in the African dirt with no water or food to nourish his weakened body.

We have seen the pictures before.

This is not something new.

It is an infomercial wanting me to support this child or a child like him or her for pennies a day.

We see people each and every day that have found themselves for whatever reason in need of the basic necessities of life.

They are without food, without water, without shelter, without clothing to protect them in the outdoors and without hope.

We get so used to these disenfranchised people so that they blend into our surroundings.

We no longer see their distress.

We even fear them or judge them for the condition they now own.

Our hearts are hardened.

We become like the friends of Job.

We say, “They must have done something to bring such a condition upon themselves.”

Have we lost compassion for these people or are we so caught up in our own lives that we fail to notice them*?

*What if I did reach out to help?

I am sure that I alone cannot make a difference.

We may assume, “someone else will help them, or tell ourselves that the Holy Spirit did not gift me in that way, or I will say a prayer for them.”

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In His day, Jesus was always being followed by people who were in need.

It seemed as if he never found time for solitude.

When he did find respite from his ministry it was always short lived.

Jesus had seen this before; people hanging around, looking for a free meal, looking for a word of hope.

He could have hardened his heart for such needy creatures.

But he did not.

Jesus had compassion.

In Mark’s gospel account of the feeding of the 5,000, the reason for this compassion is more clearly stated than it is in Matthew.

Jesus saw their famishing souls that carried them into a desert place with such zeal.

These people were looking for a shepherd.

He was so moved by their need that he did not spare himself even though he was fatigued and almost worn out by uninterrupted toil.

Mark also comments, that Jesus began to teach them MANY things; in other words, he spent a long time in preaching, that they might reap some lasting knowledge during this journey out to the countryside.

In Luke’s account Jesus spoke to the people concerning the Kingdom of God, which is about the same as Mark.

Matthew makes no mention of any thing but the miracle.