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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
During March we are going to continue to work our way through the gospel of John our theme is Responding to the Living Word.
Today we are talking about What Do You Do for Hungry People?
Prayer
Holy Father, you have given us bread for our hunger.
We eat every day and are filled.
We want to thank you for your bountiful provision.
We intercede on behalf of those who are hungry and offer our resources for their filling.
Part of what we now bring to you we dedicate to feeding the hungry, and the aid of the poor.
We thank you too, for Jesus who is the Bread of Life and is food enough for our spiritual hungers.
In our coming and going may we be eager and bold to share with others our greatest good gift, the invitation to salvation and new life in Jesus Christ.
It is in His name we live.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Text
John 6:11 NKJV
11 And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.
Scripture Reading
John 6:1-15 NKJV
Feeding the Five Thousand
1 After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.
2 Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased.
3 And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples.
4 Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near.
5 Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”
6 But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.
7 Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.”
8 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him,
9 “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?”
10 Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
11 And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.
12 So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.”
13 Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten.
14 Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
Jesus Walks on the Sea
15 Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.
Introduction
Most of us have never seen a desperately hungry person.
Because we can’t identify with the hungry, we lack compassion for them.
Consider the anguish of parents who can’t afford enough food to quite the hunger in their children’s stomachs.
The issue is squarely before us.
Hunger continues to be a world wide problem.
Even with aid programs, many Australians are hungry in one of the wealthiest nations on earth!
What are Christians called to do in a world where people are hungry?
Here are some suggestions.
- Send the people away.
Although John did not mention this suggestion of the disciples to send the people away to the villages, all three of the of the other Gospels Record it, Matthew 14:15, Mark 6:36, Luke 9:12.
John did not that Philip could see no way to help, since all the disciples had was two hundred denarii, one denarius was equal to one days wage for a common labourer, which could not buy enough bread for each of them to get even a little bite.
He was probably ready to suggest that people should go elsewhere for help.
We are often tempted to send trouble on down the road to find another person who will help.
Those of us who have plenty to eat do not want to be reminded of the hollow eyed hungry people who peer at us from the TV screen, or advertisements, or church announcements that call us to a Christian response.
Mentally we “send them away” by our crude suggestions that poor people are hungry because they won’t work, that may be the case for some in Australia but not everyone.
It is commendable that people work, if it is possible we all should contribute as part of the workforce, but we shouldn’t develop a self righteous attitude when we don’t understand the complexities of the problem of hunger.
Too often we are announcing to the world, “Send them away. It’s all their fault. If they would work, they wouldn’t be hungry!”
But we must not send away the millions who would die of starvation even year.
Jesus said that we must care for them.
2. Start a revolution.
As we read the accounts of this crowd in the Gospels, we can see that it perhaps suggests that many in the crowd would have liked Jesus to start a revolution against the roman oppressors.
John 6:15 makes it clear that there were men who were insistent that Jesus take up leadership and become king of the Jews in opposition to the hated foreign rule.
By paying close attention to the other Gospel accounts of this passage, you can note that Mark pointed out that they were in a “lonely,” or desert, place.
This would be ideal for a gathering of men who were intent on revolution.
Mark also suggested that there was much “coming and going”, suggesting that a lot of activity was caused by Jesus’ appearance.
Mark noted Jesus’ observation that the crowd was “like sheep without a shepherd.”
This could have been military allusions, since in Numbers 27:16-17 Moses spoke of his people as “sheep without a shepherd” unless the Lord appointed a man to lead them in and out.
The Lord appointed Joshua as the leader of Israel to succeed Moses, and this shepherd was indeed a general of the army.
Notice finally that the crowd was almost all men.
In a lonely place in an occupied land like Palestine, five thousand men wanting to make the charismatic leader their king would surely present a ready made opportunity for revolution.
But Jesus would not take the militant revolutionary way.
It may be understandable when some do.
They take all they can take and then rise up to say, “No more!”
It is wise of those who have bread to figure out a way to help those who don’t, lest the time come when no one has anything at all.
Jesus, however, with all His compassion and appreciation for the agonies of injustice suffered by His people, knew that he could feed them.
And He did.
But the ultimate joy and salvation did not rest in His becoming a revolutionary leader, a “bread and guns” messiah.
People must have bread, but people cannot live by bread alone.
Because bread is important, we ask for it each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.
3. Share what they have.
We need to “pass the bread to everyone.”
We who have so much, even more than the boy with five barley loaves and two fish, are called upon to share.
Jesus made it clear that He expects us to feed the hungry and give water to the thirsty no matter how small and insignificant they may first appear to us.
When we share, Jesus will hold our gift in His hands and give thanks for it.
Jesus knows how much can come from so little.
We cooperate with a God who is in the business of multiplying our gifts.
What was shared and then blessed was enough and more.
Sharing is not difficult if we remember the all we have comes from God in the first place.
The earth has enough for all our needs but not enough for all our greed.
Jesus gave the boy an opportunity to be a partner with Him in feeding the hungry multitude.
He gives us the same opportunity, but in order to do so meaningfully, we are going to have to learn to live more simply, in order that others may simply live.
But as Jesus knew, as important as bread is and as necessary as it is that we share our bread, people cannot live fully by bread alone.
We are Calle to share with a hungry world bread for their physical hunger and the Bread of Life for their spiritual hunger.
Conclusion.
When we share what we have and know, Jesus blesses and multiplies it and makes it enough.
So share what you have, it is all you can do.
You cannot give what you do not have.
Share what you have, no one else can give what only you have to give.
Although what you have to share may not seem like much or even enough, you never know what God will do when you give Him what you have!
Until next time
Stay in the Blessings
Giving
I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.
When you spend time with God, your life will change in amazing ways, because God is a Redeemer.
Theres nothing thats too hard for Him, and He can make you whole, spirit, soul and body!
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2022 IS A YEAR OF REPENTANCE AND BLESSINGS
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