In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of valuing our time and being discerning in our relationships. He emphasizes the need to test and prove people before committing to them, especially in the context of discipleship. The preacher then moves on to the story of Jesus feeding the multitude with just a few loaves of bread and fish. He highlights the lessons we can learn from this miracle, such as trusting in God's provision, working with what we have, and giving thanks for what we receive.

Starting in verse 1, John chapter 6, we'll read through verse 14. After these things, Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is the sea of Tiberius, and a great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming to him, he said unto Philip, When shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew Simon Peter's brother, said unto him, There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down, and likewise of the fishes, as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth, this is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world. Let's pray. Now Father, we ask that thou would break the bread of life to us. Open up your word to us. Again, we pray that the Spirit would work in our hearts to teach us of Jesus, and if there be any that don't know Jesus as their Savior, that have not believed, that you would bring that about. In Jesus' name, Amen. I was going to do a survey of this whole chapter, because this chapter is number six in John, six is the number of man, so there's something significant for man here in this chapter, and it's a long chapter. There are seventy-one verses in the chapter, and as I got down to the end of it and I began to see how this all tied together, I really got excited. That's really neat, Lord, how it all ties together. So I was going to do a survey, and then I decided that I wouldn't do that, because we would be probably best benefited by understanding this miracle, and I'm going to share something with you about this miracle that I didn't know until this week. By way of brief review, the first miracle that happened was the water turned into wine, salvation through the Word. The second was the healing of the nobleman's son, salvation by faith. Third one is the healing of the lame man, salvation by grace. Now the feeding of the five thousand, which we move into a new category, which is salvation satisfies the inner needs. The first three have to do with salvation, the next four miracles have to do with the results of salvation, like the fifth miracle will be the stilling of the storm, which salvation brings peace. Next one, sixth one, healing of the lame man in chapter nine, which will be, it brings light, and then raising of Lazarus will be the seventh one in John, which is life. Salvation brings life. If there's a lesson here, I couldn't get my word pictures to come together good enough. I think I stuck one in a pocket somewhere. Here it is. No, I don't know where it went. I had a pencil. I guess it didn't go, but it has to do with the breaking, and of course we know there's a lot of things. Blessing comes out of brokenness, broken things in the Bible. The potter had the broken vessel, but if he can take this little boy's lunch, and we have a lunch at least laid aside up here. It's not bread. It's some fruit leather. We might need some volunteers in a little bit, but if he could take that little boy's lunch and break it to pieces. Actually, if you were a little boy there, and you come there with your little lunch, and you surrendered your little lunch, and then they took your little lunch, and if you didn't understand all that was going on, you'd see them breaking your lunch up and passing it out to everybody, and maybe, who knows, maybe the little boy was the last one to get something. Probably not. Probably gave him something first, but to think of Jesus taking something that is yours and breaking it and giving it out is a concept that might be, to me, it would be something important to remember for the life of Christ to flow out of us. He usually takes us and breaks us and dispenses. Now, I don't want to take a lot of time in this, but I wanted to say this to you. I never did realize this, or if I did, I forgot it, which isn't too hard to do nowadays to forget things. Out of all of the miracles, and this is what made me decide to spend some time meditating on this chapter this week, and I'm glad I did. Spent some special time meditating on it. As a matter of fact, most of a day meditating on this one chapter. Out of all of the miracles, this is the only one, as far as I know, that all of the disciples, all the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, this is the only one that they all recorded. John may have got some that the others didn't get, but this one they all got. It made an impression on them, where they all got this miracle down. Now, why? Why? And when we come back to our concluding statement, maybe we might have your opinion on why they all recorded it, but it had to do with the feeding. And they had their aspects. I looked at Matthew, how his provision was for the poor, concern for the poor. Mark, the servant to break the bread of life to others, the serve, portraying Jesus as a servant. Luke, presenting him as the Son of Man, that he was sufficient. And then John, of course, coming up, that he is Christ. He's God's food. He's God's food for us. Now, there are seven breakdowns in this passage. Verses 1 and 2 talk about Christ is followed into Galilee. You slip into chapter 3, or verse 3, it's him retiring on the mountain. And then 4, he talks about the time. John talks about the time here. It's just before the Passover. Then 5, 6, and 7 have to do with the testing of Philip. And then also you get into 8 and 9, you have the unbelief of Andrew. He has something there, but it's offered in sort of doubt. And then you have the feeding of the multitude, 10, 11. And then 7, you have the gathering of the the seventh thing in verse 12, the gathering of the fragments. Now, I went through here, and I come up with 12 lessons. And I put it together in a way that maybe we could use it in our lives. And it's in the area of ministering to others. As you and I have been called to be ministers, some people believe that their church, their minister is so-and-so, but actually, they are the minister. We're all ministers. We will have these 12 encounters with people as we minister to these 12 lessons that might help us as we go through here. Now, you get from this what you need. You have more things that you've learned. These are some of the lessons that I've learned. And as I went through here in the life of Christ, these things I noticed that stuck out to me. In verse 1, after these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. You remember what had just happened? He had conflict with the Jews. And the first lesson is move on when too much conflict comes into the setting. Jesus didn't stay around and fight it out with them. He would just move on and move on and move on. And some need to move on in their churches where there's just too much conflict. Satan has maybe so much ground, they can't get it, and it's already been sold out. In that situation, God has to give you wisdom, which is the next lesson, the second lesson, when you come to verse 2. And a great multitude followed him because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were deceased. Second lesson, discern sincerity, discern sincerity and use wisdom with people. Now, Jesus fed the whole multitude, even though he knew many of them were following him because of the miracles and they wanted to take him and make him a king and set him up. But he fed them all. But he was discerning. And I think if I was to go back and start over my ministry, when I first started pastoring, I remember one poor guy, I probably badgered him to death trying to get him to come to church. I was up there and I think I finally got him there. But as I look back over that, he wasn't really interested. But I was under some pressure from my particular group that I was in. You were supposed to have a church that grew. And to get the church to grow, you're supposed to have people in there. And so my deal was to kind of get people in here. And you missed the track of being a discipler. So discern, use wisdom in this area. Third one, verse three. And Jesus went up into a mountain and there he sat with his disciples. Jesus moves up to the point of elevation. He has them sit down. Third lesson, separate as much as possible to minister to your disciples. He brought them into another atmosphere. Actually out of the valley of unbelief and up onto the mountain of faith. Get away. Probably Pharisees, whatever, didn't like to hike up mountains. Who knows? But that's a good principle. Many times you can't minister to people in the atmosphere that they're in. And you need to get them out of that atmosphere. Maybe out of the room, out of the building, into your home or whatever. There are certain atmospheres that are not conducive to spiritual growth, to spiritual life. And as God builds strong families, sometimes families need to recognize they need to have another family into their house and try to minister more than try to do it in their house because there's so much confusion going on there. You can't get it done. Fourth lesson, verse four. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. Now, the last part of this chapter, and I don't know if we have time to get into it, or this passage, really got into some real interesting prophetic insight into things coming up. But the Jews, this was their feast. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. They turned it around for themselves. They turned this thing around for themselves. Because how did it start off? It started off on them feasting on the lamb at the original Passover. And now what are they trying to do to the lamb? They don't want to feast on the lamb anymore. They want to destroy the lamb. And so the timing of ministering to people, you need to be careful in that. If they have just a tendency continually to want to just destroy you, pick on you, find all your faults, I've found that some people, they can't receive what the Spirit of God is wanting to give to them through somebody because their eyes are on the flaws of the person that's trying to use them, or be a minister to them. And we all have areas. And if we look, well, boy, they got this area, that area, that area, your own pride will keep you from feasting from the life of Christ that's flowing through you right at that point. And so, the timing. Watch out for the proper timing. Fifth lesson. Fifth lesson. In verse 5. And when Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company coming to him, he said unto Philip, now we get into some interesting things. Why Philip? When shall we buy bread that these may eat? Fifth thing. See what Jesus sees in people. I have seen some use their mind to turn off any hope for somebody else. And then the Lord come along and use the one that was discarded, save them and use them in a powerful way. But on the other hand, that's been flip-flopped too to where some have said, oh, if God would just save that person, he could be so much use for his kingdom, which is not always true either. But see what Jesus sees in people. What moved Jesus when he saw these multitudes coming up to feed all these people? The other, Matthew, he said he was moved with compassion. He was moved with compassion. What did the disciples see? A mob of people moving on. The Bible says it was evening, getting late. What time? I don't know. It was exactly. I didn't check that out. But they saw a bunch of people coming and Philip was probably thinking, we're going to have to feed all these people. And Jesus turns to him, Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? The disciples remedy for the problem is send them away. Let's get rid of our problems. Isn't that our first inclination towards a problem? Let's get rid of it. Let's get rid of this thing. Let's get rid of these people in our life. Send them away. Do other things. Now, verse six, sixth lesson. And this he said to prove him for he himself knew what he would do. That's comforting. The Lord always knows what he's going to do. And that should bring some comfort in our hearts. This he said to prove him. I drew out a principle on this, on working with people that I've learned. And I actually learned this from training, the training faithful men manual, where this lesson has been a good decider. Commit to people that you test first. In other words, before you commit to someone, prove them. Prove them. Otherwise you can end up spending a week or two weeks or a month or whatever with somebody that has no intention really of going on with the Lord. I'm talking about in the area of discipling people. And as the older we get, the more valuable our time should be, since time seems to go by a lot faster than it did 40 years ago or 50 years ago, doesn't it? So more valuable is our time. So give them a little test. And the little test in this particular discipleship manual was just give them a little assignment to do. You come back the next week. Well, did you get your assignment done? Well, no, it really didn't have time. Okay, well, let's try again next week. You do this little assignment. You want me to disciple you? Yes, yeah, I'd really like to. You come back the next week. Well, I got busy here and here and here and here and I didn't get it done again. You want me to disciple you? Yeah, well, let's try it again. And then you just have to drop off. If they never do the little assignment, then you don't go into committing. Okay, I'll work with you for six months and this and this. Save yourself. So that little lesson there on discipling. Now let's get into some things here. In verse 7, Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take a little. Now the Lord Jesus is moving into the heart of his disciples. Multitudes are going to get a meal out of it. The disciples are going to get a miracle that's going to impact them to such an extent that they all record it in their gospel. Now the seventh lesson, the seventh lesson is this. Miracle expecting faith must replace calculating faith. Philip was a man that had a calculator in his brain. Any of you know anybody like that? I mean, if there's a math problem, they got it all worked out in the calculator in their brain. My dad's like that. He can just work problems like that. Me, I need my calculator. But he was a calculating man and his faith added up all of these people with how much bread it would take and he come up with this. Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them that every one of them may take a little, little piece of bread. Even if we had 200 penny worth of bread and I don't know how much that it really is. I didn't look that up, but that's beside the point. Now, what does 200 signify? Coming up with 200, is that significant? What's 20? What's the number 20 in scripture represent? We can probably figure out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. But 20, is that a number that's very significant? 20 is the number of, it represents vain expectancy. 20 represents insufficiency. Let me give you a couple of illustrations of this. Genesis 31, 41, Jacob was 20 years, 20 years over there with Laban working for his wives and his possessions. 20 years of seemingly a wasted life. He got into this deal and he couldn't get out. But it wasn't that until the 21st year, then it all came out. He came free on the 21st year. Judges 3, where was it? 3, verse 4, 20 years, Jabin oppressed Israel. The 21st year, the oppression was broke. And 1 Samuel 7, 2, the ark was in captivity 20 years. The 21st year, it was freed. Seemingly 20 years of lost ark time for Israel. And of course, God uses all of that time like He did with Jacob and with us. But the 21st year brought it all out. Now, 20 then is a coming short. What would 200 be? It would be intensified. It would just be intensified that much more. And so, the meaning of that would be, it is intensified unbelief. How's that? If 20 is vanity, 200 would be intensified unbelief. And so, he had it all calculated out and he just come up with a big old intensified statement of unbelief. Now, 200, I'll just give you a couple of illustrations of 200. 200 is associated with evil. I looked up a few verses on that. Evil and 200 shekels of silver. And Joshua, Joshua 7, 21, 200 shekels of silver associated. And you come on down several, Judges 17, 4, 200 shekels of silver comes up several times. 1 Samuel 30, 10, 200 different things. Now, Revelation 200,000 horsemen. That's just a bunny trail there. Let's come back to our principle now. Go to verse 8. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said unto him, now here's 8 and 9. There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? Lesson here, I guess, if we were to have a lesson, unbelief is infectious. It was instituted by Philip. And maybe if Philip hadn't come up with his intensified unbelief, Andrew could have come up, Lord, I've got two little fish and five loaves of bread, do something with it. Instead of, but what can you do with that? Unbelief is infectious. Psalm 78, 10, can God provide or furnish a table in the wilderness? Israel's testing was in the wilderness. What was the name of that wilderness? Anybody remember? They were tested in the wilderness of sin. There should be a day when our testing, we come out of the wilderness of sin and the testing is all in the promised land. All right, the ninth lesson, verse 10. And Jesus said, make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number about 5,000. Ninth lesson is this, the faith of Christ countered and carried the situation. When we get into situations where we are amongst unbelief, and the thing that probably has been for my deeper discipling has to be discipled in the area of faith and belief and draw me out of the area of unbelief. It's a whirlpool. And to be brought out of that, that's what Jesus is doing. He's bringing them out of this situation of unbelief, looking at the circumstances and all of that stuff. And so when God puts you in situations that seemingly seem impossible, that seem hard, that seem like, oh, what can come out of this? He has you there to breathe the over influencing, counterbalance on that scene with your faith. Now, there were two things that had to happen there. At least one thing had to happen. The disciples had to obey Jesus. They didn't have to understand, but they had to obey. The people had to obey. And if that wouldn't have happened, if they said, Lord, it's just no use trying. We're not going to make these people sit down, make a fool of ourselves. They're going to say, why are we sitting down? We sit down before we eat. You go ahead and have a seat. They said, what do you mean? Eat? How are you going to feed all these people and get all this stuff going around? If you tried to argue with unbelievers and rationalize and reason, you can't do it. Just tell them what to do. Those that wouldn't sit down could walk off and go off and miss the meal. Okay, so that's the one thing though. But Christ had the situation covered with His faith. Sit down, put them in order. Tenth lesson. I like this one. I shared this one with my wife this morning. This is just the way the Lord works. This is the way the Lord works with us so many times. Work with what you've got. Verse 11. And Jesus took the loaves. How many times have we missed out on a blessing? We just say, it's just not going to work. I'm not going to even use the little bit I've got. Work with what you've got. Tenth lesson. Work with what you've got. He took. He took. Jesus took the loaves. And when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were set down and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. Now, Moses had a problem one day, among other days. You may have a problem someday. But He came back. Lord, they're murmuring. They don't have anything to drink. Standing out there, there's a tree sitting right there. Matter of fact, I wanted to read this to you. I thought, this is good. Exodus. That was Exodus 15.23. There's a tree there. Just to get back over to the setting. 15.23. And he cried unto the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree. The Lord showed him a tree. See that tree? Yeah, Lord, people are thirsty, but I see that tree. God will take a tree and give a thirsty nation water. If He can take a tree and He tells Moses, what's He telling them to do with it? And when He had cast it and went and when He had cast into the waters, showed him a tree, which when He had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He made for them a statue and an ordinance and there He proved them. I was thinking about this this morning, just meditating on it. Lord, it really doesn't matter then, ever, what a circumstance looks like. You take a tree and gave a thirsty nation water. It doesn't matter what is around. You can take it and turn it into the means of a miracle. Whether five loaves of bread and two fishes to feed 5,000 men plus all the women and children, it could have been 15 or 20,000 people. So He can take the things that we run into, a flat tire, blown engines, burnt suppers, busted water pipes, dry fields for our crops, messed up vacation plans, loss of jobs or whatever, and the Lord says, just look at that tree. That's the answer to your problem. A tree? A tree? Yes, a tree. Throw it in the water. In every instance though, God will give you something to do. He will show you something and then He will give you something to do and out of that will come the blessing. Now, let's keep moving on. What about Hezekiah? Who was his doctor? Was that Hezekiah? I mean, it was the prophet that came to him. He's crying out. Lost the memory again. And the prophet, God tells him, take a lump of figs and go put it on his boil. A lump of figs. How about the doctors in our congregation here today? The doctor. You walk into your patient and now we may be getting back to some pretty good stuff though. Here, I'm going to fix you. Splat. Put a lump of figs on the boil. That might have been what was needed. But anyway, he takes these things. Let's go to the next lesson. The 11th lesson. After he'd given thanks, back to verse 11. And when Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples. Now, let's just focus on the distributing part. We may be going somewhere with that. We'll see if we get there or not. We know we give thanks, but he distributed to the disciples. You can only give what you've received. Into the hands of Jesus was placed the loaves and he gave back what he received. God will not ask you to give more than he's already given to you. And so, you can only give what you've received. I didn't look these verses up, but I know it's in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 7 and 9 where it says that God giveth the increase. I think sometimes we think it's our duty to do the increasing and whatever. Like I shared with a story earlier in my first pastorate. I thought it was my job to do the increasing. So, I put pressure on people. We've got programs, pressure programs. We're going to have a so-and-so emphasis Sunday so we can fill up our pews. We were in a church here. I guess, you know, they're all around. We're going to serve peanut butter sandwich Sunday and all these things. But God will give the increase. He will increase. Now, there's the principle that we're going to move on here. And there was another little sideline. I didn't get into this. I wanted to look it up about Hebrews 5, 11 and 13. You can look it up where it says they were. I think it was dull of hearing. And I think that's the root of slothfulness, if I'm not mistaken on that. Anyway, I wrote this out so I could see it. Jesus gave to the disciples. The disciples received from Jesus and gave to the people. But there was a first step there we missed out. They gave to Jesus the food. Then Jesus gave to the disciples. They received it. Then the disciples gave to the people. Then the people received it. Where did the miracle take place? In the hands of Jesus. Right? In the hands of Jesus. OK, you can see that one. Last lesson. Verse 11. And Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples and the disciples to them that were sat down. And likewise of the fish is as much as they would. The supply stopped only with the demand. Could be that we're not experiencing the grace of God because we're not asking for it anymore. And there are times in our lives to where we've learned lessons of walking by faith, but sometimes we just like we just like slip on a banana peel. And it's like we lay down there on our back looking up for a while, maybe a week or two weeks before we realize, boy, I really fell. I quit walking by faith. I've been laying here on my back. I hadn't moved since the day I slipped on the banana peel. The supply stopped only with the demand. As much as they would. Everybody full, everybody full. Then it stopped. Go back to the manna. Now, when did God stop with Abraham? When he was pleading with Lot. Started off with what? Come down fifty, a hundred or whatever, come all the way down to ten. God didn't stop till Abraham stopped. You ever realize that? Elijah, with the oil, with the widow. When did the oil stop? When the vessels weren't placed there anymore. OK, so as much as they would. And then verse 12. And when they were filled, he said unto his disciples, gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore, they gathered them together and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barilos, which remained over and above unto each of them. And when we get to the five again, the ministering of grace. I had a verse, 1 Corinthians 3, 22. I must not have been in it. Never mind. I like to share this little story. It's, and I thought I had it in here, but I guess I misplaced it. It's underneath. It's about Hudson Taylor and something he did. I never read this story before. I'd never heard about his life. But he was the founder of the China Inland Mission. When he was a real old man, really old. As a matter of fact, he was so old, his wife couldn't go out traveling with him anymore. He was still going out into those faraway places. And the story talks about his feet. As an old man, it talked about his feet. It said, huge, thick calluses made it painful to walk in the latter years of his life. Bones gave way a bit, but still he kept walking into the day of his death because there was so much to be done. So Hudson Taylor, through all the years of his life, walked to get to these people to reach new areas with the news that Jesus loves sinners. As he grew older, his wife became too feeble to go with him on his long journeys far back in the interior of China where Hudson Taylor died. She'd wait in the village eager for the twilight when her husband would come home. I don't know if you know it or not, but he died way off out in China. But she waited till he would come home. He would come finally, his frail body absolutely at the breaking point and worn out, beaten down with the sun, thirsty, tired, and those feet would be aching, aching, aching from the walk. He'd come in and put aside his garments and his wife would come with a wash basin looking up into that noble face and seeing there all the love of Jesus for the lost and for these Chinese. She'd weep a little at the price she saw it cost her husband to keep going. Then she would put the wash basin just an ordinary old tin wash basin on the floor and fill it with warm water. Then old as she was and unable to walk out through the villages as he did, she'd get on her knees with a little towel and a little bit of soap and then she would wash those marled and calloused and knobby old feet and with her with her aching hands massaged them. Time and time again, he would tell her where he had been for Jesus that day. He would talk about the demon-possessed person he had prayed for or the woman with a great cancer as an open sore on her leg that he pointed to Jesus. Or the little village where he had gone where there were 50 or 60 percent of the people blind or going blind with trachoma and where he had talked about Jesus who had came to restore sight to the blind. He would tell this story and she would just massage his feet and wash them. Finally when she'd done the best she could to ease the burning pain in those joints worn out for Jesus time and time again, she would just look up and say Hudson, it's been a busy day and you're so tired and I just want you to know that like your face to know that like your face that shines for Jesus these feet too are beautiful. They're not only beautiful to me but to your Lord for he said how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of them that bring good tidings, that publish peace, that bring good tidings of good and bring good tidings of good and bring salvation. And up on that mountain there were the feet of Jesus. They took those feet and they put a spike to them. Those feet carried God in that body. And I believe the lesson the reason the disciples were so impressed with this miracle was that they saw the true lesson there. Have you seen it? They saw the true lesson and the rest of the chapter goes into the true lesson that Jesus was the bread of life. He was the bread of life. And so they saw that Christ himself he was life. He was life. If they would partake of him and live of him, they would have life. And that object lesson was missed by those of unbelief. It doesn't matter what our circumstance, Jesus is our life. He can take a tree for Moses, lump of figs, oil, whatever. He was life. And the rest of the chapter builds in and goes into this beautiful lesson. And when you come down to the last part, the part that some in pagan religions have taken and and confused it around where Jesus says, he that eats me drinks my blood. You've missed the whole point that he is life. He is life. Let's pray. And Lord, then you had 12 baskets of fragments, 12 speaking of Israel and they were not going to be left out. That nation of Israel and all of the other prophetic insights that were in that passage were there. And the disciples thought, when we go up on the mountain with you this week, Lord, I pray that we just won't see crowds that have needs that are going to cramp our style, take up our time, take up our resources. But we'll be moved with compassion. And that you'll move us out of calculating fate into miracle expecting faith. Out of weakness were made strong. Lord, that's the testimony. Out of weakness were made strong. Thank you for ministering to us in Jesus name. Amen.