Appreciate the opportunity and invitation to come and be here tonight. And it's always good to come back. I was telling Penny when we drove in the parking lot that when I pastored here years ago, a lot of the folks that were members here are gone. They're in heaven now rejoicing. And who knows? We might be joining them for long, but that's all right. I'm glad you can know that you know that you know. And if you have your Bibles, turn with us over to the book of St. John, chapter 6. St. John, chapter 6. I'm going to read a few verses of Scripture, and I'll try my best not to be long tonight. But St. John, chapter 6. And I'm going to begin reading at verse 1, and the Bible says, After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did upon them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming to him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. And there was much grass in that place, so that the men sat down in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples and to the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise the fishes as much as they would. And when they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them which had eaten. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word tonight. for the privilege, Lord, of being able to share your word. And God, we know Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And so, thank you for giving it to us. Blessed Lord, tonight I pray, I know you will. You promised it would not return void. but would accomplish that for which it's sent. And I just pray now, Lord, for your unction. Lord, how can mortal man preach about an infinite God unless you help us? And I pray that you will. May you get the glory and the praise and honor for truly you're worthy of it. These things we ask for Christ's sake. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. All of the gospel records, all the gospels, they record different miracles that Jesus did. Now, none of the gospel writers ever attempted or ever insinuated that they had recorded all of the miracles that Jesus did. In fact, there were times that the Bible would say, and he healed them every one. So we have no idea. how many miracles that Jesus did, how many people that were healed. I'm going to say probably thousands more than we have any idea about. In fact, the Bible says in John 21-25, He said, and there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. And so we don't know how many miracles Jesus did, but they are different ones recorded in different ones of the Gospels, as some miracles is only recorded in one Gospel. For example, where Jesus turned the water into wine is recorded only in the book of John, not in the other Gospels. you see, and some are recorded in two Gospels, some are recorded in three, but only two miracles are recorded in all four. This miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000 is recorded in all four Gospels, and the other miracle is a miracle of His resurrection. So this miracle must be important, and I want to look at it for just a little bit tonight, and just share a few thoughts with you from this miracle that took place here. First of all, I want you to notice verse 9 says, and there was a lad here that had five barley loaves, and two... Now, Jesus had been traveling with his disciples, he's there near the Sea of Galilee, and a great multitude comes unto him. And this is amazing, if you stop and think about it, they had no cell phones, they had no radios, no TVs, even had no loudspeakers. I can remember, I don't know if y'all remember being a kid, cars having these big loudspeakers on top of them and people driving along slowly and a lot of times they were announcing, I know Dad had one of them, and he would be announcing about tent revivals. Him and Dick Limbaugh was going to be preaching and I can remember them going by where we lived over at Alcoa. and make an announcement about something, you know, they drive real slow, and I can remember running out in the yard to see what they were saying, but they didn't have that back then. They didn't have newspapers, and so they had no way to get the word out, but yet a great multitude, the Bible said, came, they found out where he was, and here they come. And so they're here, it's getting along about evening time, and so Jesus says to Philip, Where are we going to buy meat? Or the Bible says bread. They don't always mean just bread. It means food. Where are we going to buy food that we may feed these? You see, some of these people had come a long way. They'd been gone from home all day, and they were concerned if you read some of the other gospel accounts of this miracle, they were concerned that maybe they'd get so weak they wouldn't be able to make it home. And so Jesus says to Philip, How are we going to feed this multitude? And Philip said, Lord, if we had 200 penny worth of bread or food, that wouldn't be enough to feed even to give them a little bit. Now, keep in mind, a penny is not the penny we have today. A penny we have today, I mean, with the inflation as it is, ain't worth nothing, really. But a penny that day, was the denarius, and that was the Roman soldier's wage for a day. So what he was saying is, Lord, if we had the money, that 200 days worth of wages, that wouldn't be enough to feed this great multitude. And so Andrew, he speaks up, and I like Andrew. Andrew's kind of a people person. Everywhere you see Andrew's name mentioned in the scriptures except where it lists the names of all the apostles, but the other places you find Andrew mentioned, he's bringing somebody to Jesus. I like that. We need to be Andrews, you see. And Andrew I sort of get the impression Andrew was a people person. Andrew was one of them. When the crowd came along, he'd get out in the crowd and shake hands. Hey, how you doing? What's your name? My name's Andrew. And he'd mix and mingle with them, you see. And so this group of people was here. And Andrew had already been out in the crowd. He'd already been shaking hands, already been talking to folks. He'd come up on that little boy, and we don't know what that little fella's name is, but Andrew evidently kind of got a little bit acquainted with him. He maybe seen Andrew, that little boy, you know, carrying a lunch bagger, and he probably said to him, well, you got there, son? And he said, I brought me a lunch. You know, when you go hear a Baptist preacher preach, you better take your lunch, for sure. And he said, I brought me a lunch. And what have you got? He said, I got five barley biscuits left over from breakfast and two pieces of fish. And so Andrew knew what was there, you see. And so when Jesus says to Philip, who are we going to buy bread for all of these? And Philip said, Lord, I have no idea. Now, keep in mind, they didn't have no super Walmarts or Kroger's or, you know, those type of stores back then. And so even if they had that much money, how would they be able to find that much food to even buy, you see? And so Philip said, Lord, If we had 200 penny worth of food, it wouldn't be enough to feed this great crowd. And Andrew speaks up and he says, Lord, there's a boy here, he's got five little barley biscuits. Now keep in mind, when the Bible said loaves, it's not talking about a hind or a kingside loaves of bread, you see. That boy ain't no way in the world he'd have brought that much food for him, you see. That was his lunch. And so I'm sure that probably just five barley biscuits left over from breakfast, you see, two pieces of fish. And so Andrew says, Lord, there's a boy here. He brought his lunch. He's got five little biscuits and two pieces of fish. But what is that? among so many. And so Jesus says, have them to sit down. Now I want you to notice, first of all, friends, Jesus always uses, God always uses, what we have. God never expects us to be able to have something that we don't have, you see. The Bible says, for example, in Romans 12 and 1, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present Your body's a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. You see, that's what God expects is us to give Him what we got. And that's all God expects. Now, you may say, Preacher, I don't have any talent. That's good if you have some. People do. There's people here. Elizabeth's been blessed with people that's got talent. People to play the piano, people to sing. people to lead the service, and people to teach Sunday school. And that's a blessing. And God has blessed some people with those talents, but not everybody's got talent. And guess what? You don't have to have talent for God to use you. You don't have to have education. There's nothing wrong with it. I don't like to brag, but I got two PhDs. Y'all didn't know that, did you? I got two PhDs. O'Hare and Lincoln County, that's an abbreviation for posthole diggers. I got two of them, you see. But there's nothing wrong with having an education, you see, but God don't require that. God don't say, hey, you've got to have a a bachelor's degree or a master's or a PhD. No, you see, God don't require that. God will use what we have. You see, there wasn't very much food in this whole crowd of 5,000 men plus the women and children. There wasn't much there, but guess what? God was able to use it, you see. And so God would use what we have. You remember, for example, in the Old Testament, when Elisha was the prophet at the time, the Bible says that he had a seminary, if you will. He had a prophet school, and he was teaching young men, you see, the scriptures and all like that. And the Bible said that there was a widow woman came to Elisha one day and said, uh, uh, sir, said, you know, my husband, he was one of the young prophets here in the school, but he's died. And, and, uh, we owe a debt and, uh, uh, the, the creditors going to come and take my two boys and put them into servitude, uh, to serve until the debt is paid off. And, and, uh, uh, Elisha said to her, um, well, What can we do? What do you have?" And she said, all I've got is just a pot of oil. And Elisha said, I'll tell you what then, you go home. You go and borrow from all your neighbors empty vessels. Not a few, as many as you can get. Borrow from all your neighbors and bring them in the house and then after you come in, you and your boys, close the door and then you pour out of that one pot into an empty pot and you keep doing that. And so she does, they go knock on the neighbor's door. Can we borrow a pan from you? Can we borrow your pot from you? And so they gather up and I can just imagine in the living room, I mean they got them stacked almost to the ceiling, empty pots everywhere. And that's all they could get. And so they closed the door. And so she says to the boy, reach me that first pot there. And he reaches it to her. She sets it down, takes the other one, goes to pouring it out and fills that pot up and sets this one down. And lo and behold, it's still full. And she said, here, take this in there in the bedroom and set it on the bed. And, son, you reach me another one. And they keep doing that, you see, they keep pouring. And it fills up that pot, and they set it over here, and they fill up another pot, and set it over there, and another, and set it over there. This pot they're pouring out of, it never gets empty. They just keep pouring. And finally she said, bring me another pot. And he said, Mama, ain't no more. We gonna build them all up. And so she goes to Elisha and she says, hey, we've got the, I've poured out all the pots we've borrowed is full. Now what we do? And he said, go sell the oil, pay your debt. And then you and your boys live on the rest of it. Do you see what God did? He put her in the oil business, didn't he? And they lived on that. I'm simply saying God would use what we got. All that woman had, she said, was that pot of oil. But guess what? God was able to use that, and magnify that, and be able to produce enough to pay off the debt for them to live, I guess, until those boys growed up, and they were able to get jobs and all like that, and then they helped their mama on shore. And so, what are you saying? I'm saying, number one, when you look at this story, we see God use what we got. He used that little boy's lunch. I want you to notice the second thing. I like this. God used somebody that wasn't even counted. You see, the Bible says 5,000 men besides the women and children. So the women and children weren't even counted. And so here's a boy that wasn't even counted. And you know, sometimes the devil might tell you why you don't count for nothing. But guess what? God uses those that are not counted sometimes. And so this little fellow, you see, Now, was his parents with him? We don't know. The Bible don't say. He might have been there by himself, you see. He might have followed the crowd down the road, or he might have had an uncle and aunt, or his parents might have been there. There's no indication of that. But here was a little fellow, you see. He wasn't even counted. And sometimes, you see, the world won't count us. But guess what? God will still use us, you see. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 1.27, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are strong. And base things of the world and things that are despised hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to naught things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. And so you see, sometimes God can use those that are not counted. You remember, for example, The Bible says that after the day of Pentecost, Peter and John was going down to the temple at the hour of prayer, you see, to pray. And so they get down to the temple, and here sits a lame man there at the gate called Beautiful, begging alms of people that goes in. And so here comes Peter and John, and they see this man here, and he's been begging. Somebody evidently has brought him. If he's lame and can't walk, somebody had to bring him there, you see. And no doubt, they probably bring him on a regular basis. And, you know, he probably feels that there at the gate of the temple, people going to church, You know, they may be more of a mindset to help him out financially. And so here he is, and Peter says to him, look on us. And the Bible says, and he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something. You see, Peter said, hey, look at us. And he looks at them, and he probably over the years have been able to learn that By the way, people are dressed. How much money he could expect from him, you see? How much help they can give, you see? And he probably looks at these men. I mean, they're fishermen. They're not dressed with, you know, the nicest clothes and all like that. And so he maybe expects to get, you know, in our monetary system today, he might look at them and say, well, these guys are not that well-dressed. You know, I might get $5, $10 at the most, $20 at the most. But Peter says something probably kind of knocked his feet out from under it. Pardon the pun, I guess. But says to him, silver and gold have I none. But he said, such as I have, give I unto thee. And he said, I took him by the hand, and he said, in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk. And hey, that fellow probably at best was hoping for $20. He never dreamed he was going to walk home that day, you see. But he got up, and he walked. And went in the temple, the Bible says, and leaping and shouting and praising God. And the people thought Peter and John did it. And Peter said, hey, don't look at us like we wouldn't have done this. Ain't no way we could do something like this. But said, by faith in Jesus, and this man's faith has made him whole, you see. And I'll tell you, there was a great commotion there, and Peter and John was arrested, and they were thrown in jail, and they got the whole Sanhedrin together, and the next day they brought them out, and they put them on trial, and they accused them of trying to bring the blood of Jesus upon them. They told him not to preach anymore. And Peter said, well, you judge whether we ought to obey man or obey God, but we've got to do what God tells us to do. And the Bible said they had him to go over to the side. And they got their heads together and they said, Hey, these men ain't never been to Bible college. I mean, they don't have any degrees and no education, and they're not in our seminary. And how in the world have they been able to do things like this? And somebody spoke up and said, hey, they've been with Jesus. You see, they didn't count him as worthy of anything, but they'd been with Jesus, you see, and they believed in him. And he was able to do for this man what all these others, all these, how many years had that man been there? We have no idea. The Bible's silent about it. But you see, I want you to notice, number one, God will use what we got. Number two, he'll use those that are not counted. And let me hurry. Number three, I like this. He blessed something that he knew was not enough. He blessed that food, and there's no way that food would have done on its own, you see, to feed a crowd like that. But He blessed something. And that tells me something. You know, we need to learn to be grateful for what God does. It's sad. A lot of people are not, you see. A lot of people take all the blessings of God, and they never look up and thank Him for what He's doing for them. But we need to be grateful, you see. Ingratitude is one of the horrible sins that the Bible speaks about. In fact, the Bible talks about being grateful. In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18, it says, And everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Philippians 4, 6 says, Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And so the Bible has more scriptures that talks about how we need to be thankful. You remember the ten lepers, and they come to Jesus and they said, Lord, we know you're able to heal us. And Christ said, go show yourself to the priest and offer the offering that the law speaks about. And as they were gone, The Bible said all of a sudden, all ten were healed. I can just imagine. I mean, they're lepers. They've got sores all over them, you see. And Jesus says, go show yourself to the priest. And on the way, all of a sudden, one of them said, hey, whoa, look at this. Well, I don't have no sores on me nowhere. And another one, me either. And all ten of them, wow, we've been healed. And nine of them continues on, but one of them turns back. and goes back and falls down on his knees before Jesus and says, Thank you, Lord. Thank you for healing me. And Jesus said, Weren't they 10 of you? Where's the nine? Ain't that sad, you see? Nine wasn't that grateful, but this one fellow was. And Jesus said, go your way, your faith has healed you, you see. And what happened to the other nine? We don't know. But it was sad that they were ungrateful. In fact, the Bible says in Romans 121, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful. but become vain in their imagination and their foolish heart was darkened. A lot of people, you can see it on the news all the time today. A lot of folks are not thankful for what they got. They feel like they're entitled to take somebody else's stuff. And you see it all the time on the news. And it's sad that this is happening. But Jesus blessed something that he knew wouldn't be enough, you see. And then I'll close with this. Jesus didn't feed them directly. The Bible says that He break the bread and He gave it to the disciples, and then they gave it to the people. You see, God's willing to use us if we're just willing to let Him use us, you see. And God's willing to channel that through us if we're willing to be the conduit that we might give to others. And I like that, you see. Now keep in mind, too, These disciples at first, they didn't believe. I can just imagine. I mean, you know, Philip said, Lord, 200 penny worth of bread wouldn't be enough. And Andrew says, there's a boy here got a little lunch. But God, what was that for such a multitude like this? How in the world? And Jesus said, have him to sit down on the grass. And one of the gospel writers said he had him to sit down by companies of 50 and 100. I mean, can you imagine 5,000 men, besides women and children, and if every one of the men had a wife with them, and we don't know that, but there might have been women there that their husband wasn't with them, you see. And then if they all had a child, there could have been at least 15,000 and upwards. So we have no idea how many might have been there that day. And Jesus, just imagine. Now, these five biscuits from breakfast, you see, barley loaves, and these twelve apostles, and so they don't even get a half a biscuit apiece, a little less than half a biscuit. And then two fishes, can you imagine how small of a piece he must have broke off and gave to them? I don't know where they got, I just, I can't imagine. I'd like to see that and when we get to heaven. If God has a video of all these miracles that Jesus did, I'm going to spend a lot of time in the theater there watching all these. And this is one especially I want to see. I want to see what them disciples, you know, can you imagine? I mean, he gives you a little piece of bread and a little tiny piece of fish, and he says, I want you to feed that group there. And keep in mind, 12 apostles, and make it easy for me, if there's 12,000 people, then each apostle's got to feed a thousand. I mean with a little piece and I imagine they probably looked at that and they might have thought I could eat this myself And I'm supposed to feed a thousand people, you know, and but yet they did They did. And I don't know how it came about. I don't know whether, you know, they went to the first guy and took a piece of bread, broke a piece of it off and retched it to him and looked back and it's still the same amount, just like the woman with the pot of oil. And break off, and break off, and break off. But I do imagine this, that as they began to feed that crowd, as they saw that the food was not depleted in the least bit, their faith grew. Would you imagine that? I imagine after maybe feeding the first 10, they said, all right, everybody, just don't get excited. We've got enough food here to feed all of you. I just kind of imagine, you see. But you see, Jesus didn't feed them directly. but He used the disciples, and He's willing to use us if we'll just let Him. Heavenly Father, we thank You, Lord, for Your Word, and we thank You for this miracle of feeding the 5,000, and how that You was adequate for the need here, and You're still adequate today. There's nothing too hard for You. You're God. You have all power. You're omnipotent. And we thank you for that. And Lord, I pray that this little message this evening will be an encouragement. And Lord, may it cause us to have a little more faith. And Lord, when it seems like that We're a nobody. When Satan tells us you can't do that, may we remember this. And how that you used the little boy's lunch and fed such a great multitude. And may we, as those disciples, have the faith to allow you. As the scripture says, that we might yield ourselves vessels that you can use. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.