Sermon Tone Analysis

A GOD WITHOUT OUR LIMITS

Matthew 14:13, John 6:1-14

Introduction: The passage before us is a very familiar one-perhaps one of the most famous incidents from the life of Christ.

The ironic thing about familiar passages is that to avoid bad preaching we have to be more careful, not less.

There have been so many opportunities for traditions and opinions to become fixed as more and more times we have come at this passage with the attitude, "I know what it says," that we have to be extremely careful in handling this passage, to avoid confusing what this text says with what we have heard over and over.

I would like to suggest one fundamental starting point to guide our study: this Book [the Bible] is not ultimately about us; It's about Him.

It's His story, His revelation about Himself.

If we miss this, we miss the point of the Book, and we begin to lose our bearings as we navigate Its various parts.

In short, as we study the Bible we look for what God is teaching us about Himself, not for what's in it for us.

Of course, we always start with the context.

The passage starts with the phrase ?????????? - "After these".

This doesn't mean that this immediately follows the events of chapter five.

In fact, there has been quite a gap (6:4 cf.

5:1).

If the feast of chapter 5 was the Feast of Tabernacles we have a 6-month gap; if it was Passover, we have a 1-year gap, during which (we learn from Matthew and Mark) Jesus was ministering throughout the most populous area of Galilee.

Crowds had begun to gather every time Jesus made an appearance.

And the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger, swelling with numbers of pilgrims traveling to observe Passover.

Yet, Jesus turns His back on the crowds and withdraws with His disciples.

There were at least two reasons for this: the disciples had just returned from their first evangelistic outreach and needed the rest; and Herod's execution of John the Baptist had prompted Jesus to enter semi-seclusion for a time.

The retreat was held at Beth-saida, the "house of fishing".

An interesting side note about this place is that both unclean and clean fish swam in the waters here.

In fact, the Jewish rabbis debated whether or not that made the waters unsuitable for cooking.

Perhaps there is something symbolic in the location God chose for this miracle, although John was not writing primarily to Jews.

So Jesus went on a staff retreat with His disciples.

BUT word got out where He was.

A great crowd was approaching.

Jesus saw their needs and began to minister to them, even in His exhaustion and sorrow.

As the day wore on the disciples wanted to send them away to fend for themselves.

Jesus' reaction was different.

Matt.

14:15-16

Spurgeon paints the picture in his imitable style:

"Look, there are the people!

Five thousand of them, as hungry as hunters, and they all need to have food given to them, for they cannot any of them travel to buy it!

And here is the provision!

Five thin wafers - and those of barley, more fit for horses than for men - and two little anchovies, by way of a relish!

Five thousand people and five little biscuits wherewith to feed them!

The disproportion is enormous: if each one should have only the tiniest crumb, there would not be sufficient."

~* What happens next is profound-far too profound to be cheapened into some sort of "Jesus will give you stuff" sermon.

- v. 2 refers to the "signs" that Jesus performed.

Some translations say "miracles," but we have to be careful-the ??????, "signs" had a very specific purpose, and it wasn't about making sick people feel better.

These were the Messianic credentials.

The marginal reference in the NASB calls these "attesting miracles."

These were signs to identify Jesus as the Messiah.

If we miss that, we miss the point of the whole story-a story so important that it is the only miracle recorded by all four Evangelists.

But if we keep our gaze focused on Christ, rather than on the bread, we will gain tremendous insights into the God and Savior we serve.

~* We'll take these in no particular order, except to build up to the main point behind this account.

1.

We have a God Who is sovereign.

(vs.

1-4)

- None of this just happened.

They were right where they were supposed to be, when they were supposed to be there.

The hungry crowd was not unforeseen.

It was not the result of an oversight.

Jesus was not reacting to a situation that "came up".

Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28

~* And don't think of God's sovereignty as sort of working everything out in the end, of tying up the loose ends, nor of just making sure the big things don't get out of hand.

God's sovereignty is exhaustive.

He controls the blizzard and every snowflake.

Lk. 12:6-7

"Are not ??five sparrows sold for two ??cents?

Yet not one of them is forgotten before God.

7 "??Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows."

~* Jesus was not the only person on that hillside for a reason.

Over 5,000 lives had been directed from birth - before that, even - to put each and every person on that hillside that day.

Pause a moment to let the full impact of that hit you.

God's sovereignty is staggering to contemplate.

2. We have a God Who is both transcendent and immanent.

~* That sovereign God was standing there on the hillside before them, healing the sick and ministering to the crowd.

God is transcendent - He is high, holy, exalted far above us.

AND He is immediately accessible.

Isa.

57:15

- We must be very careful that we do not tip or overcorrect in our thinking-that we expound His transcendence but ignore His immanence, or vice versa.

3. We have a God Who patiently teaches us.

(vs.

5-6)

~* Obviously Jesus was not testing Phillip's managerial and organizational skills.

And Jesus was not trying to gain some information He did not have.

This test was not about Jesus learning about Phillip; it was about Phillip learning about Jesus (v. 6).

- The testing here was ????????.

There were two Greek words in the New Testament, with slightly different meanings.

This kind of testing was trial "with the purpose of discovering what of good or evil, of power or weakness, was in a person or thing . . .

or, where this was already known to the trier, revealing the same to the tried themselves . . .

so that men may, and often do, come out of them holier, humbler, stronger than they were when they entered in." [Trench]

- The way I hear Christians talk, there are times when it seems like we start to feel like we are just taxing God's patience, like we are just wearing His grace thin.

Surely we're taking too long, we should be over this or that sin by now, we should be farther along than we are.

- May I remind you that God is the One Who wrote the rule book.

He could glorify us instantly - in fact, He will one day.

But He doesn't.

For whatever reasons (and He does have His reasons) He has chosen to sanctify us slowly over our entire lifetime.

- YES, God has said, "Be ye holy, for I am holy".

But how?

By a tremendous act of self-effort?

NEVER!!!

By a lifetime of submitting to the work of the Holy Spirit!!!

Ps. 25:8-12

~* How many disciples did Jesus fire?

4. We have a God Who lets us play.

Matt.

14:15-20

~* Could Jesus have created the food out of nothing?

Yet he chose to use a young boy's lunch.

The Greek word translated "lad" in v. 9 is ?????????.

It's a diminutive word.