Giving, Getting, and God's Miraculous Providing

The Gospel of Matthew • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Jesus miraculously feeds more than 5,000 people because the Apostles were willing to give up their meal for Jesus' mission.

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Introduction

Have you ever been in a situation where you, in your kindness, have done something good to someone only to be rejected? To be told that you’re a terrible friend, or (even worse) be told that what you’ve done isn’t good enough?

Jesus knows this feeling well. He’s a kind provider, but His providence is not always received rightly.

Go ahead and open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14. We will be resuming from where we left off last week after Jesus has heard of the death of His cousin, John the Baptist.

If you remember, Jesus went off to be by Himself in a desolate place, but the crowds followed Him by foot. Instead of being annoyed at this interruption to His mourning, Jesus has compassion on the crowds and tends to their needs by healing their sick.

What we will see in our verses today is one of the Christ’s most public miracles. We will see Christ feed more than 5,000 people.

Let’s read our text for today. It will be verses 14-21 of Matthew 14.

Matthew 14:14–21 ESV

14 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 15 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.” 16 But Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Jesus sees and satisfies human needs (14:14, 16, 18, 20-21)

The first thing I want us to notice about our text today is that Jesus sees and satisfied human needs. Notice in our very first verse, how Jesus looks at the crowd in front of Him: He sees them and had compassion on them...

Last week, we discussed that “gut-wrenching” feeling of a moral conscience that’s baked into each and every person made in God’s image. This week, we encounter one of the most wonderful Greek words, in my opinion, in what we have translated before us as “had compassion.” The Greek word is “σπλαγχνίζομαι” (splagxnízomai), which is a word that describes that “gut-wrenching” feeling of compassion.

It’s that feeling where perhaps you see a homeless person and the idea of not helping him makes you feel physically ill. Christ saw the needs of this crowd of people who had followed Him to this place out in the wilderness, and His desire to give them aid made His inward parts, His “splanxna” move Him to caring for them.

We are fortunate, friends, that this is the God of the Bible. A God who is so faithful and filled with merciful compassion that His gut wrenches to provide for broken and ailing people in this fallen world.

We see that same compassion move Him in later verses as well. In verse 15, we see the disciples being realistic about whether or not they could feed the crowd. They didn’t have the money or the material to provide for all these people, so they tell Jesus that He needs to tell the crowd to “buy food for themselves.”

Instead of giving in to the disciples’ demand, Jesus responded with a “test,” so says the parallel passage in John 6:6, because Jesus had already set in His mind how His compassion would turn to providence for this crowd.

In providing this miraculous meal for these 5,000 people, Jesus is continuing His theme of compassion on them. He takes the meager rations that are in the disciples’ possession, which were given by a small boy for Jesus’ disciples to eat (Jn. 6:9), and Christ takes what was meager and incapable of feeding the multitudes… AND FEEDS THE MULTITUDES.

What we need to take away first, again, is that Jesus sees the needs of these people and provides for them. He is able to see every thing a person needs, so much so that He instructs Christians to pray simply for their daily bread (Mt. 6:11).

Jesus sees peoples’ needs. He sees your needs. And He is able to provide what is necessary and good for everyone.

God does not need our help for His plans to work, but delights in including our help in His plan (Jn 6:6; Acts 17:24-25; Ps. 50:12)

It’s important to pause here and discuss God’s “aseity,” or His self-existence and self-sufficiency.

We’ve touched on this doctrine before, but there are some who stress the actions of the Apostles here more than the actions of Jesus. They say that Jesus needed the barley loaves and fishes from the boy and the Apostles in order to make this miracle happen.

This, to put it succinctly, is a violation of God’s very nature. He did not need man’s help to make the oceans and land, to make the stars, planets, and moons and the various systems that sustain them all. He did not need man’s help to create the animals, or even to create man in the first place! He did not need help in order to feed these people, either.

God does not need anything, but when we read the parallel passage in John 6, we find that Jesus had already put it into His mind that He was going to feed this crowd, that He was “testing” or “proving” the disciples here. He invited the Apostles to join Him in this miracle by surrendering what they had to Him.

You see, God is not served by human hands as though He needed anything (Acts 17:24-25), He would not tell us if He were hungry because He doesn’t need our help to satisfy Him; as He says in Psalm 50:12 “12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are mine.” God does not need mankind for anything, nor did He need the Apostles to surrender their goods.

However, God delights in letting His people join Him in His works. He happily lets His people, in this case His Apostles and the boy who gave this food, participate in what He has already planned to do.

What I want us to remember in this moment is this sentence: God does not need our help for His plans to work, but enjoys including our help in His work. This is how He can rightfully say in verse 16: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

Jesus is essentially saying: “This crowd will be fed, I will provide for them,” leading them to respond with the very realistic statement: “We have only five loaves here and two fish....” (Mt. 14:17).

They were right, they didn’t have much, but the Lord was able to feed the crowds with even less than that!

Therefore, a response we must have to this text is to joyfully submit our little to the Lord’s work. We must not be stingy, for the Apostles were not stingy here.

They entrusted their entire meal to Christ just as He requested.

And I believe it was their meal because the average Jewish loaf of bread was considered a meal for 3 people, so this would’ve been a meal that would feed about 15 people. Jesus + His Apostles would’ve been 13, so I think this little boy was given this food to take to this Rabbi and His Apostles.

Also, the wording in Matthew 14:17 “We only have,” which we find in John 6:9 said by the Apostle Andrew as: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many”. Those are not exclusive, and Andrew does not say that the food “is the boy’s,” but that “there is a boy who has.” This appears to point to the boy bringing it and offering it to the Apostles as a meal.

A meager meal given to Jesus and the Apostles, which Jesus then miraculously gives to more than 5,000 people.

Jesus can take what we have (no matter how little) and care for as many as He intends (Mt. 14:19-21)

And that leads us to our third point: Jesus can take what we have (no matter how little) and care for as many as He intends.

Friend, are you giving offerings to the Lord? Are you anticipating that He will use what you give to His glory? Are you hoping that there may be some reaping of gospel-fruits with what you give?

How much you give is not nearly as important as actually giving. Remember, God enjoys including what you give to Him in His plans, like how He included the Apostles’ food in feeding these people.

He is able to stretch a meal for 15 people and feed over 5,000 people with it. If God wills, He can even stretch a small offering to fund His gospel-efforts.

Now, frankly, I have a hard time expressing this truth. I was poisoned early on in my Christian walk with the so-called “Prosperity Gospel.” I was told that I had to “sow my seed” in order to receive back from the Lord, and saying this point brings my mind painfully back to that false teaching.

But, if we remember that God does not need our help, but enjoys including our help, then I can happily confess that this is true.

So, you must be willing to surrender your help to the Lord, no matter how meager it is! You must remember that since He was able to use this meager meal to feed the multitudes, He is able to take even a meager offering and make do exactly as He intends to accomplish through it.

Jesus is more concerned about our heart’s condition, that we joyfully give and not just get (Mark 12:41-44; John 6:22-59; Matthew 14:21)

What is it, then, that Jesus is most concerned about, then? If He doesn’t need our help, and if He is able to miraculously feed thousands with just a few loaves and fish, then what’s the point? What does this passage really tell us about God, and what does it tell us to do?

Sure, we should give even our meager offerings to Him and His work, but what’s the real depth in this passage?

It shows us that Jesus’ heart is compassionate, even compassionate enough to care for the daily needs of people. People, even, who won’t follow Him into salvation...

One thing that Matthew doesn’t include, but John does, is a discourse the day after this miraculous feeding. In John 6:22-25, we find this crowd still trying to follow and find Jesus, and they finally find Him back in Capernaum. But then Jesus diagnoses their intent in 6:26, saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves...”

The reality is that this crowd rejected Jesus, but they wanted more food.

The conversation continues:

John 6:27–29 ESV

27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

They did not believe Him. They, like most people, were not looking for true salvation, they were just looking to be satisfied and have an ease of life. Jesus was not willing to grant them this, because their heart was in the wrong place, they were searching for the wrong type of satisfaction.

These people are like the soil mentioned in Matthew 13:20-21 “20 As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.”

Matthew includes this in his gospel by omitting any mention of awe, wonder, or even praise of Jesus for the meal. We read that this crowd all ate, they were filled (satisfied), and that there were even abundant leftovers.

Notice the disciples even gathered up this excess that Christ had given them, but the crowd just follows for more food!

How fickle people who truly reject Christ are! They search after the bread that sustains their lives, but they don’t seek after the true Bread of Life, Jesus!

But that does not stop Jesus from having compassion, it does not stop Jesus from feeding them in this miraculous moment. It does not stop Jesus from proclaiming the truth to them, making them consider their motives.

Such is what we should do, friends. We ought to consider our own heart, our own compassion, our own willingness to give our bread and fish to the Lord to join Him for the work!

How willing have you been to be like the Apostles who gave up their daily meal to feed those around them? How willing have you been to surrender what you have to Jesus? How little (or realistically) have you expected for the Lord to do with what you give?

This whole situation of Jesus in a desolate place, with a crowd of ungrateful people, is meant to evoke in our minds the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness and God gave them manna, “bread from heaven.”

God miraculously provided for Israelites, He miraculously provided for this crowd, and both groups of people were more concerned about themselves than rightly responding in praise, wonder, and awe of the God who provided for them.

But, this recorded event is also supposed to point toward the day when those who do respond rightly, dine with their Savior at the true banquet, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Jesus) and His Bride (the church) in Revelation 19:7-10. “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

So, are you invited? Then give like the Apostles, entrust your works to Jesus, and know that He can do whatever He wills with what you give. Mimic the Apostles who gave their whole meal to feed the crowd, like they mimic the Lord who gave His whole life to save sinners. Mimic the widow in Mark 12:41-44 who contributed out of her poverty, entrusting all she had to the Lord.

I think Paul summarized the Apostles’ hearts well when he called the Corinthians to a collection for the Jerusalem church in 2 Corinthians 9. Where he writes in 2 Corinthians 9:6-7 :“6 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

We must be like the Apostles here, not like the crowd who only wanted to get instead of give.

Jesus is more concerned about our heart’s condition, that we joyfully give and not just get. He demands that mankind seek after Him, do as He commands and cheerfully give.