Give Them Something To Eat

Luke • Sermon • Submitted a year ago • Presented a year ago

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Introduction

When someone asks if another person is ready, the response that they sometimes receive is, “Ready as I’ll ever be.” You ready for the test? “Ready as I’ll ever be.” You ready to go on vacation? “Ready as I’ll ever be.” It’s the answer that we give to so many questions on whether or not we’re ready. But usually, when it comes to evangelism, those are not the words we choose. Ready to go evangelize? You usually don’t hear, “Ready as I’ll ever be,” instead it’s more like, “Not really.” There’s something about evangelism that is daunting. We never feel prepared. We never feel ready. We never feel like we have what it takes. We would much rather pawn that off to the professionals—the evangelists and pastors and such.

This morning, we see that same mindset with the apostles. They’ve just come back from the mission-field, and so you would think they’d be prepared for just about anything, but instead they show themselves ill-prepared. And in this episode of Jesus’s life, we see that certain demeanors sprout forth. The first is the pastoral demeanor, followed by a practical demeanor, and then finally a penetrating demeanor.

A Pastoral Demeanor

A Practical Demeanor

A Penetrating Demeanor

Luke 9:10–17 ESV

On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” And they did so, and had them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

A Pastoral Demeanor

The first demeanor that we come to in this text belongs to Jesus. We see him having a pastoral demeanor. The word pastor is a carry-over of the Latin word “Pastor,” which meant “Shepherd.” A shepherd is one who takes care of the flock. One need only think of Psalm 23 to find the model shepherd. He sees to it that the sheep lack no good thing and so provides them with green pasture and still water. He leads the sheep, protects the sheep, comforts the sheep. And we see these type of characteristics in this passage.

The disciples have come back from their short missionary journeys to the various villages and towns. They’re excited to tell Jesus all that has happened. And as they begin, it’s like Jesus said to them, “Let’s walk and talk.” Actually, let’s “sail and tale” as Matthew tells us that they sailed across Galilee. The twelve have come back, and Jesus takes them away from the crowds. He’s taking them to get away for a bit, to regroup, relax, and rejuvenate.

So he takes them to this town called Bethsaida. Now Bethsaida is apparently the hometown to some of the disciples. Philip, Andrew, and Peter all hail from this small fishing town. And while they were talking about healing by the power of Jesus, exorcising demons by the power of Jesus, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom by the power of Jesus, crowds begin to form. So much for regrouping, relaxing, and rejuvenating! It’s no longer just twelve men with their rabbi. Twelve quickly turns to dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of people. The disciples’ reporting is cut short by the crowds.

We’re not told how the disciples responded to this intrusion, but Jesus is said to have welcomed it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hear all that happened with this disciples, but that the mission of the gospel was first and foremost to Jesus. It was why he came in the first place. He came to seek and to save the lost, restoring the kingdom of God. And so once again, Jesus’s pastoral demeanor comes through as we see him welcoming the crowd and then begin to preach about the kingdom of God to them.

By the way the text reads, this seems to eventually annoy the disciples a bit. And that’s understandable. After all, you’re the disciple! He’s your rabbi. You’ve committed your life to him; these big crowds are fair-weather fans who just want to use Jesus and so they are distracting him from you and your fellow disciples. But here’s what we see about pastors/shepherds. While they certainly have a flock of sheep that they tend, their hearts are called to extend that love to those in need. A shepherd’s heart cannot be bound. There is certainly a special place in his heart for those who are in his current flock, but there is still a place for those who have not yet joined it and even for those who may stray from it. So Jesus turned his pastoral demeanor to include the crowd.

But if the disciples don’t get that then they probably get even more annoyed when Jesus begins to heal those in need of healing. It’s been a long day already and here was Jesus concluding his sermon. Maybe they’re thinking “Finally, he’ll send the crowd away, and we can get back to what we were talking about.” But no! He starts healing them too! This is going to take forever!

The day has gone on long enough and they feel the need to tell Jesus the situation. Whether they want to get rid of the crowds and keep Jesus to themselves, or that they want to minister to the crowd by giving them enough time to get to the markets before they close, or they just don’t want them mad and Jesus or his disciples, they step in and ask Jesus to send them away.

A Practical Demeanor

This takes us to the second demeanor, but this time it belongs to the disciples. They seem to have a more practical demeanor. There’s a problem, they see a solution, they inform Jesus of both. The idea was very simple. Send the people away while they could get back to the surrounding towns and countryside. The disciples are looking at their situation; they’re in a desolate place. They have no provisions for the crowd. Send them to find lodging and provisions, they say.

Now, let’s stop and think for a moment. These men have just been out on a missionary journey. They have had the power and authority of Jesus to heal, cast out demons, and preach the good news of God’s kingdom. They were to take nothing with them except the clothes on their back. It was a sign, in part, that God would provide for them. God would provide through natural means; in other words, through the kindness and hospitality of strangers. Perhaps, they were thinking the same thing could happen for this massive crowd. Whatever they were thinking could happen, they don’t seem to be thinking about the preaching and healing that was going on. There is little thought to the lives being changed by the word and power of Jesus. And they certainly were not thinking about feeding them all themselves!

When Jesus presented this idea to them, they were a bit more incredulous. But again, they thought about how they could feed them. Jesus may have had a point. Sending 5,000 people into the towns could cause a problem. It would be easier if only a few go. If you’ve ever gone to a convention of some sort. When they let out for lunch, all the restaurants are flooded. There’s traffic in the streets from pedestrians. It’s frustrating to the townspeople, the workers, and the convention-goers. No one is happy.

They disciples had hardly anything to provide the people, but they could go into town—if Jesus really wanted them to. They could buy food for everyone. If we were to stop and think about it, these are two excellent and practical ideas. They make sense. They are doable.

Doable and practical are ways we like to operate. We have finite resources in every area of life. We only have so much money. We only have so much time. We only have so much attention span or intelligence or strength. So we seek ways that we can get the most out of what we’ve got. Sometimes we have to get pretty creative; but whatever it is, we typically have two criteria for approval. It must be doable and it must make sense. Doable and sensible can mean that the idea is convenient, but it can be inconvenient. Sending twelve men to get food for 5,000 men plus women and children would be inconvenient, but if they had the money, it could be done.

Typically, God asks of us what is doable and sensible; in other words he calls us to do what is practical. That’s not to say that there are occasions where that isn’t the case, but typically, waking up, showering, eating breakfast, going to work, doing the shopping, cooking dinner. Those are doable and sensible; they’re practical; and we know that we truly cannot do any of those things without God’s allowing and moving. But, humanly speaking, these things are practical.

And we see what God expects of us in these times:

1 John 3:17 ESV

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?

James 2:15–16 ESV

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?

Proverbs 3:27 ESV

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.

Being practical and seeking what is doable is not a bad thing. It is commendable. So I am not judging the disciples for their thinking. They are thinking rightly under normal circumstances. But they were a little slow when Jesus tells them to feed the crowds.

A Penetrating Demeanor

Which leads us to the third demeanor that goes back to Jesus. Jesus had an uncanny ability to put his finger on an issue that no one else could see. To put his finger on the heart of an issue. He had a penetrating demeanor. And this is obviously the climax of the story. When Jesus had told the disciples to give them something to eat, he wasn’t telling them to go buy food. He was telling them to feed them—at that moment.

The disciples took it like any rational human being would have taken it. They understood—whether they understood they understood is not the point— the point Jesus was making. They could not feed the people with the bread and fish they had. They did not have the power to do what Jesus was truly asking them to do.

Do you remember where Jesus and the disciples were? They were in the town of Bethsaida. And while it was a small fishing town, the disciples stated they were in a desolate place. Most likely, they were just outside the town rather than in the town proper. But it was still considered Bethsaida. But do you know what Bethsaida means? It means “House of Provisions.” “Beth” is the Hebrew for “House” and “saida” is Hebrew for “provisions.” Yet the disciples stated it was desolate; it had no provision. The disciples had no provisions.

Thus they told Jesus to send them away so they could find “provisions.” In the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible called the Septuagint, the word that is used for “saida” is “e pi si ti SMON.” Which is exactly the word that the disciples used in verse 12. The town could not provide for the people. The disciples could not provide for the people. So what was the solution? Send them away to places that could?

That seems so right. But it was so wrong. How often do we do the same thing. We look at what we have and see it to be so little in response the so great a need around us. And what is our reaction? Send them elsewhere. We have no provisions and we are in desolate place. Let the places of the world supply what the people need.

All the while Jesus is not asking us to work in our own strength or even with our own provisions, but to continue to work in his power and with his authority. Thus, he has the disciples have everyone sit in groups of fifty and he feeds every single one of them until they are well-provided for. And afterwards, there are 12 full baskets of bread and fish fragments. What a visual reminder that it is he,

Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)

who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. . .

This wasn’t about food. Food was symbol. It was about life. It was about Jesus and the gospel message. Only he has the words that lead to life. Only he can provide what this world needs. And he is telling every single one of us Christians, “Give them something to eat. Don’t send them away.” Don’t trust the surrounding towns and countrysides to provide what only Jesus can provide, providing it by your own hands.

Conclusion

As we finish up this section of Luke, let me just say that it is so easy to pass the buck. It is so easy to look at our meager bread and fish. We’re not scholars. We’re not theologians. We don’t know all the philosophies and arguments. But what we know is enough. We know Jesus and we know the gospel. Therefore we are ready to evangelize. Ready as we’ll ever be!

Charles Spurgeon was saved because of an uneducated layman of a Methodist church.

In Spurgeon’s own words:

I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning, when I was going to a place of worship.

When I could go no further, I turned down a court and came to a little Primitive Methodist Chapel.

In that chapel there might be a dozen or fifteen people.

The minister did not come that morning: snowed up, I suppose.

A poor man, a shoemaker, a tailor, or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach.

He was obliged to stick to his text, for the simple reason that he had nothing else to say. The text was, ‘Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth’ [Isa 45:22].

He did not even pronounce the words rightly, but that did not matter.

There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in the text.

He began thus:

‘My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, “Look.”

Now that does not take a deal of effort. It ain’t lifting your foot or your finger; it is just “look.” Well, a man need not go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man need not be worth a thousand a year to look. Anyone can look; a child can look. But this is what the text says.

Then it says, “Look unto Me.”

‘Ay,’ said he, in broad Essex, ‘many of ye are looking to yourselves. No use looking there. You’ll never find comfort in yourselves.’

Then the good man followed up his text in this way:

‘Look unto Me: I am sweating great drops of blood.

Look unto Me; I am hanging on the Cross.

Look: I am dead and buried.

Look unto Me; I rise again.

Look unto Me; I ascend; I am sitting at the Father’s right hand.

O, look to Me! Look to Me!’

When he had got about that length, and managed to spin out ten minutes, he was at the length of his tether.

Then he looked at me under the gallery, and I daresay, with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger.

He then said, ‘Young man, you look very miserable.’

Well, I did; but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made on my personal appearance from the pulpit before. However, it was a good blow struck.

He continued: ‘And you will always be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death—if you do not obey my text. But if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.’

Then he shouted, as only a Primitive Methodist can, ‘Young man, look to Jesus Christ.’

There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that moment and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the Precious Blood of Christ.”

You see, you don’t need to be a pastor to have a pastor’s heart. You just have to love Jesus and love others, remembering that there are times to be practical, but when all the practicality in the world is telling you to send people away from the gospel, you must remember what you have, though you may think little of it, is what the crowds need.

Prayer

Our heavenly Father,

Thank you for Jesus’s pastoral demeanor as he is our good shepherd—the one who knows us by name and has laid down his life for us. He guards our very souls with his own righteousness and walks with us in the darkest of times protecting us and comforting us with his rod and his staff. May we have such hearts for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and those neighbors who are not yet in the fold and may never even be in the fold.

Thank you for making most things in life practical and doable, but give us eyes to see and strength to live in faith, when we are called to do what only your power can accomplish. Give us a penetrating eye to see to the heart of an issue even as Jesus himself did. May we then toil with all your strength that you’re powerfully working within us to accomplish the task at hand.

May we never thing so little of the gospel message. May we never see it as meager provisions but as food that can sustain not just for a day but for eternity. May we be willing to set our neighbors down, our families down, our coworkers down, and place before them a feast of gospel truth. We ask you to do more abundantly than we could ever ask or think according to your power at work within us.