One of the things in Scripture that is almost shocking is the simple, straightforward nature of some overwhelming truths. Think, for example, about the power of prayer. James writes in 5:16b, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Then, in the next verse, he makes a comparison between all of us who just read those words and Elijah. He writes, “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit” (James 5:17-18).
Now, could you imagine what you might say if that argument were not made by James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writing infallible, authoritative, divine words, but by your seven-year-old son? If James 5:16-18 weren’t a part of Scripture, and your seven-year-old came up to you and said, “Dad, our prayers have got to really be powerful, accomplishing the impossible, because we’re just like Elijah, and he prayed that it wouldn’t rain and it didn’t for three and a half years, and then he prayed that it would, and it did,” how would you respond?
Perhaps we’d be tempted to say, “Well, come here for a second, son. I’m really proud of you for learning Bible stories like those of Elijah and wanting to pray. And, yes, prayer really is powerful, but it’s not as simple as you’re laying it out.” And I’m not even saying that such a response would come from an evil heart. Maybe we would say that kind of thing because we want to prepare our child not to be crushed if ever a prayer isn’t answered, and we want them to understand God’s will, etc.
But the words of James 5:16-18 are in the Bible. This isn’t just an argument made by a child. It’s a declaration by the Holy Spirit through James that we should read of Elijah’s prayers and expect the same kind of power to be displayed in our prayers. It is a simple, straightforward argument. So simple and so straightforward that there’s almost a natural reflex in us to want to push back against it, isn’t there? Surely it can’t be that simple and that straightforward, we might imagine.
That may well be how we feel when we deal with our text this morning. This text is mainly about Jesus. We get a picture of who he is and what he can do as we see him miraculously provide food for 5,000 men (besides women and children, which might bring the total to 15,000-20,000), walk on water, and heal all kinds of diseases. But the text is also about his followers and their response to who he is and what he can do. Not only in these verses is their faith (or lack thereof) addressed but in texts that we’ll encounter later, we see that one of these episodes will be referred back to in noting how they should respond with trust and faith in light of what they have seen.
So, I want to approach the text that simply and straightforwardly. I want to note what these stories show us about Jesus, what these stories tell us about Jesus’ followers in the stories themselves, and then about what Jesus’ disciples should have learned and what we should learn as well as we read these miraculous stories. First, let’s consider what these texts show us about Jesus. Here, I simply want to note that:
I want to show us this mainly in the first story, where Jesus feeds the 5,000. The text begins with the clause, “Now when Jesus heard this,” which is most likely a reference to John the Baptist’s death, since that’s the last thing mentioned in Matthew’s gospel (though it could be a reference to Jesus hearing of Herod’s reaction to him, thinking he’s John the Baptist, since John’s death was told to us in the form of a flashback). And Matthew tells us that upon hearing of this news of John’s death, Jesus withdrew by boat to a desolate place by himself. Jesus, being the God-man, with a fully human nature and human emotions (such that in the garden he expressed that his sorrow was so deep that he felt like it was going to kill him), here takes a reasonable action upon hearing of the death of his friend, cousin, and Messianic forerunner. He went to just be alone.
But Matthew tells us that “when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns” (v. 13). He just can’t get alone. People continue to demand so much from him. Then, Matthew tells us, “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he …” Now, let’s just stop there and ask how we would anticipate that verse ending. Wouldn’t we think it reasonable for Matthew to write, “He saw a great crowd, and he sighed, feeling exhausted” or “and he said, ‘How long will I have to put up with these people?” or “and he turned away from them, seeking to avoid them”? Any or all of those responses would be reasonable. But instead, Matthew tells us, “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (v. 14). And we see in verses 34-36, that he continued to heal them the next day, not simply speaking and healing the masses with a word (which he could have done) but seemingly taking the time to touch and heal each one personally.
So, I simply want to note here that this is our Savior. This is our Lord. This is our great High Priest, who is able to sympathize with our weakness. He exercises compassion toward us. You need not worry when you come to him with requests in prayer, or lament in your sadness, or repentance and confession of sin that his response is to say, “No. I can’t handle you. I’m too fed up and put off with you.” He is, rather, our compassionate, gentle, and merciful Savior who exercises compassion long after any of us would want nothing to do with someone. Jesus exercises amazing compassion, and if he exercises this much compassion toward this crowd, how much more can we trust him to be compassionate when he has saved us through his life, death, and resurrection.
And we also see his power. His power is, of course, demonstrated in his miraculous healing which is how our text begins in verse 14 and ends in verses 34-36. Verses 15-21 tell of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. After expressing compassion though healing these crowds, it began to get late, and we are told that the disciples come to Jesus noting that they’re in a desolate place, there’s not food around, and he needs to instruct the crowds that they are dismissed so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
Jesus answers that the crowds need not go away, and instructs the disciples to give them something to eat (something I want to look at in more detail in a bit). The disciples note that they only have five loaves of bread and two fish, which we know from the other gospel writers came from a boy in the crowd. Jesus, therefore, has the crowds sit down, takes this little amount of food, blesses it, breaks it, and gives to his disciples now a greatly multiplied amount of fish and bread so that not only do all eat, but they get full (v. 20), and then they take twelve baskets full of leftovers.
This event is so miraculous that some, unable to accept it, have suggested that the real miracle here is that everyone who had food stashed away decided to bring it out and share it. But of course that’s simply a rejection of Jesus’ miraculous power.
We also see another dramatic display of his power in the next section of text as Jesus sends his disciples across the sea in a boat, after dismissing the crowds so that he might finally be alone a bit and pray. However, the disciples’ trip wasn’t a pleasant one. Soon, the wind and waves were blowing against them, making it hard to get to the other side. But then, in the darkness or making right at the breaking of the day (the fourth watch of the night is a reference to between 3:00 and 6:00 AM) they saw Jesus walking on the water.
Of course, they think it must be a ghost. After all, men don’t typically walk on water. But then Jesus makes clear that he is the one they were seeing, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (v. 27).
Now, if we’re keeping score, we’ve seen Jesus heal great numbers of people, multiply five loaves of bread and two fish so that possibly 15,000-20,000 are filled and twelve basketsful of food are left over, and, now, walk on water. Clearly, our Lord is not lacking in miraculous power and ability.
So, let me put our two truths side-by-side in a simple and straightforward way. Our Lord is amazingly compassionate and powerful. He abounds in compassion and mercy and is unlimited in his power and ability. This reminds me of a way I used to pray as a child before meals, often acknowledging in my prayer that God is great and God is good. Similarly here we see the goodness and greatness of Christ.
And when we stretch beyond these miraculous episodes in our text, we can see even greater displays of compassion and power, greater displays of goodness and greatness. This is most clearly seen, of course, when we were enemies of God, wanting to dethrone him, and he loved us in the midst of our rebellion to the point that God the Son took on flesh, lived for us, died for us, and was raised for us so that we might repent, believe, and become forgiven, reconciled children of God. But whether looking at the display of compassion and power in Christ’s redeeming work or simply here in these miraculous stories, the truth is unmistakable: Jesus has and exercises amazing compassion and power. That is the first truth I want us to note. Second, we should also note that:
This is just a simple observation of the text, isn’t it? First, we see it when Jesus says to his disciples in verse 16, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Now, giving someone something to eat isn’t a difficult thing to do if you’ve got enough food to feed whomever is in need. If I give my oldest son four slices of bread and say, “Feed yourself and your three siblings a slice of bread,” that’s quite easy. That’s not what’s going on in verse 16.
Jesus says to his disciples who at first have nothing and only later have five loaves of bread and two fish, “Give these 15,000-20,000 people something to eat.” That’s about like me saying to you all this morning, “Go ahead and levitate out of your seat and see if you can touch the ceiling.” That is to say, “It’s a task they can’t do.” Or perhaps better said, “It’s a task they can’t do apart from Christ and his power.”
Similarly, in our second story, once Peter hears Jesus identify himself on the water, Peter answers, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (v. 28). Now, that’s an odd response, but Peter is the guy we’re told in John’s gospel who recognized Jesus on the shore as he was out in the sea on a boat and put on his outer garment before jumping into the water and going to Jesus. I don’t know of people who add clothes before jumping into the water, but Peter is a unique man.
So, Peter asks Jesus to command him to come to him on the water, and Jesus happily says, “Come.” And we know the rest of the story. Peter gets out of the boat, walks on the water, but soon becomes afraid, begins to sink, and cries out to the Lord who takes hold of him and brings him into the boat.
But in both cases, whether it’s telling the disciples to feed the crowd or Peter to come to him on the water, the reality is the same: Jesus in each case commands his followers to do something that they cannot do apart from the power of Christ.
Now, I think I don’t have to argue that this reality of what we see in the text here (i.e. Jesus commanding his followers to do what they cannot do in their own power) is simply a microcosm of what we see throughout the Scripture. Israel is commanded to take the land, defeating men they claim look like giants. Gideon is commanded to take 300 men and defeat thousands. Joshua is commanded to bring down the walls of Jericho simply by marching around them. Paul is given the task, according to Acts 26:17 to open the eyes of the Gentiles. And we could name many other examples.
Nor do I think that I need to convince you that our Lord issues commands to us that we simply cannot carry out apart from the power of Christ. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We are commanded to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. We are commanded to make disciples of Christ from all the nations on the face of the earth. Then there are simply all the tasks of obedience to Christ that are overwhelming, whether it is honoring your mother who has Alzheimer’s by taking her into your home, adopting a child, giving more and more of your income toward the purposes of God’s kingdom, and on and on. And this leads me to the last truth I want to note:
Now, let me first show that these stories are about trusting the Lord by faith. In the feeding of the five thousand, when Jesus commanded the disciples to feed the crowd, he had a purpose in it. That is, he wasn’t just messing around with them or attempting to embarrass them because of their obvious inability. You see, each of the gospel writers share with us this story, and John tells us specifically that his question was put to Phillip in terms of buying the crowd food. John tells us that Jesus said, “Where are we to buy bread , so that these people may eat” (John 6:5). But then John also adds that Jesus “said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do” (v. 6).
Therefore, with that bit of information, we can say that in Matthew’s account of the same story, when Jesus says, “Give them something to eat,” this was spoken by Jesus in order to test his disciples. “But what,” we may ask, “did he want them to do?” Or, to ask it differently, “How would they have passed the test? What should they have seen, said, or acknowledged?” The answer, I think, is that they should have noted Jesus’ compassion and power. That is, what they should have noted is who Jesus is and what he has done.
They easily could have said, “Lord, we acknowledge that you are God’s promised king and have watched you do many miraculous works, so we know that it is nothing for you to feed a crowd of this size.” Instead, however, they focused on their own inability.
Similarly, when Peter begins to look around at the wind and waves and begins to fear so that he sinks, we know that this was a lack of faith and trust. We know it because this is precisely what Jesus says, as he declares to Peter, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (v. 31). Again, it was a case of removing one’s eyes from Jesus, his character and his ability, and Peter fixing his eyes on himself and noting his inability in these dangerous surroundings.
So, I think each of these miracles contain a lesson of faith and trust. They were a chance in the moment for the disciples to exhibit their trust and faith in the Lord. Though in each case they failed to do so.
I also think, however, that the lesson of trust that should have been exhibited in each of these miracles was meant to be learned and held onto after the miracles as the disciples found themselves in more overwhelming circumstances but could look back, see what Jesus did, and trust in their present. I say this because in just two chapters we’re going to read in Matthew 16 that Jesus warns the disciples of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they’re going to mistakenly interpret it as Jesus rebuking them for forgetting to bring bread on their trip. But Jesus answers, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? Or the seven loans for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? (16:7-10). That is, they were to perceive who Jesus is and what he can do, and they were to remember that lesson so that they might demonstrate faith and trust in the future.
So it is with us. We don’t read these stories as if we’re unaffected interpreters, judging the disciples. We’re to learn these same lessons that they were to learn. We’re to read these stories and understand that our compassionate, powerful, good, and great Savior can be trusted as we seek to obey him. We’re to find ourselves in places of seemingly impossible obedience and say, “I will walk by faith and obey, trusting my compassionate and gracious Lord to provide for me what I need, even as he provided for the 5,000, for Peter, for Paul, for Gideon, etc.” Isn’t this what Hebrews 11 teaches? We’re not necessarily to imitate every act our brothers before us did, but we are to imitate their faith and trust.
And this has implications for us as a church. Let’s just consider one area of the Lord’s provision – finances. Just taking the last decade alone, I remember the elders proposing to a small, financially weak congregation that we send off our only vocational pastor for a two-year, full-paid sabbatical. Hire someone else for those two years – effectively doubling the personnel cost of the church – and still continue to do all the things that we thought the Lord would have us do, regardless of the cost. In fact, we figured that if we did these things, we would spend every last penny we had after the two years.
However, two years later, not only had we not spent every penny, but we paid our bills, gave to the work of the kingdom, planted a church which we blessed with tens of thousands of dollars, paid off our mortgage which was over $100,000 at the beginning of the two years, and had money left over.
Then, simply fast-forwarding to bringing Tom and Aaron in the midst of two building remodels as we tried to up our own giving toward the causes of church planting should have crippled us and more. Instead, we’ve seen unprecedented levels of the Lord’s provision.
Finally, though we could point to many others, over a year ago, we, your pastors, stood in a members’ meeting, asking you to pray that the Lord would provide for us an ability to expand our building space. And, Lord-willing, this month we’ll close on a property that is more than twice as large as what we have now, which we’ll be able to purchase and enter into debt-free.
The point is simply this: there are going to be similar tasks before us, and we could fret. We could grow anxious. We could want to shrink back. We might be tempted to tighten our hands in regard to giving toward the planting of churches in North America and around the world, etc. However, the Lord has proven his faithfulness to us again and again, and he did so not simply to meet those past needs but to teach us a lesson in trust. And I’ve only looked at the area of financial provision, though we could recount his provision in other areas for the rest of the day.
Nathan Young is fond of saying that when the Lord meets a need he is always doing at least two things. He is meeting whatever particular need he is meeting. And, he is providing another reminder to those who hear of his provision that he can be trusted. He has done that in the feeding of the 5,000, his walking on the water, and his healing of the crowds. And he’s done this in this history of Cornerstone Community Church. Therefore, knowing clearly that he is compassionate and amazingly powerful, and knowing that he delights in calling us to overwhelming obedience that lies outside of our own abilities, let us not be ones to whom he has to say, “O you of little faith.” Rather, let us say, “Lord, we will trust and obey you because we know who you are, what you have done, and what you can do, that which we’ve seen chiefly demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.” Therefore, let us fix our eyes on the Lord and walk in faithful obedience as a church and as individuals this morning. May we even demonstrate that commitment as we now come to the table. Amen.