Sunday Morning Service (John 6:1-21)

John 6:1-21   

Audio Access Available Above
“A Portrait In Compassion And Concern" • 7.21.19 • Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- John has just provided us with a tremendous, theologically rich, treatise, captured in the response of Jesus to His detractors in Jerusalem.

- In it, Jesus has claimed equality with God the Father, having authority to give life as well as the power to exercise judgment upon the world.

- He has not been shy with regard to these claims and in the section before us, He again proves them by doing what only God can do!

- John tells us in the beginning of this gospel that Jesus "exegetes," the Father's character to us. (John 1:18) As such, let's look at "God's Compassion Upon The Multitude." Verse 1.

Text

• John 6:1-3 : "After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased. And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples." : The Lord had been in Jerusalem, dealing with the unbelief of the religious leaders, who sought to drive Him away by harassment.

- Jesus was actively being opposed in the South, but He was happily received in the North. Interestingly, more than half of His miracles will take place in this region. There is a correlation.

- When He came into town a "great multitude" began following Him. The language seems to indicate a group that kept following Him around.

- I can imagine a small crowd turning into an ever greater crowd, as Jesus moved about.

- In a few verses, we'll find that this particular group grew to multiplied thousands! Most of these people have attached themselves to Him because of what they had seen Him do.

- Remember that John is not writing about every sign that Jesus performed, otherwise, by his own admission he'd be unable to gather enough paper to complete his work!

- The Lord's works were so well known, that these people gathered just to see what He would do next. To many of these people, Jesus represented their only hope for healing.

- If you were a person with an incurable disease, would you not go out to seek this Man? If there is a possibility of being made well, wouldn't you have wanted to be around?

- As the crowd gathered, the Lord took up a station on one of the hills surrounding the sea with His disciples, who were all wondering what Jesus would do as well. Verse 4.

• John 6:4-6 : "Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, 'Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?' But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do." : Passover crowds meant a boom in tourism for this region. Jews traveling from northern countries came through Galilee to get to Jerusalem.

- These crowds were about to empty out into Judea, but they were here right now and the Lord has a great opportunity to teach this massive crowd that had gathered around Him.

- At this moment, the Lord singles Philip out with this question regarding where to purchase food for this crowd. Philip was from this area, specifically Bethsaida. (John 1:43)

- Some have suggested that Jesus asked him because he was the most familiar with the area. He would have known where to purchase bread for the best price.

- Philip doesn't understand this in the moment, but the Lord is not asking for the sake of information. He asked this in order to test or evaluate his response of faith. You and I bristle at this.

- We want God to take us at our word. We want Him to buy into our conception of our faith, because we believe we are pretty strong and spiritually reliable. This is generally the problem!

- Our faith in Him is what it is, but it is never what it should be! Jesus doesn't need the test for His own sake. He already knows what He has in us.

- His tests are meant to expose us to what we will grab ahold of when the pressure rises! Without His testing, we would be fooled into thinking we have made it! His tests prove otherwise!

- This is why Pastor James will later tell his scattered congregation to rejoice in the trials and tribulations that come our way knowing that their was being built up and added to!

- Our tests are designed for the same purpose! God is working in His disciple the practice of looking to Him first before reaching to any other resource. He wants our reflexive trust placed in Him!

- Besides, when it comes to thinking that we are integral to God's plan or that we can affect anything without Him, we'd best memorize verse 6.

- He asked Philip, but He Himself knew what He would do! He has already determined His course. God never needs our help! Philip, like us, offers his suggestion anyway! Verse 7.

• John 6:7,8 : "Philip answered Him, 'Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.' One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, 'There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?'" : What would Philip offer in the face of a large gathering crowd? What came to his mind immediately? A natural, financial, worldly solution. This should be encouraging to you and I.

- Philip had the advantage of being an eyewitness to the various miracles that John has included and excluded from this record. You'd think that the question would be pretty elementary!

- "Where would we buy bread? Why buy it when You can make bread in assorted varieties!" It's comforting that a disciple that physically lived with Jesus missed the answer.

- Amazingly, Philip's answer was that they didn't have the resource to deal with this present crisis. They needed more money than they presently had for every one just to have a taste!

- A denarii was a single day's wage for the average Israeli employee. Two hundred days, more than half a year's labor wage, would be insufficient to the task!

- In the meantime, Andrew was eavesdropping and thinking while Philp presented his plan. He came at this from a different angle and offered his suggestion apart from the Lord's solicitation.

- We should always be careful not to offer the Lord something that He hasn't asked us to look into! That usually doesn't end well.

- Philip had looked at the question from a need to procure supplies. Andrew looked at enlarging the supplies that they had on hand!

- Among the crowd was a young man that had brought his own lunch. His lunch proves his poverty. His lunch would have been a few english muffins with a little sardine accent!

- You just have to love Andrew. It seemed like a feasible plan when he thought of it. It's even likely that he hadn't even yet looked in the bag before bringing it to Jesus.

- "They might be really big fish and really large barley loaves!" When he saw what was in the bag, he wondered out loud, "What are these among so many?"

- I have to say that I really like where Andrew was going here. He was ready to hand the bag over to Jesus, but then, he looked inside, looked around at the crowd and lost sight of his initial faith.

- We are often guilty of the same mentality. We should view what we have in the light of Jesus, not view Jesus in the light of what we have! That was the fatal mistake for Andrew.

- You have to wonder if both men weren't mocking each other's plan silently! "What a stupid plan!" What we have are two disciples who walked with Jesus, with two different perspectives.

- One offers the Lord a practical, worldly resolutiion. The other anticipates a miraculous intervention.

- One cannot conceive of an action until he has the resource to act. The other believes that God will simply enlarge what he has to offer.

- Both men have a plan and both men believe that the Lord will work. Both are learning and that is what it means to be a disciple in the first place!

- How do you think Jesus responded to these men? Do you think He frowned with displeasure? Did He look impatient, ready to unleash a verbal tirade upon them?

- I think that the Lord just smiled at them warmly. Jesus knew their limitations when He picked them. He's not worried about their plans. He has plans of His own. Verse 10.

• John 6:10: "Then Jesus said, 'Make the people sit down.' Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand." : The place that the Lord chose for the occasion was a perfect place for a picnic. The spring rains made the hill a pleasant place to plant oneself in.

- John, writing years after the fact, remembers the number of the men in attendance.

- Generally, when scholars account the total number of people, they add in a gal and a few kids per man. Just adding women would bring the total to 10,000 people. How many kids were there?

- Joseph and Mary eventually had 6 children. That may or may not have been a big family during this period of history, meaning that this crowd could easily have numbered 15,000!

  - However many people there are, they have no idea what is in store for them! Verse 11.

• John 6:11-14 : "And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, 'Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.' Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, 'This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.'" : Andrew was quite proud when Jesus actually took the loaves from the boy that he had pointed out! He probably gave Philip a little teasing glance too!

- Before they could really understand what was happening, the Lord, having given thanks, just started to hand the disciples loaves. Imagine Peter taking out a handful of loaves and fish.

- He delivered it to the group at the edge of the grass and then came back up to where Jesus was stationed. Several of the others were on their way out with a similar looking tray in their hand.

- This went on until every person there got as much as they wanted! Jesus wasn't handing out sample platters. Each person could not have asked for more! They were "filled."

- The word speaks of being glutted, unable to eat anything more even if they wanted to!

- Philip's practical idea would have given everyone a taste, a Costco sample. God's idea was to fill every single person to the point of complete satisfaction!

- The heart of God for the multitude was not to give them a simple taste of His goodness, but to thoroughly satisfy their need, to leave them full! Isn't that His desire in salvation?

- Religion will give them a taste of something, rationed out exactly, proportionate to it's own richness. Jesus fills you full so that you could not ask for more!

- These people couldn't eat any more if they wanted to and there was still enough for the disciples to fill 12 personal sized wicker baskets!

- Philip and Andrew looked at each other, each carrying a basket on their heads, laughing and remarking that the answer to how to get enough bread to feed the crowd was "Jesus!"

- That was indeed the prevailing sentiment among those men that had walked away satisfied! They said, "There isn't an ounce of doubt. This is the Prophet who has come into the world."

- They identified, correctly, the Lord as the Prophet that Moses predicted would come to Israel in Deuteronomy 18:15. He would be "like" Moses and Jesus had just made bread.

  - "This is the kind of man that should be King!" They had the right idea, but came to it from the wrong perspective.

- They wanted a King that would bring them bread continually, who would be a greater version of Moses. As flattering as that might seem to be, the Lord was not impressed.

- We have seen the heart of God in the Lord's compassion toward the multitude. We'll conclude this section by seeing "God's Concern For His Disciples." Verse 15.

• John 6:15-17 : "Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone. Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them." : There is a very important principle that is here for us that we'd best not ignore. God doesn't want us to trust Him for what He does for us!

- The Lord didn't want a kingdom based upon His ability to supernaturally perform signs and wonders with followers who are waiting for His latest parlor trick!

- He wants a Kingdom of priests who have been supernaturally transformed by His Spirit, men and women who will trust Him and obey His Word despite what they do or do not see!

- Men and women are always ready to bow their knee to King Jesus when He meets their need in a way that they are satisfied with.

- What happens when God decides to do something a different way? Only a person endowed with the Lord's Spirit can endure that!

- Naturally, Jesus didn't allow these men to take Him, so He went off on His own, while the disciples got into the boat to head back toward Capernaum during the early evening hours.

- The other gospel accounts tell us that Jesus "made His disciples get into the boat."

- Why did He send them out, knowing what was out in front of them? I believe that the lake, away from the people, was the safest place for the disciples to be!

- They didn't need anyone feeding their imaginations of what Jesus could be! They needed to remain dependant upon the Lord to reveal Himself as He was to them!

- Perhaps you wonder why God has you somewhere away from "the action." You might resent Him for that, but at least you won't be led down the wrong path in following Him!

- Jesus told them that He would catch up to them. They just didn't realize where He would do that! When He does, they will have something better than a "Bread King!" Verse 18.

• John 6:18-21 : "Then the sea arose because a great wind was blowing. So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. But He said to them, 'It is I; do not be afraid.' Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going." : The Sea of Galilee, as I've previously mentioned, is a glorified lake that is situated nearly 700 feet below sea level.

- The best way to describe it's topography is to think of a bowl. The Sea of Galilee is at the bottom of that bowl and is subject to severe and unpredictable weather patterns.

- When the warm air on the water interacts with the cool mountain air that flows down from the north, it's not unusual for the weather described here to become a reality in very short order.

- John recounts that the men had rowed 3 or 4 miles. What he doesn't tell us is how long they had been rowing. The other accounts record a potential 8 hour rowing session! (Mark 6:48)

- The winds was contrary to them, meaning that they were basically rowing just to hold their position! I want you to think about these men admirably.

- Jesus told them to get into the boat and traverse the lake. That is what they were determined to do! They could have turned back and let the wind drive them, but that's not what they did!

- The sea of Galilee is about 8 miles wide, so these men were at the point of no return, equidistant to both shores, determined to follow their Lord's orders!

- I hope you agree, but if you don't, I'm not bothered: I'd rather be found by the Lord in the middle of the lake, hopelessly rowing and getting nowhere than being anywhere He didn't call me to!

- You and I cannot imagine the physical exertion that overwhelmed these men. Think of their arms, their backs and their blistered hands.

- We aren't told, but I'm convinced that Jesus came walking up right at the end of their resolve! When they saw Him, they were afraid!

- Understandably, the disciples were afraid as they saw this figure walking toward them. What that must have looked like in the dark, with the sound of waves crashing all about them is a mystery.

- Their fears lasted until they heard His voice. "It is I. Do not be afraid!" When Jesus said this, He quite literally commanded their fear to go!

- When they listened to His voice, they brought Him into the boat and were immediately at the spot that they intended to go! That might be the greatest miracle of all.

- Without explaining how it happened, the disciples were all of a sudden at the shore the moment Jesus entered the boat!

- However long you and I struggle, remember this: When the Lord chooses, He'll bring us to land without any trouble! That is what God can do when He's in the boat with you!

Conclusion  

- When God looks out upon the multitude, the mass of people that are looking for hope, remember that He looks at them with compassion.

- If they will come to Him, He will not offer them a snack, but will offer them a feast that will satisfy their deepest and eternal needs, but He will do so on this simple term: "Believe in Me!"

- When the Lord looks upon His disciples, He's concerned that they will be influenced by the wrong ideas, so He sends them into a storm where they will be safe from being derailed in their faith.

- When the time is right, He will show Himself and give success to their labor. He simply gives on condition: "Don't be afraid. Trust in Him!"

-->