Provision                                                     Luke 9:10-17

Today we’re looking at one of Jesus miracles. It’s a miracle almost every person has heard of whether they’re Christian or not; Jesus feeding 5000 with just five loaves of bread and two fish.

First thing I want to point out, verse 14, “For there were about 5000 men.” But it wasn’t just a mob of men; there were also women and children in the crowd. Many believe that there were almost 10,000 people there and that makes this miracle even bigger.

Luke Chapter 8 records the accounts of Jesus sending a legion of demons about of a man and into a herd of pigs. It also has the accounts of Jesus healing the bleeding woman and raising Jairus daughter from the dead. Chapter 9 starts with Jesus sending the twelve disciples out into the countryside with no money and no food. All of this is to show Jesus has authority and power over every obstacle to ministry. And now in these verses Jesus demonstrates directly that he has power and authority over the previsions and resources needed for ministry.

Our passage starts out with the apostles returning from their mission trip into the country. Jesus knows they are tired and needed rest, and that they were eager to tell him about the things they experienced. Jesus was attempting to gain some privacy for them so he took them outside a small town yet somehow a large crowd of people discovered where he was. Jesus could have told them they needed their rest but instead he welcomes them and heals the sick. Here again is a demonstration of what we saw last week; that no matter when one approaches Jesus you will be welcomed. No matter when one asks Jesus to heal them, they will be cured of the disease of sin and made whole.

As I read over this I started to see Jesus teaching us that he is the means for us to overcome obstacles to our personal ministries. Yes, you all have personal ministries. Your life; the way you act when things are going good and when things are going bad, what you say and how you say it are all your ministry for Christ. To see what obstacles we may face in our ministries we just need to look at the disciples.

The obstacle they faced was they were tired when the crowd arrives. Then as the day goes on they realize they have no food for the crowd. They wanted to send them away rather than use their resources. Do we do the same? I’m tired, I’ve had a busy week, it’s late. Do we look at things like they did, not wanting to use our resources to fill someone else’s need? I work hard for my money; I want to buy something for myself. More likely it’s I don’t want to give up my free time. This is what the shortage of food represents.

The disciples saw the lack of food as the crowd’s problem not theirs. We can see others problems; their homelessness, their addiction as their problem not mine.

 Jesus sees the lack of food as the disciples problem; verse 13, “But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’” Jesus tells them to do something they don’t see themselves able to do. Why, to show them that they are acting in the natural and not acting with faith. Their personal ministry is lacking. God is showing them that what is impossible with men is possible with God. This is why we are born again in Spirit; what is impossible for us as mankind; entering heaven, is possible with God. Jesus feeds the crowd with a miracle; God gives us the miracle of Jesus at the cross. God gives us what we need to enter heaven. This is why Jesus says in Matthew 11:30, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Now I know we all face obstacles; the hot water heater is leaking, the car needs brakes, my relationship is breaking up, I don’t like the new minister at church. Obstacles can seem like a solid wall between where we are and where we want to go.

Our scripture shows us that Jesus sees obstacles as opportunities. God can use the obstacles in our lives to demonstrate his power and authority thereby increasing our faith. To many times we use the obstacles as opportunities for our own weak faith or unbelief.

So now we have Jesus telling his disciples to give food to the crowd. Can you imagine the looks on their faces? What? Us? Look close at what verse 13 tells us, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish – unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.”

Boy there’s a lot in this statement. This statement implies they had the financial means to buy enough food. So what’s the problem? More obstacles, maybe it would drain their funds? Perhaps they were daunted by the prospect of walking to town, buying food and arraigning for it to be delivered to the crowd?

Then Jesus has the disciples gather the crowd into groups of fifty. Ok, why fifty? Jesus was dedicated to bringing to life Old Testament scripture. This grouping points to 2 Kings when Elisha fed 100 men after they were divided into groups of fifty. Jesus shows again how the Old Testament prophesies and scriptures have been fulfilled and increased by him and his work.

So after the crowd was arraigned they brought the fish and bread to Jesus. They didn’t know what he was going to do but they trusted him to do something. We need to do the same, we may not know what God is going to do, but trust and believe he will do something.

Now this doesn’t mean we can be passive about it, “God, I lost my job, I’m just going to sit on this couch until you fix it.” The disciples weren’t passive; they did what Jesus told them to. Trust in Jesus but be aware of what he tells you to do, then go do it.

Jesus feeds the crowd with fish and bread, let’s look at this. These people in Jesus presence are hungry and they represent all of humanity. We come to God hungry to know him, hungry for the presence of the Holy Spirit, hungry for the salvation Jesus offers; and Jesus feeds us with bread. He feeds us with himself and the knowledge of the scriptures. John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger…”

As to the fish, I wasn’t sure about them. Then I did some research in a book on Christian symbolism. In the early centuries the fish represented the disciples. The Greek word for fish in the original text is “ichthus.” I put an insert in your bulletins that explains its significance, please look at it. You can see how they saw the letters of ichthus as representations of Jesus, Christ, God, Son and Savior. The fish symbol was placed on the door of meeting houses so fellow Christians knew where they were. So if the fish represent believers, the crowd not only ate of the bread of life, but they also ate the fish,     the disciples. We are the present day disciples. Jesus uses us to feed those who seek him out. We are to feed of ourselves to people in need of the Gospel.

By feeding the crowd bread and fish it shows us we are important like Jesus when it comes to feeding the Word of God to those who hunger for it. Not just me, not just the deacons; every one of you is to use your life, your personal ministry to feed those who hunger for the Word of God.

We all have to answer this for ourselves; will we walk with faith or with unbelief? Will we view human need as opportunities to live out faith or as excuses for our unbelief?

The lack of food seemed to the disciples to be justification for sending the people away. The lack of food shows us that lacking the means to do something to fulfill a need is not proof that God doesn’t want you to act. 

The time and effort of going to buy food seemed to be justification for the disciples not to do it. The disciples not buying food shows us that our lack of desire to get involved, our lack of desire to extend ourselves, is not a valid reason to God for our failure to act.

God tells us we are always obligated to act to meet the needs of others when those needs are valid. We can have a “drop in the bucket” mentality. We see great needs in the world and too little resources and ability to fix the problem. There is too much poverty in the world. There is too much hunger in the world. There are too many refugees in the world.

I read a story about a man walking on a beach covered with starfish stranded by the tide. He picked one up and tossed it back into the ocean. He couldn’t save them all but that didn’t stop him from acting and saving a few. Do what you can, when you can and how you can.

Remember that your personal ministry is important just as Jesus ministry is in feeding the Word of God to people. The bread; Jesus, is nourishing but without the fish, believers living out faith in their lives, those seeking God may miss part of the meal and not fully understand and still go hungry.