John 6, 1-14 for a sermon I've entitled, The Feeding of the 5,000, and this is what it says. Then Jesus went up onto the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. Therefore Jesus, lifting up his eyes and seeing a large crowd was coming to him, said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these may eat? This he was saying to test him, for he himself knew what he was intending to do. Philip answered and said, Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, for everyone even to receive a little. One of them, his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, there's a lad here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what's that for so many people? Jesus said, have the people sit down. Now there wasn't that place, much grass, so the men sat down and number about 5,000. Jesus then took the loaves and having given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. Likewise, also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with the fragments from the five barley loaves, which were left over by those who had eaten. Therefore, when the people saw the sign which had performed, they said, this is truly the prophet who is to come into the world. So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and to take him by force, to make him king, withdrew again to the mountain by himself all alone. On February 9th, 1964, four young lads from Liverpool, England stepped out on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater where the host introduced them with these words, ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles. The 750 seat auditorium was filled, but 50,000 people had actually requested tickets for the show. 73 million Americans watched the live performance that night on television. And for the next three years, this country experienced what came to be known as Beatlemania. According to the ICD, Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders. Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is defined as a state of abnormally elevated arousal, effect, and energy level during a manic episode, an individual experience rapidly changing emotions and moods, highly influenced by surrounding stimuli. Now Beatlemania was experienced especially by young girls who attended the concert. When the band began to sing and play, they would hold their heads and scream hysterically. The volume was so loud you could hardly hear the music. These young maidens swooned and fainted, and a number of them needed medical attention. As one Beatles song after the other started to top the charts, their popularity grew and grew and they needed larger and larger venues to play in. At one time they performed at Shea Stadium in New York where 55,600 people were in attendance. That was the first time ever that a concert was performed in a sports stadium. Well, with popularity comes merchandising. Not only were there teen magazines for their fan clubs, but you could also buy lunch boxes, coffee mugs, clocks, radios, record players, purses, t-shirts, and dresses all with the image of the Fab Four on them. You could even buy a Beatles wig. Now, fame has its downside as well. The four bandmates couldn't go anywhere without being chased down the street by their adoring fans. They started to be concerned for their safety, and so they would go to and from their concerts in armored vehicles. And people did bizarre things. One woman ran up to them with a disabled child and wanted Paul McCartney to kiss him so that he would be healed. She later claimed that a miracle had taken place. Two women stood on the window ledge of a hotel and threatened to jump unless the Beatles met with them. When they returned back to their hometown of Liverpool, 200,000 people, a quarter of the city's population, came out to meet them. You know that that kind of adulation and adoration can go to a person's head, and according to the band's drummer, Ringo Starr, he himself was swept up in the hype. He said this, I went absolutely mad around 1964. My head was just so swollen. I thought I was a god, a living god. And the other three looked at me and said, excuse me, I am the god. We all went through this period of going mad. Speaking of God, John Lennon got himself in trouble by some statements he made when he was interviewed by a British magazine, The Evening Standard. When asked about his view on religion, he said this, It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about this. I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first, rock and roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It was them twisting it that ruined it for me." His comments didn't even raise an eyebrow. in England, but it caused a furor in America, particularly in the Bible Belt in the South. Radio stations refused to play their music, churches staged record burnings, and politicians denounced the Beatles, some calling them communists. Well, eventually, the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, convinced John Lennon to issue a public apology. And so at his press conference, Lennon said this, I suppose that if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have got away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God or anti-Christ or anti-religion. I wasn't knocking it. I wasn't saying that we're better or greater than Jesus. He was adamant that he wasn't comparing himself with Christ, but attempting to explain the decline of Christianity in the UK. He said, you know, if you want me to apologize, if that'll make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry. Now, no rock star today would ever apologize for something like that, but it was foolish for John Lennon to say such a thing at that time. But here's the question. Was he right? Actually, I think he was. Because of television, their music, and their worldwide tours, the Beatles were indeed more popular than Jesus was, at least in his own day. Jesus did have large crowds, but here, as he begins the last year of his ministry, he reaches a turning point. For after the incident of the feeding of the 5,000 and his teaching about it, many of his followers abandoned him, and the crowds began to dwindle. Well, it is to this pivotal event, starting with the feeding of the 5,000, that we want to turn our attention this morning. So let's pray and get into the text. Father God, we pray for grace and mercy as we look at this. Feed our souls even as Jesus fed those people that day. So bless us in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, I titled my sermon, The Feeding of the 5,000, but if you look down at verse 10, we're told that it was actually 5,000 men And in the other Gospels we see, plus the women and the children, so it's probably somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 people that were fed that day. Did you know this is the only miracle that's recorded in all four of the Gospels? Our John records it, not so much because of this particular miracle, but because of the teaching that was set up as a result of it that Jesus gave. There he's going to make a contrast between the manna that Moses gave the people in the wilderness and the bread of heaven, the real bread of heaven, which is himself, that's given to feed the souls of his people. Well, how should we outline this part of the story? I think the first thing we see is the crowd. The crowd, that's verses 1 to 3. Secondly, we see the need, and that's 4 to 9. Third, the miracle, that's 10 to 13. And finally, the reaction, and that's 14 and 15. So the crowd. What's the largest crowd you've ever been in? Was it at a sporting event? perhaps at the state fair. I think the largest crowd that I was ever in was in Disney World Magic Kingdom back in the 70s. They had a firework show that night around the center of the castle there and they announced that 75,000 people were in the park at that time and I think they were all right there. You couldn't move from here to there in less than five minutes. Well, having a large crowd gathered together can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. It all depends on what they're assembled for. I mean, if they're there to worship God and sing his praises, the more the merrier. On the other hand, if they're there to protest and to riot, to attack police, burn cars, and loot stores, that's not a good thing. Well here, it appears, at least initially, that the crowds are gathered for a reason, a good reason, to hear Jesus teach. But we're specifically told what motivated them in verses 1 to 2. Look again what it says. After these things, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, or Tiberias. A large crowd followed him because they saw the signs which he was performing on those who were sick. As much as we complain about our healthcare system and its cause, can you imagine what it was like in the ancient world before the rise of modern medicine? You know, the population explosion that we've had in the last 100 years really has come primarily as a result of the decline of child mortality rates. I mean, you go back to the 1800s and earlier, and a woman might give birth to eight children and have five of them die before they reached age 18. Did you know that in the year 1800, 42% of all children died before age 5? Let that sink in. Today, it's only 1 in 50 that will die before age 18. And so medical conditions today that can be treated and corrected might have been a death sentence for people in Jesus' day. So when people heard that Jesus was actually healing people, cleansing them of leprosy and causing their deafness to disappear and their blindness to be taken away, I mean, as Neil Diamond sang, pack up the babies and grab the old ladies and everyone goes, because everybody knows brother love's show. Well, people were suffering, Jesus was healing, so the obvious thing to do is to go and be healed by him. But here's the problem. It's not just that these were wonderful miracles. They were also designed to be a sign. Now, what's a sign? A sign is some kind of emblem that points beyond itself to something else. And Jesus performed these miracles to signify something about Him. Now, frustrated with the Jews who were looking for miraculous signs but couldn't see that they were pointing to Him as their Messiah, and their king, Jesus later said to his countrymen, if I do not do the works of my father, don't believe me. But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works so that you might know and understand that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. John 10, 37-38. The religious leaders didn't deny that Jesus did miracles. How could they? They saw him do the miracles. And it was absurd to suggest, as some did, that his miracles were done by the power of Satan, because if he was casting out demons by the power of Satan, then Satan's kingdom was divided against itself, Jesus pointed out. But if the power didn't come from the devil, it had to have come from God, and thus vindicated Jesus' claims to be from God. Those coming to him that day saw the miracles, but they didn't see what it signified. It says, then Jesus went up to the mountain. There he sat down with his disciples. Now it was Passover, the feast for the Jews was near. Jesus died on the following Passover. So this is about one year before the crucifixion. And interestingly, the two main foods in the Passover were the bread and the Passover lamb. Well, Jesus is the Passover lamb, and the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, and he's going to talk about how he's actually the bread of life. That brings us to our next point, though, the need. You know, when you read the accounts in the other Gospels, you'll find that Jesus had taken his disciples to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, actually to escape the crowds. And he had just heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded. And evidently, he wanted some time to process that loss. In Matthew's account, we're told now, when Jesus heard about John, he withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by himself. And when the people heard this, they followed him on foot from those cities. When he went ashore, he saw the large crowd and felt compassion for them and healed their sick. Also told in that gospel that when evening came, the disciples came to him and said, this place is desolate and hour is already late, so send the crowds away so that they can go to the villages to buy themselves some food. You ever heard the phrase or term compassion fatigue? Compassion fatigue is the emotional and physical exhaustion that results from caring for others, particularly in the helping professions, and can lead to decreased ability to empathize and feelings of hopelessness. So doctors working in a field hospital in a war zone or aid workers watching hundreds of children starve to death every day might become emotionally numb as a coping mechanism. You're feeling drained and worn out and exhausted. Well, maybe that's the way the disciples were feeling after facing a day of ministering to these crowds. But not Jesus, for out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again. Well, back here in John's Gospel in verse 5, it says this, This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he was intending to do. Now the disciples wanted to get rid of the problem, but Jesus wanted to solve the problem. So he put the problem before Philip and asked him if he could work out a solution. Now John tells us that Jesus put this to him as a test, but what was he testing in Philip? Was it a test to see how clever he was, how resourceful? You ever seen those signs that say, you know, give warning of low clearance on a bridge? I read of one driver who ignored it. And as he was going under it, he caught the top of his trailer tractor in the bridge, and it tore off the first part of it. Well, now, how are they going to get this thing unlodged? He couldn't go forward, but neither could he go back. The police were out there, and they're trying to figure out what to do, how to dislodge it. And they finally concluded they'd have to use a cutting torch or a giant Sawzall to cut it off. But there was some little boy sitting on his bike watching this. He said, why don't you just let the air out of the tires and drive it out, which they did. That's pretty resourceful. Well, here the test is not for his resourcefulness, but for his understanding of, and faith in Jesus' ability to meet the needs of people. Now, you remember when they were in Canaan and they ran out of wine at the wedding? And they came to Jesus with a problem, and he took dirty water and turned it into wonderful wine? He multiplied it in that sense. Evidently, Philip hadn't drawn the truth from this incident that Jesus was sufficient to meet all of our needs, whatever our circumstances we find ourselves in. Instead of looking to Christ's power, he looked at the difficulty of the situation and he responded by saying, you know, 200 denarii worth of bread wouldn't be sufficient for them to eat even a little. Now, denarii was a day's wage for a working man. I looked this up. They said the starting union wage for a carpenter in Wisconsin is about $16 to $18 an hour. You work 10 hours a day, that's $180. 200 days wages, Phillips said, that would be about $36,000. What he's saying is, if I went to Walmart and bought little Debbie snack cakes, we could only give one package to each person. Well, of course, Philip was thinking the answer to the problem had to be a financial one. And in fairness to him, Jesus did ask him, where are we going to find money, or where are we going to buy so that they can have bread? But think about it. Isn't that the way politicians usually think about social problems? Kids are raised without their dads, and every study shows that they have much worse social outcomes without a father in the home. What's the answer? Increased spending on food stamps or rent subsidies. How's that worked out? Hillary Clinton, in pushing for more government welfare, said that it takes a village to raise a child. No, it doesn't. It takes a mom and it takes a dad. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson used to often point out that it costs more money to keep a person in prison for a year than to send them to Harvard. But was he really suggesting if you just take them out of prison and put them into Harvard, that would take care of the problem of crime? Think about it. If poverty really is the cause of crime, then why wasn't there much more crime back during the Depression? Crime rates actually went down. Everybody was poorer back then than it is today. In the recent LA riots we saw in the last week, were they all breaking into grocery stores and stealing bread? No, they were breaking into Apple stores and stealing phones. It says in verse 8, one of the disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, there's a lad here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what's that for so many people? Now barley is a cheaper grain than wheat, but it's still nutritious. That reminded me of a video I saw about the persecution of the church in China. One Christian man was arrested and his wife and kids were left to fend for themselves. And they struggled just to make ends meet and very seldom did they have enough food to eat. One of the sons, a young boy, would bring just a piece of cornbread for lunch every day. And he said that he was always mocked by the fellow students. They started to call him cornbread head. He said to his mother, can I just have one wheat roll so the kids won't mock me? Oh, by the way, the Greek word that's translated loaves here speaks of flatbread, what we would call pitas. And as far as the two fish, now if they were Atlantic bluefin tuna, which averaged 550 pounds and could be up to 1,500 pounds, They could have had quite a feast, but it still probably wouldn't be enough for 20,000 people. But we're supposed to think of maybe a couple sardines, or for those in our area, a couple small perch. That brings us to our next point, though, the miracle. This is 10 to 13. I watched an interesting video the other day. It was about feeding people in Antarctica in McMurdo Research Station. The station is home for some 1,500 people who work there. Growing season in that area is rather short. I checked the temperature for today. It was forecasted to be minus 13, but it gets a lot colder. And the highest temperature ever recorded there was 51 degrees. So it's not like you're going to have a vegetable garden. In fact, all the food has to be brought in on ships, and it arrives every 18 months. And during that time, the kitchen staff will make a million meals. Now, the people do a fair amount of physical labor, but even if you didn't, you know it takes a lot of calories just to maintain your body heat in that kind of weather. Food can be stored for long periods because freezing is not a problem in Antarctica. As a matter of fact, the refrigerators have to be heated to keep things from freezing. Can you imagine what it takes to feed those on an aircraft carrier? There's 4,700 people on an aircraft carrier. I went to a few Promise Keeper events. I was amazed by how they could feed 50,000 people in a little over an hour. I remember one time when we were there, they served this cold lo mein noodle stuff, and I think three-fourths of it was thrown away. The garbages were just overflowing. Well, here Jesus and his disciples have a massive crowd, a hungry crowd, probably tired, in front of them, and they hadn't any more time to prepare for this than those who put on the Woodstock Rock Concert. But Jesus undaunted, But the task at hand, and he handles it masterfully. Look what it says. Jesus said to him, have them sit down. There was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, a number about 5,000. Jesus then took the loaves, and having given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated, likewise also as much fish as they wanted. Now I want to camp on that for a moment, those words, having given thanks. Here God the Son thanks God the Father for the bread that he provides. By the way, didn't Jesus tell us that's supposed to be one of our regular prayers? Give us this day our daily bread? James says that every good gift, every good thing, and perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. Paul warns believers against thinking that we should reject certain foods because they're somehow unholy. He says this. But the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times, some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits, and doctrines of demons, by means of hypocrisy of liars seared in their own consciences with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocating abstaining from certain foods which God has created to be gratefully shared by those who believe and know the truth. For everything that's created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with gratitude, for it's sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer." There's a Simpsons cartoon where they're sitting around the table preparing to eat. And the father, Homer, asks his son, Bart, to say grace. And so Bart bows his head and says, Dear God, we paid for all this stuff, so thanks for nothing. I remember John Gerstner, in one of his videos on the Lord's Prayer, spoke of a man that he knew in his church who was disabled, so he couldn't work. Gerstner said this, Oh, what he would have given to be able to do a day's work. He had enough money and was given a supplemental income, but oh, how he missed his job. He would have given anything to be able to work. If you were ever to go with me to visit that man, you would thank God doubly for your daily bread. Once for it, and secondly, because you were able to earn it, which is perhaps even a greater blessing than the bread itself. Joe Walsh, rock and roll musician, guitarist, very successful band, The Eagles. Like many in the industry, he became an addict. Cocaine, vodka, camel cigarettes. During his party days and times of self-indulgence, he said he watched a number of his friends OD and die. 30 years he spent as an alcoholic, he finally dried up. He's been sober for a number of years now. His early songs are all about partying, but the last one he wrote is entitled, Family. It has these words. I've been alone most of my life. I've never known what it was like to end up somewhere and not have to pack, to be among friends and know they have my back. But now I'm here where I belong. I finally found a wife and a home and a family that matters more to me than anything I could have ever believed. And when we gather together, tell me how blessed can somebody be? Give thanks, break bread, say grace, bow heads for all this love that surrounds me. We laugh, we cry, stand together. That's why it's all part of being a family. By the way, pray for Joe Walsh. Someone gave him a Bible recently, and I'm praying that he will read it and come to understand what matters. Give thanks, break bread, say grace, bow heads. Jesus did that right before he performed this amazing miracle. It says he distributed to those who were seated, and likewise also the fish, as much as they wanted. Now, Pastor Jeff is my brother, as most of you know. And when he was a teenager, he worked at a place, I think it was called Wally's Ice Cream World. They also sold burritos and tacos. But they made a mistake when they hired him, because they told him that he could eat whatever he wanted for free. Can you imagine saying that to a 16-year-old boy? He's convinced that it eventually went out of business because he ate the business dry. My grandson, Dominic, is living with my daughter right now, and he's planning on going to college. My daughter called my wife the other day and said that he's eating her out of house and home. Can you bring some meat when you come to visit us? By the way, when you were a kid, did you ever have one of your parents say to you, eat your food? Don't you know there's kids starving in Africa? I never could figure out how eating my peas was going to help starving kids in Africa, but I understand now what my dad was saying. You should be thankful that you have food when others don't. And by the way, Jesus tells us here it's wrong to waste food, doesn't he? So we read in verses 12 to 13 when they were filled, he said to his disciples, gather over the leftover fragments so that nothing will be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments for the five barley loaves which were left over from those who had eaten. Now, considering this is such an amazing miracle, it's interesting that John relates it in just such a short, matter-of-fact way. I mean, how do you imagine it happening in your mind? I mean, at what point did the miracle take place? I would guess that as they were passing the baskets, every time a person took a piece out, it just replaced itself miraculously. I mean, talk about the all-you-can-eat buffet. You know, when I worked in restaurants years ago, there was a guy that I worked with, his name was Mark Kelly. And his dad was a pastor in a mainline church. And Mark wasn't a believer, so I would witness to him. And I remember one time discussing this story with him, and he told me that his dad taught that what actually happened in this was that the little boy gave up his lunch, and he so inspired all the people there that they did the same thing. That's nonsense. This passage clearly teaches that there was a miracle that took place. And the people themselves understood that because we see that in their response. And this is our last point, verses 14 to 15. It says, Now God spoke to Moses about Israel saying this, I will raise up a prophet from among them, their countrymen like you, and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command. And it shall come about that whoever does not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require of him. See, as the Jews understood it, this passage taught that there was a special prophet, one in line with Moses, that would come before the Messiah. And that's why the religious leaders came to John and asked him, are you the prophet? He said, no, I'm not that prophet. But what they didn't understand was that prophet was going to be the Messiah. My guess is that recognizing this miracle that Jesus performed was similar to what Moses did in feeding the people the manna, they rightly reasoned that this guy from Nazareth had to be that promised prophet. And evidently they were willing to accept him at that point as their Messiah, because look what it says in verse 15. So Jesus perceived that they were intending to come and take him by force, to make him king, and so he withdrew again to the mountain alone by himself. You see, these people in the crowd were hoping for a political leader, one who would rescue them from Rome. Jesus was offering himself as a Savior who would deliver them from their sins. And as we see in the next couple of weeks, this isn't the kind of Savior that they were looking for. Well, what lessons should we draw from this story? I'm going to give you two of them. Here's the first one, obvious one. Jesus, in supplying the people with bread in this miraculous way, was not only showing his power, but also vindicating his claim to be the Son of God. As Rodney Whitaker said in his commentary, he said Jesus was not only the prophet that Moses wrote about, but also the God that he wrote about, the one who provided Israel with bread in the wilderness. Here's the second lesson, though. As God, Jesus is able to provide us with all that we need. I suppose living in a land of abundance where we do, that assurance may not mean as much to you as it would a person in the third world. But with $37 trillion of debt, at some point our economy is going to come down. And the idea of having your daily bread is going to seem to be a special blessing. But even before then, You know, you might find yourself in dire straits because of a health crisis, loss of a loved one, left wondering, how am I going to go on? How am I going to be able to get through this? I'll encourage the Christians in Philippi, assuring them that my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in Christ Jesus. And of course, what you need more from Jesus than your daily bread is forgiveness and to be reconciled to God. It's through his death on the cross where he paid for the penalty of sin of all who would believe in him. And then God raised Jesus from the dead three days later to show that sacrifice was accepted and that he had defeated death not only for himself, but for his followers. And in this way, he became the bread of life. You know, I mentioned John Lennon's comments about Christianity at the beginning of my sermon. Four years after the Beatles broke up, in 1977, John Lennon went through a phase where he started watching TV evangelists. He even told a couple of his friends that he had become born again. But his wife talked him out of this, and he gave it up. Three years later, in 1980, a man named Mark David Chapman came up behind John Lennon as he was walking up the stairs to his apartment. He fired four shots into his back. He died a short time later in transit to the hospital. Sad. Very sad. Don't let that sadness become your story. Right now, you're hearing the gospel. Right now, you're hearing how you can be reconciled to God. Right now, you're hearing how you can have eternal life as a free gift. Don't just blow it off. Because you know, you're right, Dan. We're all getting older. Dan and I were talking. He said, you know, a lot of these rock stars are dying. I said, Dan, they're in their 70s and 80s. What do you expect's going to happen? I've said this before. I say this at a lot of funerals. You're going to go to at least one more funeral in your life. And after they're done with the funeral, everyone's going to go out to the graveside. They're going to cry. They're going to hug. And everyone's going to go home that day except for you, because it'll be yours. And the only thing that will matter at that point is, what did I do with Jesus Christ? Nothing else. Nothing else. So let's pray. Our Father in God, Jesus came not to fill our bellies with bread, though He did it on that day, but to fill our hearts with love for You and to find eternal life that comes through Him. I pray for each one here, Lord. And people here who don't know you, they know about you because they've all been taught well, but they've never given their heart to Christ. I pray that you would work in their hearts so that they would do just that. And for those of us who already know you, Lord, I pray that you'd help us to live with Jesus as our bread that we feed on daily. So bless us to that end, for we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.