Lord God, Heavenly Father, Lord, we pray that
you would seal our heart, that you would help
us to be prone not to wander, that we would be
drawn evermore towards you. Lord, we thank you
for seeking us though we were a stranger. We
thank you for that gift of grace, of faith that
you give us every single day. Remind us, Lord,
the fount of the blessing that we have. It comes
from you. Everything we have comes from you.
We thank you. We praise you. In your name, amen.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father,
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and from the
Holy Spirit. Amen. I love food. Anybody else
love food? Show of hands? Yeah, a couple double
hands up, alright. Like, there is nothing better
in this world than sitting down to a good meal,
alright? Like that moment when you're in a restaurant
and you see the server come out and you're like,
recognize that's our food. and your heart's just
like so overjoyed. Sitting down, and it could
be any kind of meal. Maybe it's like a Thanksgiving
meal that you've been working on all day and
you finally get to sit down and like survey the
table. But even down to like, I don't know about
you, when I order Uber Eats and my little phone
dings and says that it's there, I just get so
happy. There's just such this joy that comes
about me. My buddies and I, we went on a vacation
together one time to Vermont. of all places.
And while we were there, we actually had two
absolutely amazing meals. One of them, what I'm
about to say is sacrilege. We went to a barbecue
place in Vermont. I know. But when we were there,
there were six of us, right? There was like a
family platter that was supposed to serve eight
to ten. Yeah. Yeah, we went for it. They brought
it out, this huge tray of smoked meats. I think
there was an angelic choir that opened up in
the heavens as it came out. But then also we
got together, the last day we were there was
a Sunday, and we made just like a Sunday feast.
We did a Sunday roast and we had the potatoes
and all, it was so good. A fresh baked pie. I
remember sitting down and just thinking like,
we made this, this is great. There's something
so joyful. About eating and God knows this right
so many of his miracles so many of his experiences
were around food now for me This has gotten me
in a little bit of trouble I have had to watch
what I eat lately and I actually since November
Watching what I've eaten going on walks. Nothing
special. I've lost like 40 pounds, right? Yeah,
and like but that means oh, thank you. Thank
you That means you know that I got to be a little
more careful about what I ain't kind of watching
stuff But did you catch in our readings today?
apparently diets aren't biblical. Did you catch
this? Isaiah chapter or chapter 55 verse 2 it
says this maybe you caught it listen diligently
to me pay attention that's what it says listen
diligently to me and eat what is good and delight
yourselves in rich food it's right there in the
Bible so if you go to brunch later and you say
you know should I have the egg white omelet and
side salad Go with like the crab cake eggs Benedict.
It's in the Bible. You got to listen to God,
right? Well today for our main text we're going
to be looking at that gospel reading. Looking
at food and God providing abundantly. Before
we go into that though, let's go to our God in
prayer. Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you
so much for today. For this chance that you've
given us to come together in worship. Here in
person, online, wherever and whenever that may
be. Well we thank you. I thank you for the chance
to share your words, your message, your truth.
Lord, let it be your message. Move me out of
the way. This is not about me. This is about
you. I submit myself to you and I trust that
your truth will be proclaimed. We thank you and
we praise you. In your name, amen. Special welcome
to those of you joining online for the sermon.
That's right, we have a slightly different angle,
hopefully a little more high -res. Great to have
you with us today. As I mentioned, that main
text is going to be our gospel reading, which
if you just are watching the sermon online, you
didn't get to hear it. So I'm going to share
it real quick, just so we have it fresh in our
mind. This is from Matthew chapter 14. Now when
Jesus heard about the death of John, and that's
an insert, it just said we heard about the news,
he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate
place by himself. But when the crowds heard it,
they followed him on foot from the towns. When
he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he
had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Now when it was evening, the disciples came to
him and said, This is a desolate place, and the
day is now over. Send the crowds away to go into
the villages and buy food for themselves. And
Jesus said, They need not go away. You give them
something to eat. They said to him, We have only
five loaves here and two fish. And he said, well,
bring them to me. Then he ordered the crowds
to sit down on the grass, and taking the five
loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven
and said, a blessing. What a great note, by the
way. As they're thinking about how there wasn't
enough food, still Jesus gave thanks. Are you
able to give thanks for a little? Then he broke
the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and
the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they
all ate and were satisfied, and they took up
twelve baskets. full of the broken pieces left
over. And those who ate were about 5 ,000 men,
besides women and children." This is a tremendously
famous passage of Scripture, a famous miracle
that Jesus performed. In fact, it is almost the
only miracle that appears in all four Gospels.
I say almost because His resurrection also is
in all four, and that's clearly miraculous, so...
Other than those two, they aren't all represented.
Even like healing of a blind man or helping somebody
who couldn't walk, helping them to walk. Even
Lazarus isn't mentioned in all four Gospels,
but the feeding of the 5 ,000 is there. And it's
actually not just 5 ,000 because it says that
there were women and children present as well.
And so it could have been up to 15 -20 ,000.
Right? And so this story, this... miracle was
so significant in the lives of the disciples
of the apostles that they said you know this
needs to be included in this story of Jesus.
I think it's because it shows so well not only
the character of Jesus but also responsibility
of the church of the disciples and that which
came from the disciples. So this miracle is so
incredibly important, but I also recognize that
you've probably heard the feeding of the 5 ,000
dozens of times when it comes to hearing sermons
about it. So I wanted to figure out what was
going on, but we'll get into that. I want to
set the scene. So Jesus is traveling around.
This is kind of the height of his ministry, and
he finds out about John the Baptist, his cousin,
his partner in ministry, the one who was preparing
the way for him. was just murdered by Herod while
he was imprisoned in Herod's kingdom. And what
an interesting contrast to see the feast of the
feeding of the 5 ,000. All these people gathered
together and sharing in this meal compared with
earlier in Matthew 14 we see another feast in
Herod's kingdom, in his castle, in his court
where he has the elite gathered together eating
probably the finest of foods and his daughter
-in -law is there dancing for him and pleases
him so much that he tells her I will do anything
for you and that anything that she asked for
is the head of John the Baptist on a platter.
To see the anger and the hatred and the elitism
that comes from this King Herod's feast and the
compassion and welcoming that comes with Jesus'
feast contrasted is noteworthy. So we see Jesus,
he's kind of coming together, disciples, they're
watching him heal. And it's worth noting, by
the way, as Jesus heals this, or as Jesus experiences
this, he's gone off on his own. After hearing
the news of John the Baptist, he's hurt. Remember,
Jesus is fully man, fully human, and just received
traumatic news. And so what does Jesus do? He
takes time for himself, or at least he tries
to. Which is an aside if you encounter something
in your life and you think no I just had to power
through it if Jesus God Himself had to take time
to process the trauma. Why would you think that
you don't have to? Why would you think that you
don't have to take some time for self -care if
Jesus did? But Jesus goes off on his own and
of course being Jesus at the height of his ministry
the people follow him and it doesn't say that
he's like People all the time with the people
no instead it says he had what? And he began
healing them. Well, this must go on for a period
of time. Again, you've got 15, 20 ,000 people.
That's like an entire stadium for the Houston
Rockets, right, if it was full. Or the Astros,
if it was half full. Like, just to get a picture
of the scale of how big this crowd is, if there
are 15, 20 ,000 people there. We call it the
feeding of the 5 ,000, but probably significantly
more. So the disciples suddenly have a very real,
very legitimate concern. They're looking around
saying, we are in the middle of nowhere. There
are no restaurants around. We checked. There's
no Uber Eats here. They will not deliver here.
Grubhub, Dawardash, none of them are coming here,
Jesus. You got to send these people away so they
can go back into the town, go to the inns, go
to their houses, and they can provide for their
own meal. They're getting hungry. And reality
is, if we're being honest, probably the disciples
were getting hungry, right? They're getting a
little angry. They're like, ah, Jesus, come on.
Can you wrap it up? We thought that this was
going to be a short thing and now we've been
here all day and I am starving. Right? Basically,
they're saying that these people have a need.
This is the very legitimate thing that they are
reacting to. But Jesus responds in a very interesting
way. He looks at his disciples and he says, you
feed them. And even in the Greek, there is an
emphasis on the you. You feed them. Remember,
he's talking to the disciples, the apostles,
those from which the church happened. He's talking
to the church. And so when it comes to those
who are hungry in our midst, when it comes to
those who have need, Jesus is looking us in the
eye, breaking the fourth wall and saying, you
feed them. Do something about it. Unfortunately,
throughout history we have taken, especially
here in America, we've taken the church's responsibility
to literally feed, but also even in some sense
spiritually, emotionally, deal with some of the
mental health things. We've outsourced it to
the government. We say, oh you know, they deal
with the homeless population. They deal with
the people in need. There are government assistance
programs that you can be on. That's why here
at Christ Memorial, we donate to memorial assistance
ministries. because they truly are a ministry.
They keep the focus on God. We work through them.
We want to make sure that here in this area the
people who have actual physical worldly needs
are met. And when you donate to Christ Memorial,
that is part of where your money goes to, is
supporting ma 'am so that people will be literally
fed. Through our school, we are feeding school
children who don't have meals that don't know
where their next meal is going to come from.
Because we take this call, this challenge from
Jesus seriously. You feed them. But there's also
a spiritual component here. Because this whole
feeding of the 5 ,000, there are a lot of elements
that remind us of communion, of the Eucharist,
the sacrament of the altar, whatever you want
to call it, the last... supper that became the
Lord's supper. It was evening. He has bread.
He breaks it. He tells them to go and pass it
out right there. There are a lot of parallels,
not only to that, but also to the manna in the
desert for the Israelites, right? This challenge
that Jesus has to go and feed, it's not just
about caring for the physical needs. It's also
about reaching the spiritual needs of the community.
Take note, by the way, what Jesus doesn't do.
He doesn't say, all right, well, let's see, we've
got like 15, 20 ,000 people here. Well, obviously
not everybody's going to understand what I've
been saying, so I want to make sure that we're
only feeding those who are part of what we talk
about. Those who buy into the vision, those who
buy into this, we're only going to feed them.
No, that is not what Jesus says. In fact, in
other gospels it says divide them up into groups
of 50, logistical reasons, but he doesn't say
like, hey, Find the ones that support me. Find
the ones that buy into this. Find the ones that
they don't use the word Christian yet, but they'll
eventually be called Christian. Those are the
ones we want to focus on. No, all are welcome
at this feast. And if you think about it, probably
there were some Pharisees there. Probably there
were some religious leaders that seemed like
they were following him around. He didn't delineate.
He just said all are welcome and that should
be a message for us as well the church. May we
recognize that all are welcome at the Feast of
God. It's worth noting, by the way, that the
disciples, their reaction was to send people
away. To say, hey, Jesus, we can't handle this
number of people. We can't handle what's going
on. You should send them away. And Jesus says,
no, no, no, I'm not done with them. There's still
something coming here. There's still a moment
that they are supposed to be a part of. So for
us, the church, may we not be the ones to send
people away from God. May you as an individual
not be the one to send people away from God.
I can't control what other churches do, what
other pastors do, and unfortunately there are
a lot of pastors who have sent people away from
God. There's one that's going around viral right
now of a mega church preacher who is chastising
his community, his congregation, his flock. Chastising
them saying, you guys show up late and you leave
early and you're just treating this like it's
a consumer thing. This is terrible and you should
all examine your hearts. And it's like, where's
the gospel in that? Where's the love and the
compassion for the young mother who's trying
to organize and get her kids together on a Sunday
morning? Where's the compassion for the shift
worker who barely was able to wake up in time
to make it here? Where's the compassion for the
person with the social anxiety that sitting and
milling about and talking to people is terrifying,
but they still want a part of church? We can't
control what other churches, what other pastors,
what other people do in terms of sending people
away from God, but we can control ourselves.
May we never send somebody away from God I'm
gonna be honest with you guys a little vulnerable
right now. I I've always struggled with this
miracle Like the physics of it, right? Because
you picture like the the the man born blind right
Jesus rubbed some mud on his eyes He says go
and wash and when he washes suddenly he can see
okay that makes sense his eyes are closed He
opens them up something's happened and now he
can see even the water into wine, right? There's
this these tubs of water that they can't really
see into because they're probably Stone basins
and suddenly they scoop it out and like oh, it's
wine. I don't know how or why that But the bread
I have always struggled with this How did that
work? Was it like a basket with like a cloth
over it and every time they reached in there
was more bread? Were they holding the loaves
that were suddenly growing in their hands? I
don't understand how physically like what were
the senses that they could see of these five
loaves being able to feed some 20 ,000 people.
I still wrestle with this to be completely honest.
I did see and a couple of commentaries and I'm
not sure This is me being open. I'm not sure
that I buy into this because it does change things
slightly, but it's interesting. It's worth thinking
about at least. As it recorded, and I believe
it's John's gospel, it says that the five loaves
and two fish came from a kid. Basically he brought
his own snack. He was smart enough to like, I'm
bringing my own stuff. And so the disciples,
shall we say, appropriate this kid's snack. And
that's what Jesus uses to feed the 5 ,000. These
commentaries suggested, what if the generosity
of the kid was actually just inspirational for
the other people who were there? That surely
this kid wasn't the only one who thought to bring
a meal. Surely this kid wasn't the only one who
thought, you know, he likes to talk for a long
time, I should bring a snack along with me, right?
Surely he wasn't the only, there had to be a
mom in the crowd that had a bag of goldfish,
right? Cheerios, whatever it is, surely somebody
else had it. So what if, and this is the speculation
of the commentary again, it's interesting to
think about. What if this kid giving over his
meal inspired others to also share their meal?
And this whole dividing up into groups of 50
was, hey, you now have a small community feed
each other. There are those who didn't bring
a meal and those who brought more than enough.
There's an abundance here to share. In between
services somebody said, so it's like the first
potluck, right? But that miracle of community,
because that's the concern, right? That it's
removing some of the supernatural from the miracle.
And that's probably true. That's probably why
it probably wasn't the case. But it's worth thinking
about, isn't it? That God brought this community
together. God brought this group of people together
and they're able to care for each other's needs.
That there is an abundance. because of what God
had provided, because of His blessings. That
certainly changes the way that we interact with
this miracle, doesn't it? The recognition of
the abundance that we have in our lives and those
who are in need and being able to share with
them, whatever that blessing looks like. But
there's an even bigger message that I want to
make sure you hear from this miracle. And that
is that... The disciples looked at these five
loaves and these two fish, and they said, Jesus,
this isn't enough. There's a lot of people here.
This isn't even enough to feed us, the disciples,
let alone the other thousands upon thousands
of people that are here. It's not enough. The
author Brené Brown says that we live in a never
enough society. That when we wake up in the morning,
we're still tired because we never get enough
sleep. We go to work and we can't get all the
things on our to -do list done because there's
never enough time. We come home, we don't have
the energy to play with the kids and cook dinner
and clean the dishes and clean the house. We
lay in bed and stay awake and toss and turn because
there's never enough money to pay for all the
bills and all the fees at school and the back
to school supplies and oh and my car has a flat
tire and all these different things. It's never
enough. But what this miracle is saying, is with
God, you always have enough for God to do something
incredible. You always have enough for God to
do something incredible. You may listen to the
lies of the world that says, I'm not smart enough,
I'm not strong enough, I'm not successful enough,
I don't have enough influence, I'm not good enough
of a leader, I'm not good enough of a parent,
I'm not lovable enough. That's a lie of the world.
That's a lie you're telling yourself, saying,
I'm not good enough. Pastor Stephen Furtick says
it this way, with God, it's never not enough.
Never not enough. Because God gives us enough.
God makes us enough. Never not enough. In fact,
right now, turn to your neighbor. Turn to the
person sitting next to you. A little interactive.
Lutrons don't usually do this, but it's okay.
Turn to your neighbor and say, never not enough.
Because that is what you need to hear. You are
enough. Through God who loves you, through God
who gives you grace, who gives you righteousness.
In scripture we see if all have fallen short
of the glory of God, all have fallen short of
what God expected of us, but that's okay because
God picks us up when we fall short and places
us on His firm foundation. God gives us grace
and mercy so that we are enough, not by anything
that we ever do, thank God for that, but by what
He did for us. He multiplies the blessings in
our lives. You are enough through Jesus Christ.
Through the love of God, you are enough. So when
you go out into the world, don't believe the
lie. I'm not good enough. I can't do this. I
don't have the talent. I don't have the time.
I don't have the interest. I don't have whatever
it takes. God says no. I'm going to do incredible
things through you. You are enough because of
Christ. So my friends, my brothers and sisters,
united in faith to God. I pray that you can find
the strength to know that you are enough. I pray
that you can recognize that God is at work in
this place, that God is at work in your life,
in our lives. That through Him we can reach out
and reach so many people. We can reach out people
and help them to have food, physically perhaps,
emotionally. We can help people to know what
it means to have food. And maybe you're thinking,
no, no, no, not me, preacher, that's your job.
You are enough. God will do incredible things
through you. You're enough with God.