And thank you for your participation in our singing. Even Matt was sitting in there listening. Let's have the kids come at this time as they prepared the song for this morning. I am His, He is mine, Jesus knows my name I can't help it, His heart is only mine Awaken now, awaken now, awaken now, O praise His name. The world changes, but we're always the same. In love, when we're poor, we shall never part. In this world, I will try. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. Always the same. All right. Thank you, kids. Appreciate your ministry and music this morning. Let's assist the little ones, including Mac, to go with Mrs. Schwartz to their class. And the rest of us can take our Bibles, and we'll open up to John, Chapter 6. Alright, John chapter 6, and verses 1-14. I didn't think about Father's Day for some reason this week, until I think it was right after I finished preparing this message, and I thought, oh yeah, that's right, it's Father's Day. And so I didn't prepare a Father's Day message, but maybe I did on accident, because I'm going to preach on 5,000 hungry men, and that seems somehow appropriate for Father's Day. As you think about how Jesus taught at times, there's kind of two main ways that we see Jesus' teaching. He teaches sometimes by parable and telling a story. But a lot of times, he uses something that's close at hand, that his men can look at. He uses it as an illustration to instruct them. He did that, you remember, with the widow's mite? He says, behold, she's put in more than all these men. And they see men dumping in a lot of money, and she puts in her few mites. He uses it to instruct the disciples on giving. He says, lift up your eyes, look on the fields, they're ripe already to harvest. And he uses that as an illustration for this soul winning that his disciples would do. He looks at the temple and the disciples are enamored with it, how long it was in building and what they've accomplished. And it is a great feat, even to this day, to not understand how they possibly put those stones in place. And yet Jesus said, tear this temple down, in three days I'll rebuild it. And he used that as an illustration. And this morning, our story is like that. Jesus is going to use what's taking place in front of his disciples as he teaches them a lesson on faith. And we begin at John chapter 6 and verse 1. It 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 on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples, and at Passover a feast of the Jews was done. It's interesting that this feast is coming. It's interesting that Scripture mentions that. Because our story is about a feast that's going to take place in the wilderness. But it's a feast that is not, at this point, prepared. And so, they're close to the calendar, to the Jewish feast, but geographically, they couldn't be farther away from the resources of the feast that they're going to have. They've gone up into a mountain. Jesus has taken his disciples there to instruct them. And the lesson that they're going to get on this day is a lesson that they'll not soon forget. The people that are about them, you could call them thrill-seekers. They're not people that are necessarily interested in the instruction as much as in seeing a miracle. It says they followed him because they saw his miracles, which he did. This morning I just want us to sit at the feet of Jesus with the disciples. They're up there in the mountains. Jesus has had some lessons that he wants to teach them. And let him, this morning, instruct our hearts as well. Let's pray and ask God's blessing on our time. Father, I thank you for this passage. I pray the Holy Spirit would give us wisdom as we come through this morning. Father, you hear Matt crying this morning. We all hear him. If you're pleased, we ask that you just allow him to stop and get to sleep here for the sake of those in the room as well as us out here as we listen to the Word of God. Father, I pray that you give us insight into your Word this morning. Father, I thank you that you put John 6 in the Bible. You've taught us something here in a very practical way that we can look at and understand and hold and apply to our lives. And so we do pray that you, Spirit, would give us great wisdom. I pray that you guide me as I speak, and our hearts will be tender to you. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. The first thing that we can learn as we come to this passage that Jesus could instruct us on is that sometimes doubtful thoughts have divine origin. Sometimes doubtful thoughts have divine origin. The question that is going to be asked to Philip that's going to cause him puzzlement is a question that is asked to him, not by Satan. It's not that Satan has come along and tempted Philip and filled his face with a great puzzle in his life that he can't understand. It's a question that has been asked to him by the Lord. It's a puzzle or it's going to cause him to struggle with his faith. But it's from Jesus. On Thursday night we watched, at church here, we watched the film about the Exodus that Adele sent to us. And it's a very good argument for Israel crossing the Red Sea at the Gulf of Aqaba, which is to the right of the Sinai Peninsula. And it's a very interesting film. We thoroughly enjoyed it. But as they show the possible route of Israel, It shows that it's likely they walked down a canyon, a dry riverbed, that would have had walls on either side that were immense. There's basically nowhere to go. They get to the site of the Red Sea. There's no way to cross it, and it got Pharaoh's army behind them. But who led them there as they got to that place? And the answer is God. God went before them as a pillar of cloud by day. He went before them as a pillar of fire by night. And so Israel is faced with this great difficulty in their wilderness journey, and here they are, it's a dead end, but who had brought them there? It said God had brought them there. It wasn't that they were there and now Satan's tempting them to unbelief, because he had brought them there. It said they're there, the problem's there, but it's by God's direction. And so we find Philip here facing an impossible situation. And Jesus sees this as an opportunity to teach his men heavenly sight. It says in verse 5, when Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him, he sat unto Philip. They're there in the mountains, I guess, looking down at the valley and seeing this multitude coming. The Lord looks at it and he sees an opportunity to teach his disciples faith. There's two things that Christ, I believe, deals with in this passage. They're two of the greatest things that are obstacles to men's faith. And the first one is sight. The first obstacle to our faith is sight. After all, the saying says, seeing is believing. And we tend to trust what we can see, and we tend to depend upon things that we can see. That's why Paul had to remind the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 5-7, For we walk by faith, not by sight. Paul, why do you remind the church of that? Because that's our tendency. It's much easier for us, seemingly, to plan our lives by what we can see, to make decisions based on what we can see, rather than walking by faith. There's a man in our church in Michigan. I don't know exactly what he did, because what he worked in was technology for the government that was classified. But he worked with infrared technology. Infrared allows you to see basically heat. And it's part of the light spectrum, I guess, that kind of glows because of heat with a certain technology that you can turn on. And all you have to do to be able to see at night in that situation is flip a switch, I guess, and turn on the goggles or put the goggles on, and you have the ability to see in darkness. is at a point, he's got a little bit of darkness. There's coming a time where it's going to get far darker and Jesus is teaching him now to turn on the light. To let the illumination of faith in. Remember, the greater darkness comes when Jesus Christ is crucified. Remember Thomas, we call him Doughty Thomas as he came to the Lord. What did he say? He said, if I don't put my fingers through The peer says, if I don't see it with my eyes, I'm not going to believe it. You know, Lord, when it comes to John 20, 29, Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. So Thomas, you're missing, what is he missing? You're missing joy. Thomas, you see it, you believe it, but Thomas, blessed, happy are they that believe by faith, not by sight. You're missing the blessing, Thomas. You know, one of the greatest dangers to our faith is that as God directs us, we desire to see it. We want it to kind of all be there in front of us so it's obvious so that we can just not walk by faith. But we miss the blessing of walking by faith. And so, Jesus seizes an opportunity to teach his disciples, look, this is a life of faith. You know, is God going to do that in our lives? And the answer is, yes. He was teaching the disciples. You know, God's teaching us too. And there's going to be times where he leads us into a situation that he may even start it by asking a question like he did to Ezekiel as he stood at the valley of dry bones. He said, son of man, can these bones live? And Ezekiel says, O Lord, thou knowest. And the question again, it wasn't Satan coming and tempting Ezekiel, the unbelief, it was God putting that question into his heart. Is this possible? Is it possible? And so, our Lord starts this opportunity with his disciples to teach them faith. Jesus asked a logical question. that had an illogical answer. He asked a logical question, but it had an illogical answer. Because he says to him, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? That's logical. When shall we buy bread that these may eat? Normally that's the way things will work out. You go to the market, you take money, you buy food, and you provide. And so it's a logical question. And the Lord is not deceiving Philip. He's asking the question in a way that makes sense. The only problem is that the answer is not one that makes sense. It's not going to be logic that answers the question. I normally see Philip looking at the crowd as we'll see them say, later Peter will say it, you know, and Philip will respond saying, how can we afford to do this? And I can almost see Philip in his heart thinking, Lord, can we pass a plate or something? You know, there's all these people here. They got money. But then we don't have a supermarket. We don't have a grocery store. There's nowhere even to go and to buy these things. Another great failure of our faith is in our reasoning. How did God test Philip's faith? How did Jesus test his faith? By sight? What he could see? How else? By reason. He asks him a question and he gets thinking. And he begins to reason how he can solve this problem. You know, money is a good illustration of this. I think a lot of times, just like in this case, it's a financial question that God has asked to fill up. When shall we buy bread that these may eat? William McDonald is speaking about the verse Philippians 4.11, Not that I speak in respect of want. He said, it is noteworthy that Paul never made his own financial needs known. This was a lack of faith. He believed that God had called him into his service and was utterly convinced that God pays for what he orders. C.H. Macintosh, I don't know who that is, but a man of God, took a dim view of publicizing one's own personal needs. This is what he said, to make known my wants directly or indirectly to a human being is departure from the life of faith. And a positive dishonor to God. It's actually betraying him, it's tantamount to saying that God has failed me. And I must look to my fellow for help. It's forsaking the living fountain and turning to a broken cistern. It's placing the creature between my soul and God, thus robbing my soul of rich blessing. and God of the glory due to him. Logic says, I've got a need. You know, especially in this case, he's our service of God, serving God. Tell everybody about it. Say, hey, I've got a need. Can you help meet my need? You know, there's been a lot of men of God, good men of God, that have lived a life that's contrary to that logic. Hudson Taylor. So he got to go to China, and as he's looking at going there, he decided, I'm going to trust God now. And he lived well within his means. He gave away a lot of what he had. He lived off very little. And he trusted God to supply his need when that need came. Later on, he started the China Inland Mission. And he started it with the same faith that he lived by. Just trusting God within his means. You know, the other illustration of that is George Miller. There's many others that we can think of. And reason says, I've got to work this out. I've got to figure out how it's going to work. Rather than saying, no, if God desires this to take place, God's going to meet the need. And so there's a logical question before Philip. But the answer was not to be found through reason. It wasn't to be found through figuring it out. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. says, trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. Why would God say, in all thy ways acknowledge Him? Why would He say, lean not unto thine own understanding? God's given us a mind. He allows us to think. I think thinking's a good thing. The Bible says, with good counsel make war. But when our reasoning and our thinking leans one way and God's leading leans another way, we're to have the wisdom to follow God's Word. So there's two dangers, I guess, to our faith this morning. And one is we've got to see it to believe it. Another one is our reasoning. We're going to think about it. We're going to think and think and think. And if we can't figure it out, if we can't make it logical, then we're not going to accept it. You know, we watched that film about the Children of Israel coming out of Egypt in Exodus. And they explained everything, and it was good. It was a good explanation. But when they got to the water's parting, you know what they had to say? Which is right. They had to say there's an unnatural answer. There's no naturalistic answer for this. In other words, we can't say, and the Bible says a wind came up. That's natural, but it was an unnatural wind in that it pushed the water into walls. And held it there. So that Israel walked over on dry land. Can my reason understand it where I come to the point where I say, well now I completely understand. I can understand chariot wheels in the Gulf of Aqaba because the Bible says that Israel was drowned there. And it's awesome they showed them. And they showed the coral structures that have formed around them. They showed other things about Mount Sinai in the cleft rock, and the darkness on the top of the mountain, and the possibility that this was the actual Mount Sinai, even though we're not totally sure. And you can't get there now, archaeologically, to figure it out, because of the country it's in. They showed those things. You look at that and say, ah, my reason understands that. But I can't understand water that would part and stand up. Nor this morning can I understand a sinful heart that needs a savior, that has to have the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ applied in a way I can't see internally to give me everlasting life. I can't reason that, and I can't see it. So where is it? The answer is faith. And so much of our life, as we seek to serve the Lord, the question's going to come, and we're going to look at it, and if we try to answer it with sight, or if we try to answer it with our mind, we're not going to get the right answer. So there may not be a logical answer to meet the need that you face this morning. And so Philip comes to a point of faith. Verse 6 tells us that the Lord had asked him this question, then it says, and this he said to prove them. It's a text. It's a text. Why is Philip at this crossroads? Philip's life is going great, Jesus is teaching him, here comes all these people, now the Lord gives him a burden. It's a big question, and the question is given to him as a sudden test. It's like right there, Jesus has asked the question, Philip, what's the answer to this? Whence can I buy bread that these may eat? And he said it to prove them. The word prove means to try, to make trial of, to test, for the purpose of ascertaining his quality, or what he thinks, or how he will behave himself. How have you responded? Recently, God's brought trials or tests into your life, and it proves us What does it show as we respond? How have we responded? I don't think I haven't lived long enough to have great trials in my life. I've had some trials, and I think finances, again, is a good way sometimes, in this case, to look at this. deputation, which is raising our support to come to Scotland, I was full time at a church. I had a young family of three kids. Logan was born just ten days before we started traveling to raise our support. But when we had to face that decision, what are we going to do? Our decision was, we resigned December, I think, 18th. And we start full-time deputation January 1st without any money. And the way we get paid is this. Churches would give us love offerings, but those love offerings wouldn't come to us. They'd go to our board, go into a bank account, and then we'd get paid like the following month. Which is great. It's fine. But when you're starting and you don't have any money, you have no monthly support come in. All you get is whatever the church and their grace and love gives you. That's the big thing. But you know, we decided by faith, that's what God wants us to do. You know, God supplied for our need real quick. Our church in Michigan, unknown to us, voted to support us full salary and benefits for I think six, I want to say six weeks after we finished. And so we had that. Six weeks exactly after we finished our household, and we profited like $3,000. Just the right time after that, our side yard sold. That's another story. We profited like $30,000 and paid off a brand new travel trailer that God had directed us to get to travel on deputation. How? It's just because God in His grace gave us an opportunity to prove Him. To see His faithfulness. Our friend, the Richmond in New York City, I read this on Thursday night, but he's a church planner there. He started a church there about six or seven years ago. They've been praying about a house and they've had a two bedroom flat that they've had for the last several years. He's got four kids. He said, I'll be honest, I've not been praying very believingly about a new house until recently. But my mom has been praying for years. My wife has been praying for years. My daughters have been praying for at least a year that the Lord would provide a house for our family. When my mom recounted to me the different amenities she was praying for, I tried to stop her. Mom, we're in New York City. We don't need to think about purchasing a home and especially one like you're asking for. That's for people who live in suburbia. God has called us to pastor here. It's too expensive to even think about that. But she kept praying, and when we started looking for a house, seriously, if it did not have a driveway, a yard, or a washer-dryer, she'd know that was not what she had been praying for. Sarah, and that's his wife, too, had been praying faithfully. I remember telling her that we shouldn't presume. It's not possible here. Let's be condemned with a two-bedroom apartment, and perhaps we can move into a larger apartment as time passes. What sweet prayers my daughters have been praying to during our family devotions. I'm so thankful for the praying women in my life who continue to ask, seek, and knock. When I couldn't think about going up the walkway to approach that door, the Lord heard these prayers and chose to answer in a remarkable way. And I'll put this on the back table and you can read how God answered. God supplied a beautiful fixer-upper home for them in New York City. Impossible except for God. It's not easy, when God puts that, whatever that test of faith, the test of faith is not going to be easy. It's not going to be something, Philip didn't respond and go, oh I know the answer to that. You're going to multiply fishes, you're going to multiply wolves, and we're going to feed the multitude. Philip's struggling with it. Trying to come to grips with it, because there's a point of faith for Philip that Jesus Christ has put there. So he's put the question there on purpose. He's got the impossible situation, it's a point of faith. for Philip, but it's an answer never questioned in the heart of God. It's an answer never questioned in the heart of God. Even though Jesus asked the question to Philip, he didn't have to ask the question. Because he knew the answer. It says in the next verse, for he himself knew. For he himself knew what he would do. He knew ahead of time exactly how this was going to work out and what was going to take place. When we go back to the states, in the states there's a lot of corn fields. And the corn grows tall. Depending on the summer, you get a warm summer and the corn can be close to 10 feet tall. It's planted about a foot apart and the rows are about a foot apart. And so you imagine just three or four rows and you can't see anything. And if you get in there, you can actually get quite lost in the corn. But there's people, there's companies that try to get you lost on purpose. They take and they actually cut the corn in a way to make a maze and pretty intricate mazes, corn mazes. And maybe in the States when we're back, we'll get a chance this autumn to go through a corn maze as a family. But in those mazes at times they have platforms where you can climb up and you can see over the top of the corn. And if you're up there, you can say to somebody that's down in the corner, you can say, you know, go this way or go this way. Or you can plot for yourself how you're going to go. Why? Because you're above the corn. You know, God, as we look at our life, there's times where we have things around us. And there are things that you or I, we look at and we say, I can't see past that. I don't know what's on the other side of that. And I don't know how to get around that. But God is like the person standing on the platform. He's always above it. Always. God's never hedged in as we're hedged in. The Bible says in Job 3.23, Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in? What's the situation? Is that outside of God's control? No. What is it? It's an opportunity for faith. But as you look at that, you think, it's impossible. How is this going to work out? I can't see past that. The answer is, God knows the answer. And the answer also is, He is the answer. He is the answer. It says, for He Himself knew what He would do. Who's the answer to the question that he's puzzled and filled up with? He's burdened by it. How's this going to take place? And the answer is Jesus. Isn't it interesting that Jesus Christ is the answer? Jeremiah 32, 27. Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me? I don't want to sound like a New Evangelical this morning. by pet phrases. And they've kind of taken these phrases and they've shanghaied them. But Jesus is the answer. Whatever the problem we have in our lives, the answer is Jesus, period. Always. Is there an answer to this question? I mean, there's a big problem I've got. Yes, the answer is Jesus. It is. For he himself knew what he would do. He either is specifically the answer, his person, Or He is the answer, His work, what He will do. An answer never questioned in the heart of God. So sometimes doubtful thoughts have divine origin. This problem that they're facing, how are we going to feed them? It was put there as a test. It wasn't satanic. It wasn't temptation from the devil. It was God trying them. Sometimes I think we're pretty quick to say, ah, this thing has really tempted me to unbelieve. Well, maybe. But what about God testing you? What about God asking you something so that you struggle with it and you come to the conclusion that Jesus is the answer, that God is the answer. So sometimes doubtful thoughts have divine origin. And then sometimes there are no human answers to God's questions. There are no human answers to God's questions. The answer wasn't sight. The answer wasn't reason. Philip, he tried to answer by reason. His answer was, there are too many people for seven. Philip answered him and said, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. I don't know what they had in the purse. I don't know if the 200 penny worth is what they had or if that's a huge amount. I didn't look it up. But he's reasoning. He's saying, you know, $210 worth, whatever that amount is, if we had that to use, it's not enough that everyone could take a little. And so he's thinking about it. It's as if to say, Master, do you know how much food it would take? I mean, look at it. Maybe he's counting real quick. The Bible tells us how many. 5,000 men. Huge crowd that's there. And he's thinking, how is this possible? Remember the spies in Canaan, as they went into the land and their faith was tested, they responded two ways. They responded with reason and they responded with sight. In reasoning, they said in Numbers 13.33, it says, And there we saw the giants, the son of Anak, which come of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Question to the spies. How do you know how you work in the sight of giants? Reason. You've been thinking about it. I don't think they told you that. You're grasshoppers in our sight. Even so, they're thinking about it. They're thinking about it. It's too big. It's too hard. And they're thinking. They thought wrong. We'll continue that. Now with Peter, because Peter didn't say there's too many people. Peter said there's too little food. He's looking around, he sees what's going on, and he answers by sight. The spies answer by sight as well, Numbers 3.28. Nevertheless, the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled. How did they know that? They saw them, and very great. And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. Anytime in our hearts, God's got something for us, and we know it's of the Lord, and we're burdened about it, and we feel like, I've got to do this for God, and we want to do it for God. But we look at what we can see, and we think about it, and we begin to respond with, but, reason, or but, sight, warning bells ought to go off in our hearts. Peter's eyes saw little ability on the part of man, this little boy. It says in verse 8 and 9, since one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said unto him, there is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes. I don't even know what Peter said. Peter's looking at it. I don't know if Peter is being a bit sarcastic. But he's looking at what he can see, and he examines it, and the only resources he sees are a little boy, a little lunch, perhaps a mom had been wise enough to provide that for her boy so that he had a meal when he's out. But it's just enough for him. And Peter looks at that, and he kind of despises it. He says, what is that? What is that? Well, it's interesting. God uses just this little lad that's got a little one. Sometimes it's easy for us in our lives to despise small things. It's easy for us in our prospects, you know, for our church to despise small things. But you know, it's interesting in God's Word how often God uses small things. He uses a widow's cruise of oil. He uses a widow's fight. He takes a little shepherd to kill a giant. God this morning isn't bothered with our problems saying, all you've got is little things so I can't solve the problem. Peter despised it. He looks at it and says, oh. And Peter's eyes spot total inability on the part of man. Because he says, but what are they among so many? We've got the little lunch and he's looking at it saying, what is that? You know what's interesting about that? What Peter despised is what God's going to use. He looked at it and said, that's nothing. Christ looked at it and multiplied it to feed the multitude. This morning, we need to be careful that we don't despise what God wants to use. It was what God wanted to use. We might look at it and say, that's not the answer, that can't possibly be the answer, but it may be exactly the answer in God's providence. Remember Sarah? Genesis 18, 13. The Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? What the Lord said, Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the time appointed I will return unto thee according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. Sarah, she laughed. No way. No way! It's impossible. And God says, you know, is there anything to our reward? We might look at our problem and we might despise something that we say, you know, here's the problem and this is the potential answer and it is nothing. It's nothing. And we laughed, you know, God, can you use that? And the answer is yes. Yes. It's exactly what it's going to use. Sometimes doubtful thoughts have divine origins. Sometimes there's no human answers to God's question. They're thinking logically. Again, they're seeing it, but they can't come to the answer. And then lastly, This morning, sometimes we just have to act by faith. Sometimes we just have to act by faith. The disciples had to announce the meal with no prepared food. They had to say to these men, sit down, it's meal time, without anything there. Verse 10 says, And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down and numbered about 5,000. Jesus didn't take the little boy's lunch and begin to break it. And break it to the point where he's got a huge pile of food and then say to the man, OK, now have the men sit down. He has the men sit down first and then he begins to take the bread and the fish and he begins to break it for them. I love the story of the priest as they get ready to pass over the Jordan into the promised land with Joshua as their leader. And it says in Joshua 3.14, It came to pass, when the people removed from their tents to pass over Jordan, and the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant before the people. And as they that bear the Ark were coming to Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the Ark were dipped into the brim of the water. For Jordan overflowed all its banks all the time of harvest. that the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon a heap very far from the city Adam that is beside Jeratan. And those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed and were cut off, and the people passed over right against Jericho. And the priests that bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed over Jordan. How would you like to have been a priest? during the harvest. As soon as the priest feeds... I mean, they're stepping into flooded water. But as soon as it touched it, then it parted. Why didn't God part it before? Because what they were going to do, they were going to do by faith. Why didn't Jesus break the bread ahead of time? Why didn't He just sculpt all of it ahead of time? Look, you don't know how to answer this question, but by the way, I'm just going to break the bread and I'm going to provide. He didn't give them the answer. He showed them the answer. And so, The disciples had to announce the meal, even though there was no prepared food. Is God asking you to step out by faith? Because He'll do that at times. He'll have a step when we look at it and say, I don't see the answer. I don't see how it's going to work out. But God's called us to walk not by sight, not by reason, but by faith. The disciples had the best view of the miracle. Here, Philip and Peter, you can almost feel bad for them. The Lord's asked them a question. They can't come up with an answer. I believe it burdened them. They're trying to solve it. How are we going to do this? And yet, as Christ answers, they get the best view of the miracle. Verse 11. And Jesus took the loaves when he gave thanks. He distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were set down. and likewise for the fishes as much as they would. 5,000 men and women and children, 5,000 men and their families sitting. But who's around Christ as the miracles take place in the disciples? They stand there and I don't know what it looked like to see it break and yet there's more and break and there's more and break and there's more. But they saw exactly what is taking place You can almost hear him marveling. Peter and Philip. Peter, look what he's doing. He's breaking the bread. There's more. He's breaking the fish. And there's more. You and I, we look at the story, and I don't know if you've ever wondered, why were there more than one of each item? Why two and five? Why not just one? I mean, wouldn't that have been enough? But they know the answer, because they were there seeing it take place. The disciples had a best view of the miracle. Then the disciples, as they saw this by faith, they had to guard God's abundant provision, because it was exact. Verse 12 and 13. It says, and when they were filled, he said unto the disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Verse 13. Therefore they gathered them together, filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above, unto them that had eaten. You kind of ask the question, why? Why extra? It says they were filled, they took as much as they want, they ate that, but there's extra. Why is there extra? I don't know. We can suppose this morning, here's a little boy, he's come with his lunch, he's given it to the Lord, that God's perhaps going to send extra back with him for his mom or their provision. Maybe it's for the disciples and Jesus, they've got travels that they're doing, maybe it's just extra supply for their need, perhaps some would be late. There's people that are coming to see Jesus out in the wilderness, there's more to come, so they've got to keep the extra for those that were late. I don't know. But we know that was exact, because God meets exactly what the need is, and the Lord is very clear that nothing be lost. And then, lastly this morning, men's faith was established because of God's miraculous provision. It says in verse 14, then those men which had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said this isn't a truth, that prophet, that should come into this world. It's creative power. It's that He could take nothing and make something out of it. He had the creative power to look at that and say, it's got to be the Messiah. So this morning, if we look at this story, we can ask our question, how is our faith this morning? Our faith says, I want to see it, I want to understand it. But there's times where God allows us to walk where He'll give us doubtful thoughts that have divine origin. Where He's testing us to see if we're going to respond by faith, if we're going to respond by sight. Sometimes there's no human answers. Sometimes we just have to act by faith. This morning, if you've got a need, whatever the need is, Christ is the answer. He's able to provide and this morning as he did in this story he knows himself what he will do. Let's pray and ask God to bless his work. Father I praise you for your grace to us and I thank you for your love. Father I thank you for the opportunities that you give us to walk by faith and not by sight. Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit would encourage us this morning. Father, there's no doubt in our hearts there's areas that you're testing us even today. And I pray, Father, our hearts will respond by faith to those areas. Father, if somebody's here this morning without Christ as their Savior, we know that Jesus Christ is the answer. But I pray, Father, that they find that the answer is not by what they can see. It's not by how they can figure it out. It's just my faith and trusting in Jesus and coming to Jesus to see that need met. And Father, I just pray the Spirit of God would strengthen our faith. Thank you for your love for us this morning. It's in Christ's name I pray. Amen.