It's amazing, isn't it, that Christ has given us His body, and then He gives us as His body to the world. Incredible thing. If you have your Bibles, please open up to John chapter 6. John chapter 6, and we'll be reading the first 21 verses. But before we come to God's word, let's pray that He would bless the reading and the preaching of it. Heavenly Father, feed us now, we pray. Lord, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from Your mouth, Lord God. We believe this. We believe that in Your word is found life. We believe that in Your word is found nourishment and sustenance for our souls. And so we pray, Lord, that You would feed us. Help us to receive Your word by faith. In Christ's name. Amen. John chapter 6, starting at verse 1. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. And a large crowd was following Him because they saw the signs that He was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat down with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up His eyes then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward Him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. Philip answered Him, “200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to Him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, He told His disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that He had done, they said, “This indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world.” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by Himself. When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. But He said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they were glad to take Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. This is the word of the Lord. Well, what a familiar story. You can open any children's Bible, and you'll find the feeding of the 5,000 in there. It's actually the only miracle of Jesus that's repeated in all four Gospels. Which is quite amazing. And I think when you have a familiar story like this, it's very easy to think you know it. And so what I'd want to do today is I want to spend some time just slowing down and noticing the story with some fresh eyes and seeing who it is. Remember what John's all about? Who it is that this Jesus is, who John is describing to us. Why is it that Jesus fed all of these people? And what does it tell us about how we are to live with Him? So our our first job is to just slow down and notice and to experience the story that John is telling and the event that that Jesus performed here. We see in this passage that we are now up in the Sea of Galilee. This is the north part of Israel. And Jesus, as is His—as He tends to do—is drawing a large crowd. See that in verse two, a large crowd is following Him because He's healing the sick. And Jesus is healing people, and they're all coming to Him, and so He heads up away from the villages and towns, up onto a mountainside in verse three, and all the crowds follow Him there. John notes in verse four something a little interesting: that we are at a feast time. It's the feast of the Passover, it seems. This should cast our minds back to the first Passover, which you can read about if you want, in Exodus chapter 12. I actually just want to read a few of the verses from the original Passover so that you can understand the context of what's happening around Jesus as He's doing this this miracle. The original Passover was in the first month of the year, and it was when God performed His last great sign to bring the Israelites out of Egypt. And in Exodus chapter 12, we find that there's—their families are to prepare a lamb without blemish, and they are to keep it until the 14th day of the month, and then they are to kill it at twilight. And verse seven of Exodus 12 reads, “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.” And so they are to eat this feast—bread and lamb—and then God's going to deliver them, and they're going to exit Egypt in a rush. And so God tells them, “In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hands. And you shall eat it in haste. It's the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute justice. I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.” And sometimes we—I hadn't noticed this before—but the Passover wasn't just a single event, it was actually a week-long celebration. Because after they are exiting Egypt, they're now on the run. And so they are told by God to keep a feast for seven days following, the feast of unleavened bread. You can see that in verse 12 of Exodus chapter—sorry, verse 15 of Exodus chapter 12. “Seven days,” God says, “you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.” And then He goes on to say, “You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statute forever.” So, this Passover is a time of great remembrance of this deliverance that God's brought Israel out of Egypt. The lamb is one part of it, but then there's this continual feast of unleavened bread. So, back to John 6. That's the time at which this is occurring. And Jesus is out, sitting on a remote mountain with His disciples as a large crowd comes towards Him. Jesus then instigates the question of food. You see that in verse five, He lifts up His eyes and sees a large crowd coming towards Him, and then He says to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” So Philip answers, “200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” John tells us that Jesus is testing Philip. He's testing him, and Philip fails the test dramatically. Philip does the maths and tries to figure out how much it would cost to feed all these people. He says 200 denarii, which is a denarius was a day's wage for an average laborer. So you're probably talking about 20,000-odd dollars or something like that, he's thinking. So he's doing the maths, figuring this out. And he needs that much because he has to feed, John tells us in verse 10, 5,000 men plus women and children, presumably. So we don't really know how big the crowd was, but probably 10-15,000 people, something like that. I was trying to think where you would see a crowd that big because it's kind of hard to picture. But if you take an NRL football pitch and you put people shoulder to shoulder across the entire pitch, that's about 10,000 people. So that's the—that's the size of the crowd that Jesus is trying to feed—or asking Philip to feed. And that kind of puts it into context too when Andrew comes, and we're sitting there with Jesus and he's trying to figure out how to feed these people, and Andrew, one of the disciples, comes up and says, “Hey Jesus, I've found some food. I've found five loaves and two fish. But,” he says, “what are they amongst so many?” How on earth are these five loaves and two fish going to feed all of these people that we have? But Jesus then takes charge. In verse 10, He commands that the people would sit down in the grass on the mountain. And so they sit down and He gives thanks and He breaks the bread and distributes it amongst those who are seated, and they eat as much as they wanted. Which John emphasizes in verse 11, they eat as much as they wanted, and then in verse 12, they've eaten their fill. And so they have abundantly. And yet, there is even more left over. I don't know how this happens, but somehow as Jesus is handing out the bread, it just keeps going. It just keeps going and going and going, so that there's not just enough for everyone to eat, but there are 12 baskets left over. Now, John points out that this activity, this miracle that Jesus is doing, was a sign. In verse 14, the people saw the sign, and the people understood what the sign meant. They declare, “This is the prophet who is to come into the world.” So they watch Jesus multiply the bread and they say, “Ah, this man is the prophet who God has promised.” But they also see Him as a king. In verse 15, Jesus perceives that they were about to take Him by force to make Him king. So not only do they identify Him as a prophet, but they see this sign and think, “Ah, this man must be a king, and we're going to crown Him by force.” So, I hope you've noticed some things as we've gone through that maybe you didn't notice before. Now I want to work through it and show you the relevance of some of those things. Now, certainly this miracle, we could read it and we could say, “Wow, how powerful is Jesus.” That's very, very true, isn't it? I mean, who can multiply loaves like this? This is a divine activity. This is godlike power. Multiplying bread is actually what God does all the time. When God takes a handful of seeds and we throw it on the ground, and it becomes enough to feed huge numbers of people. But John is actually pushing us deeper. He's not just saying, “Look how powerful God is.” He is wanting us to notice something about Jesus as the promised prophet and the prophesied king. And the way He's doing that is by giving us echoes of Old Testament stories. The first thing—the first one we should notice is the echoes of Exodus. John draws our attention to the Exodus event, and clearly the people understood this too. This is actually what makes sense of the fact that just after feeding the 5,000, Jesus walks on water. And then goes on in the rest of John 6 to explain what it means that He's the bread of life. It seems strange to me that there's this walking on water stuck in between feeding the 5,000 and this discussion of what Jesus means when He's the bread of life. But the reason it's there is because bread followed by water deliverance is an Exodus pattern. The Passover occurs in Egypt where the Israelites eat unleavened bread. They then go to the Red Sea and are delivered through water from the Egyptians. That's a Exodus pattern. And then, not only that, but they enter the wilderness and they eat bread from heaven, manna from heaven, for 40 years, and then they cross the Jordan in the same way they crossed the Red Sea and enter into Canaan, the promised land. And so John is very much calling our attention to this by having Jesus feed the 5,000 and then walk on water. And he wants us to consider the echoes of that and what that actually means. So, let's just think about that for a moment. Consider the manna, for instance. We read Exodus 16. You can also read more about the manna all through the Old Testament, but Deuteronomy 8 is another good place to go. And there's a relevance to God feeding His people in the wilderness that is brought out in the story about the manna. Josh actually drew our attention to verse four of Exodus 16. Let me read that again for you and see if you can pick up the echo that John's putting in front of us. “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them to see whether they will walk in my law or not.’” And Deuteronomy 8 actually says a very similar thing. Deuteronomy chapter 8, verse 3 says, “He humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” See, the manna was there in the wilderness to test the people. That was the function of it. It was there to test the people just like Jesus was testing Philip. And the test, what was it? Well, it was to see if they would obey God's command. And specifically, the command that God gives in Exodus chapter 16, which they didn't obey, was to only collect one day's worth at a time. That was the command that God gave them. And if you remember when we read Exodus 16, they disobeyed, they collected more than a day's worth, and it went rotten and stinky the next day. The point of this is that God wanted His people to be dependent upon Him day by day. To trust Him. To trust His word that He said He would provide for them and He would provide for them. Not to gather to themselves and store up thinking that they're going to provide for themselves. The idea of it was dependence. To trust the word of the Lord and His provision. And I want you to notice that in Exodus, when there's manna provided in the wilderness, it's not Moses who provides the food. The great prophet of God is not the one who provides for his people. Instead, it was God who provided the manna in the wilderness. And the people had to trust and depend upon God and His word. And this is such an important lesson that God wanted to teach His people that they even stored up one jar of manna and put it in the Ark of the Covenant, in the temple, in the tabernacle, to be with them as a reminder of God's provision and their dependence upon God and God's trustworthiness throughout their generations. And in Deuteronomy chapter 8, when God is is or when Moses is explaining some of the relevance of this manna, he actually makes the point that when God is going to bring them into the land of Canaan and stop giving them manna, the people should keep remembering that they're still dependent upon Him. Listen to this: “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes which I commanded you today, lest when you've eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the fliny rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know that He might humble you and test you to do you good in the end, beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers as it is to this day.” Now back in John 6, if we think back through Jesus' miracle that He performed with the 5,000, you know the really remarkable thing about it? Jesus is clearly doing a rerun of providing bread in the wilderness, but He doesn't take the place of Moses. He takes the place of God. He's the one who is providing the food, not God. That's an incredible thing, an incredible claim that Jesus is making. And Jesus wants His disciples and those who are following Him to learn from this that they are to trust and depend upon Him for all their provision, just as the Israelites were to trust and depend upon God. Even when God's hand was not as obviously involved, even when they came into the land of Canaan and didn't have daily manna, they were to keep remembering this very truth. That's what Jesus wants us to remember too. That's why He performs this miracle. But you know, there's another echo of another prophet that John is calling our attention to, and it's actually a strange little story that you may not know. It's in 2 Kings chapter 4. It's only three verses. I'm going to read the whole thing to you and see if you can hear how John is calling this back to our mind. This is about Elisha. Elisha was a prophet who came after Elijah. And in 2 Kings chapter 4, verse 42, we read about a famine. There's a famine in the land, and there's all these prophets around Elisha, and a man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, 20 loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men that they may eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before 100 men? What is this among so many?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left according to the word of the Lord. So we have Elisha providing bread for many people out of a few loaves of barley. And we have Elisha's servant saying, “What are these among so many?” And then we have leftovers according to the word of the Lord. And so Elisha is this prophet who comes after Elijah, who was a great prophet of God. And Elisha was greater than Elijah. When he takes over the reigns from Elijah, says to God, “Give me a double portion of the spirit that was upon Elijah.” And so God does. And he goes and performs these many, many miracles. And the point of all this is that the Old Testament tells us to expect another Elijah, the first one. Another Elijah. Malachi 4:5 says, “Behold, I will send Elijah the prophet before the great and mighty day of the Lord.” And Jesus identifies John the Baptist as that Elijah. And so then who's Elisha? Well, Jesus. 'Cause He's greater than Elijah, and He comes after Elijah. And interestingly, here, He performs the same miracle as Elisha, feeding many people with a few loaves of barley. And what's important about this is that in contrast to the manna in the wilderness, where the Israelites were provided day by day what they needed, now we have abundant provision in Elisha. And that's exactly what we find in Jesus. Jesus' provision is far greater than the manna in the wilderness. Because He doesn't just provide enough for one meal or one day, He provides abundantly. 12 baskets left over. Now how is that true of Jesus in His work? Well, remember, there's another tie back to the Passover itself. And the Passover was, as I said, meant to remind us of the feast of unleavened bread, but the point of that feast was not about the bread, it was actually about God's salvation. The Israelites were to remember as they celebrated the feast of unleavened bread that God had delivered them from Egypt. So it wasn't about provision of food, it was about provision of salvation, of deliverance. And so John wants us to realize that Jesus is not just someone who comes and provides our physical needs. He's not just someone who's powerful enough to get you a job or to pay your bills. Although He can do that. But He is the great prophet who comes to deliver His people with a great salvation. And not a salvation that's limited, but a salvation that is abundant. All that is needed for us is found in Christ. And Jesus is going to go and explain some of this in verse 22 of chapter 6 and onwards, which we'll look at some time later. But Jesus wants these people to understand that He's not just feeding them with physical food. He is the bread of heaven that comes down so that His people would not just have provision, but would have life and life eternal. Jesus provides us with our greatest needs, and He does so in abundance. He provides us with forgiveness for our sins. Not just some of our sins, but all of our sins. He provides us with reconciliation with God. He provides us with peace, both peace in our hearts, knowing that He is the one who has our future in His hands, but peace with God and with each other as well. He provides us with grace in times of need. He provides us with His Spirit to lead us and guide us and to change us. He provides us with a new birth, with a new nature. He provides us with understanding and wisdom. He provides us with community, a people to whom we belong. He provides us with new desires in our hearts and the ability to pursue those desires. He provides us with a hope, a future, a resurrection. In contrast to the Old Covenant under Moses where they had many, many good things, but they did not have everything, here Jesus provides for us abundantly. More than we could ask or think. And so John would want you to run to Him. To see Him as your provider, not just of your physical needs, but for all your needs. And I think it's interesting that in all of these feeding scenarios, God brings His people to a place of hunger and need first so that He can step in and provide for them. And that's what's that's when it's important for us to realize this. Just like the Israelites when they came to a place of hunger, they didn't remember God's provision and supply, but grumbled instead, so we need to remember that in Jesus, God has provided us everything. And so when we come to a place of need, when we come to the end of ourselves, when we feel our sins are too big for us, when we feel our circumstances are too complex for us, when we feel alone and desperate, we are to remember that in Jesus, God has provided for all our needs. And in abundance. And so come to Him. Come to Him for provision. Don't run elsewhere. Don't think back to the Egyptian situation like the Israelites did. Remember in chapter 16, they said, “Oh, back in Egypt we had meat and bread in abundance.” No, you had slavery in abundance. Run to Christ instead. Because He is the greater prophet who provides and supplies. But there's actually another way that we see this, just to emphasize this point even more, because the people also saw Jesus as a king. So far we've only seen Him as a prophet in the line of Moses and Elisha. How is it that this miracle would show us that Christ is a king? Well, again, the language that John uses should remind us of a passage in Ezekiel. Again, probably a random passage, but it's an important one. Let me read some portions from Ezekiel chapter 34, and I want you to see if you can pick up on how John is alluding to this and what that might mean. Ezekiel 34. The word of the Lord came to me, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.’” I'll skip down to verse 13. God's bemoaning the state of the rulers of Israel, right? He's saying, “You rulers, you look after yourselves. You don't look after the flock that I've placed in your care.” And so He says, “I Myself will come and shepherd the sheep.” In verse 13, He says, “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture”—green grass—“and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I Myself will be the shepherd of My sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down,” declares the Lord God. And then down in verse 23, just to make this kingship language really clear, God says, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord. I have spoken.” So we have a king from the line of David being appointed by God to shepherd His people as their king, to come and care for the weak and heal the sick and to feed God's people on the mountains of Israel in the green pastures. Can you hear what John's doing in John 6? As he draws the crowd of Israel up onto the mountain, on the green grass, and has them lie down and recline. You know, he doesn't actually have them sit, he has them recline. Psalm 23 language, “I will have you lie down in green pastures and restore your soul.” Why are they coming to Him? Because He's the one who's binding up the weak and healing the sick. This is the new king of Israel. This is the shepherd appointed by God to come and not fatten himself by feeding off the sheep, but to give of Himself to feed his flock. You know, I was talking to a one of the elders over at Douglas Park Evangelical Church this week and he has a son who's a missionary in Sudan. And in Sudan, the state of the church is is quite poor. Pastors seek to become pastors because it's a position of status and it's a position of power and authority where they are well provided for. And this elder's son said the way to pick the good shepherds is to look at their BMI, their body mass index. Because he said all the terrible shepherds are fat. And this is Sudan. This is Sudan when people are starving and food is not as readily available as it is here. And yet these pastors are fat. This is the idea. This is the idea that John is getting at. Here we have a shepherd king who takes it upon Himself to worry about and provide for the needs of His people. Not to look at His people and say, “How can you provide for me?” but to look at them and say, “How can I provide for you?” And it's an incredible thing that it's God Himself who comes down to do this. God to whom we owe everything. And yet in Christ, He comes down as our great king and says, “How can I feed you, my people? How can I heal your wounds?” So much so He wants to provide for you that He comes and He gives His very body and His blood to pay for your sins. And even now, He gives His time and effort and attention and energy to providing for your needs day by day as He stands before the Father interceding for His own. This is the king that we serve. A good king in the line of David. What a glorious king we serve. Let's pray.