The God who provides

 

John 6:12-14

Jehovah-jireh 

The God who provides

This year, for lack of a better term, has sucked. I know I’m not supposed to say that. I know that offended some of you and for that I apologize. However, if you can thank for a less offensive more accurate word to describe 2020 please let me know and we’ll get Todd to dub that one in or something on the rebroadcast.

I don’t have to get into it because the news and social media has that incredibly well covered and then some. There’s a couple of sayings in my house, “More responsibilities = more privileges”, “If you say you are going to do it then do it”, “ Fear makes bad decisions.”

I’d say the majority of our decision making in the last 6 months has been fear based. Now if you just thought “Yes! That is what the people who disagree with me are doing!” Then congratulations your part of the problem. Whether you are for masks or against them, you want to open everything back up at once, or want to shut everything down, left or right, liberal or conservative. Fear has been driving us.

Every news article, every campaign ad, has been about making a fear based response. Fear about what happens if we open, fear about what happens if we don’t. Vote for me because if the other side gets elected, “They are going to kill you!”

Fear is what takes root in our heart when we make a god out of comfort and safety. When we forget where our provision actually comes from. Tonights message is entitled Jehova-Jireh, The God who provides.

 

So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.” ¹³ Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. ¹⁴ Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

I told you there would be at least two sermons out of this! There’s just to much gold here to only dig once. Last time Jesus fed the 5000! Which we discussed by the time you factored in for women and children it was around 10-15k! Enough people to fill Charlotte Motor Speedway. This is a tremendous miracle. In fact, this is the only story from Jesus ministry that made it across all four gospels that was not related to his ministry beginning in Galilee or His death, burial and resurrection.

Why this story? There are so many! There are things that He did that we don’t even know about! Yet, God, in His Infinite Wisdom chooses this instance to be repeated four times. Therefore, we should pay special attention to what it has to tell us.

Verse 12 starts innocently enough “when they were filled.” We don’t think much of this we equate it to “When they were done eating.” We don’t really have a concept of unintentionally leaving a meal not full. At least not these days. As Americans it’s estimated we throw/discard around 40% of our food supply annually. While tonight roughly 1 Billion children worldwide will go to bed hungry. Even at the height of resource restriction his year Food Lion still had more food in it than pretty much any store I went into overseas. We saw a handful of barren shelves and freaked out. We don’t know or remember what it’s like to truly be hungry.

These are people that food was a daily struggle for them. If they had one meal a day they were doing good. To have food at all was exciting to them, to eat until they were full! That’s a special occasion for them! For many I’m sure it was a once in a lifetime event! When you are full at the restaurant but still have food leftover what do you do? You take it home! I guarantee you some leftover bread and fish were stuffed in pockets or wrapped up in linen and carried home.

Once they had stuffed themselves and their pockets there was still an abundance on the ground! This is unheard of; this is an embarrassment of riches! The disciples were then told to gather everything up! Don’t waste any of it. There’s more people that can eat!

How much leftovers do you picture? Typically leftovers for us is lunch the next day. I worked at the homestead as a teenager. I was a busboy/dishwasher. I spent my weekends for years cleaning up after people once they were done eating. The busiest night was whenever valentine’s day fell on a Saturday. We probably had 1400 people come through there in about 5 hours. That was a lot of leftovers! I can’t even imagine cleaning up after 15K though with only 12 people. I remind you of this to illustrate a point in verse 13.

It says that they filled 12 baskets! What do you picture with the word basket? A small wicker basket? Maybe something the size of a picnic basket? 12 Picnic baskets full of food would feed a lot of people. The Greek word for basket in this verse is kophinos. Do you know what English word we get from kophinos? Any guesses? Coffin. Changes your perspective on the size of the baskets doesn’t it? Regardless of how much the point is, it was a lot. In fact, I’m willing to bet that it was more than 200 denarii of food, possibly per basket! Poor Phillip, spending the whole day watching how wrong He was. It was a lesson that he never forgot.

Phillip would give his life preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. He would spread it across Greece, Syria and Phyrgia (Frigya, Turkey) whether he met his death likely by crucifixion (or possibly beheading) either way he used his last breath to continue to preach the Gospel.

John makes sure to remind us in verse 13, that all this came from 5 small barley biscuits and a 2 sardines. So much abundance came from so little offered in faith. It doesn’t matter if it’s two widow mites or 200 denarii, offered to God in faith God will do great things with it.

I waste so much time trying to solve problems in my own power. Me and Pastor Dave have had our fair share of arguments and disagreements as far as ministry goes. When you’ve worked with someone multiple times a week for 20+ years that is going to happen. Yet, every disagreement we’ve had comes down to one of us, or usually both of us, trying to do ministry in our strength. It’s impossible which is the lesson Phillip, and by proxy us, is being taught.

In Zechariah 4, God is talking to the prophet Zechariah. A man by the name of Zerubbabel , had been tasked with rebuilding of God’s temple. The work had stalled and Zerubbael had tried everything and gotten nowhere. God has Zechariah remind Zerubbabel of the following in Zechairah 4:3 “not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit” the worked continued once Zerubbael remembered where his provision came from.

"O churches! take heed lest ye trust in yourselves; take heed lest ye say, 'We are a respectable body,' 'We are a mighty number,' 'We are a potent people;' take heed lest ye begin to glory in your own strength; for when that is done, 'Ichabod' shall be written on your walls and your glory shall depart from you. Remember, that he who was with us when we were but few, must be with us now we are many, or else we must fail; and he who strengthened us when we were but as 'little in Israel,' must be with us, now that we are like 'the thousands of Manasseh,' or else it is all over with us and our day is past." (Spurgeon)

The people see God’s abundant provision and proclaim Him as the prophet who has come into the world! Now this isn’t a saving admission of Christ identity. It’s more than likely a reference to Deut 8 where Moses foretells of a prophet to come that will be like Him. After all Jesus just miraculously feed everyone like Moses did in the wilderness. Yet, it is a step in the right direction.

As I said earlier this year has been a challenge. This is the longest ministry trial I’ve personally experienced. There are no good decisions, there is no clear cut direction, and almost any and every plan made becomes irrelevant in roughly a weeks time. Every decision made is just the particular bad decision we chose and we are under constant attack from other people who are very defensive of their own bad decision. In the midst of all this we must constantly remind ourselves where our help comes from, where our provision comes from, the one whom we can offer a little in faith and He can return it 1500 fold.

I just want you guys to know that I love you and I love serving here. As you go out this week show a little more grace to those you interact with. That you might be able to point them to Jehovah-Jireh the God who provides.