Meaningful Ministry – God Meets Our Needs is a great way to consider what we have. So often in our society we go navel gazing. We are SO focused on our own needs and wants that we have no time for our neighbor. Our God meets all of our needs so that we can meet the needs of our neighbor.
There was an obvious problem that faced Jesus and his disciples. The people who were sheep without a shepherd were now sheep without a feed trough. All these people – the Gospels only counted the men at 5000. Truist Stadium can hold 5500. If women and children are thrown in, double the people to at least ten thousand people following and listening to Jesus. Today this would be called a humanitarian disaster or a crowd at a baseball game – depending on whether or not there food for all of these people. Jesus asks, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? He wanted to see if his disciples could figure out a solution. All of the gospels record this event in Jesus ministry. The first response the disciples gave to Jesus’ question was we can’t feed them – send them away so they can find their own food. Jesus said, no you feed them. This was a teachable moment for the disciples.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
NIV 84 has he eight months wages, our NIV Bibles now say more than half a year – both communicate the translation of the 200 days wages that wouldn’t be enough to feed all these people! 8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” This is a desperation attempt – at least somebody has some food, but will that feed the whole stadium? No, of course not. But Jesus had succeeded in getting his disciples to despair of themselves and look to him for help. And help he did – he took the food gave thanks to God and gave it to the disciples to distribute to the people. I picture kind of like here where the ushers come down the rows and pass the food down. Now picture the baseball game, with twelve disciples moving as fast as possible through the crowd of 10,000.
The people were fed, but what about the left overs? Want to hear more? Watch this week’s message from our series, Meaningful Ministry – God Meets Our Needs.
Book(s): John
Series: Meaningful Ministry
Tag(s): Ministry
Speaker(s): Fred Guldberg