Sermon Tone Analysis

Okay, so by a show of hands, how many of you find that if you don’t eat by a certain time in the day your stomach starts to growl?

Raise your hands.

Week One

Okay, so by a show of hands, how many of you find that if you don’t eat by a certain time in the day your stomach starts to growl?

Raise your hands.

For some of you that’s about right now! right?

Have you ever had your stomach growl so loudly that the person next to you said, “Excuse me?” because they thought you spoke to them?

Have you ever found…?

again, by a show of hands—found that if you don’t eat by a certain time in the day you become a little bit grouchy?

It’s okay.

Raise your hands.

It might be a more accurate statistic if I changed the wording of the question and said, “how many of you find that if the person sitting next to you doesn’t eat by a certain time of the day they get a little bit grouchy?

Okay, one more food question.

If you could only have one food item…just one, for the next three years and that’s all you had to live on…what would that food be? (Give time for responses)

If you think about it, though, so much of our life revolves around food.

I bet if you just wrote down different significant memories that you had in your life or some meaningful moments it was oftentimes around a meal or perhaps around the dinner table.

It’s another reason I am a huge advocate for family dinners at the table… even though it doesn’t always happen we strive to be together making memories around the table.

Well this is no different as we study the Gospels.

If you look through the life of Christ in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, one of the things you’ll find is that many significant moments took place around the dinner table… It took place around a meal.

So, what we are going to do in the next few weeks is pull up a chair to the table with Jesus and just listen!

We want to lean in and hear about these different moments that took place around a meal.

-If you have your Bibles, turn to John chapter 6. John chapter 6 is the first meal we’re going to look at in this series.

This is the only miracle that is recorded in all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and, of course, John.

You’ll find that in this meal… the restaurant is pretty crowded.

We read that there are five thousand people there that day.

That is five thousand men actually.

You include women and children and you’re looking at probably 15,000+ guests— so 15,000 people that are going to eat at this meal.

It is probably a miracle that you know a little bit about.

You’ve probably heard this taught at one point or another, but we want to put ourselves there that day.

I love bringing the Word to life in our minds.

So, think about this with me, what would it have been like to be one of the people in that crowd?

-So, here is what has happened.

Jesus has been teaching for awhile.

This huge crowd has been listening, sitting outside probably for hours, and they start to get a little grumpy, ok?

I mean, Jesus knows they need some food… and let me tell you, you don’t want to preach to a crowd that is hungry.

That’s why I so glad some of you bring things in to eat for fellowship in the mornings.

So, Jesus knows, “Hey, we need to feed these people.”

And in

So, Jesus already knows He is going to feed these 5,000+ people, but He is asking Philip, “What should we do about the fact that all these people need to eat?” Jesus does this because it is going to test Philip’s faith.

How would Philip respond?... Jesus says, “Here is what I want to do.”

And here is how Philip responds.

Verse 7: “Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”

… come on Philip!…Do you know pessimistic people like this?

Phillip does the math and concludes, it’s just not going to work.

It would take more than a half a year’s wages just for everyone to eat a little.

Philip basically says, “Jesus, it’s just not practical.”

So, Jesus tests his faith, and Philip said, “No, I don’t think it can be done.”

But I want you to think about this for a moment.

What has Philip seen in his time with Jesus?

He’s watched as Jesus turned water into wine.

He watched as Jesus said to a lame man, “Get up and walk,” and the lame man got up and walked.

We read early in this chapter of the signs and the miracles that were taking place.

And that’s why that crowds have come.

They have seen Jesus do things people can’t do.

Philip has seen all of this, but when Jesus says to Philip, “What should we do about these hungry people?”

Philip says, “Well, there is nothing we can do.

It just can’t be done.”

…

It was a test of faith.

He has seen Jesus work in powerful ways, but he still doesn’t believe.

He sees the need, but he doesn’t believe Jesus can do something about it?

-I think a lot of us can be like Philip.

The solution, the answer is right in front of us, but we can’t see it.

What would it look like if we could pull the chair up to the table with Jesus?

And sit with Him and listen to Him.

If we would do that we might just understand what He wants us to do.

Maybe then it would be it clear to us and we won’t be left scratching our heads… doing the math while leaving Jesus out of the equation and coming to a conclusion that says, “it’s just not practical, Jesus”

So, maybe, this morning, Jesus has told to you what he wants to do.

Has he told you…has he made it clear yet…?

Maybe He wants you to adopt a child.

And you’ve talked about that with your spouse and you really feel like that this is what God wants you to do, but you’ve done the math and it just doesn’t seem practical.

You just can’t do it.

Or maybe He expresses to you that He wants to put your marriage back together, and you look at it and you think it’s too far gone… you think I can’t even count the pieces that are broken because there are too many broken pieces in my marriage.

When you think like that, you don’t leave any room for God to accomplish His purpose.

Or maybe, as a church, God calls us to do some things in more radical ways to reach out to people who are hurting, hungry and suffering in one way or another.

When He does that, it is not the time to say, “Well, it isn’t in the budget, Jesus.

It’s a good idea, Jesus.

It really is.

I mean, we appreciate your heart.

We’re glad You care about these people, but the money just isn’t there.”

No, we don’t do that!

When Jesus says the what, it’s not a time for us to get caught up in the how.

Yet a lot of us can be this way.

When Jesus expresses what He wants to do with us or through us and in our lives or in a moment, all we can do is see the reasons why it won’t work.

Unless you are like {ANDREW}

We read about Andrew in .

Another disciple who overhears the conversation, he picks up on what Jesus wants to do and he brings a little boy over to Jesus.

And I don’t know exactly how the conversation went, but he says to Jesus, “look, little Billy brought his lunch box Jesus?”

And he opens it up and it has five loaves of bread and two fish in it.

And I don’t know exactly how the conversation went, but he says to Jesus, “look, little Billy brought his lunch box Jesus?”

And he opens it up and it has five loaves of bread and two fish in it.

Now, I want you to know something.

When we hear “loaves of bread,” for a lot of us, we think of homemade Thanksgiving big loaves of bread, bread.

Right?

But Billy wasn’t carrying a huge picnic basket.

It says, “barley loaves,” which is significant because the poor people used barley for bread.

The wealthier people would use wheat.

So, Billy pretty much only has crackers and sardines with him.

And this tiny meal was so ludicrously inadequate compared to the need.

And that’s why John mentions it to heighten the miracle.

-By the way, some of you are looking for the name “Billy” in your bible.