WHAT ABOUT THE BOY?

WHAT ABOUT THE BOY?

TEXT John 6:1–15

VIDEO TEXT

CONNECT I love this story. First sermon I ever wrote was from this text, but it was not the first sermon I ever preached. When I was about 10, one night I was at my grandparent’s house with my family and wrote a sermon while I was there. I called it “Sermon I Wrote at Grandma’s House”! I don’t remember it; I don’t remember what prompted it. I just wrote it and gave it to my mom to read. Maybe that’s why I never preached it; it must have been so bad she hid it so I wouldn’t share it somewhere!

I have referred to this passage many times in the past, but I can’t remember ever actually preaching from this text. So I am excited to share this story with you today and see what God may have to say to us together.

TENSION John refers to the miracles in his gospel as ’signs’. They point to something: Jesus is the ’Son of God’. Jesus said that He came to show us what the Father is like, to reveal the Father. Jesus took the covers off of God and showed us His glory. (John 1:14)

SOLUTION So each sign reveals something about God. As we look at this miracle today, ask the question, “What does this reveal to me about God?”

INSTRUCTION Only two miracles are mentioned in all four Gospels: the Resurrection of Jesus and the Feeding of the 5,000. The renderings are similar, but each writer adds different details.

A critical part of any story are the characters. In this story there are four characters: Jesus, the crowd, the disciples, and a young boy. Let’s look at each of them…

Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, was going about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. He was teaching in the streets, the synagogues, the Temple, and the countryside. Great crowds followed him.

What about the crowd? There was not anything really special about them. Sometimes the crowd is called the ’hoi polloi’, the rabble , literally ’the great unwashed’! Jesus was moved with compassion for them! He was concerned with their spiritual needs, their emotional needs, and their physical needs. He was ’with’ them. He was called a ’winebibber’ and a ’friend of sinners’. He touched the ’untouchables’! He reached people outside the camp: the sick, the blind, the lame, the outcast, the beggar, the leper, the prostitute, the tax collector, everyone who was forbidden to come into the Temple, into the Presence of God. Instead, Jesus brought the Presence of God to them! He loved the unlovely!

The problem with a crowd is that they can leave just as fast as they came. Jesus said that they followed Him because they saw the miracles He did. Later, they would follow Him because He fed them physical food and they were satisfied. They wanted to take Him by force make Him King right then! Jesus moves away from them.

Later, Jesus preached you had to “eat My flesh and drink My blood”! In other words, be intimately acquainted with Me in My suffering. What happened? Many of them left.

Ray Stedman writes, “They were not ready to follow him as the Messiah; they wanted to use him; they wanted God to work for them according to their program and their schedule… Israel has been looking for a king ever since the days of David. When these people beside the Sea of Galilee were fed by Jesus they thought, ’Here is the one who can take care of all our needs. We don’t have to worry again about eating. Let’s get him and make him to be our king.’ But our Lord would not consent to being used like that.”

Are we like the crowd? Do we serve God for what we can get out of Him? Or do we realize that, as T. Austin Sparks puts it, “God is totally ’other’ than us!” We must serve Him and worship Him simply because He worthy of our worship, worthy of our service.

What about the disciples? The Lord was testing them in this story. Jesus told them , “The people are hungry; you give them something to eat.” Jesus knew what He was going to do; He was inviting the disciples to participate with Him in a supernatural event! The disciples only saw the earthly reality; Jesus wanted them to look into the Spirit realm and see that they too had miracle working power. Oral Roberts wrote a great book, If You Can See the Invisible, You Can Do the Impossible! The disciples made a commitment to Jesus.  When everyone else left, they stayed!

The last character is the young boy. Only John mentions him. We don’t know his name, where he came from, who his parents were, or why he was there that day. We only know he had five barley loaves and two small fish.

There are Lots of opinions about him. Some say he was a spectator who had come to see Jesus; some say he had been commissioned by Andrew to carry supplies for the disciples as they journeyed. Perhaps he was one of the children that hung around the large crowds that were traveling to Jerusalem for Passover, selling meager provisions in hopes of making a small profit for their families.

We do know he was poor. He had barley loaves, bread for the poor, made from cattle feed, not the wheat that was produced in this area. I think he was probably a beggar, or a peddler to the crowd. A ’bridge boy’ trying to sell you stuff as you cross from El Paso to Juarez and back again. He is one of the ’least of these’. Instead of loaves and fishes, he could have had tortillas and sardines!

When Alba and I were in Israel many years ago, we saw these boys all the time. They were selling everything you could imagine for ’one American dollar’. They were masters at public relations and would steal your heart in a moment.

Children were always around Jesus.

Matthew 18:2–5 (NKJV) Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me.

Mark 10:13–16 (NKJV) Then they brought little children to Him, that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked those who brought them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. 15 Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” 16 And He took them up in His arms, laid His hands on them, and blessed them.

Children said, “Don’t mess with my kids!”

Matthew 18:6 (NKJV) “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

I believe this young man was attracted to Jesus like all kids were. When Andrew brought him to Jesus, he gave up what he had without reservation. Tradition says it was his lunch. The Bible doesn’t say that, but it could have been. It could also been what he brought to sell. It really doesn’t matter; he gave it all to Jesus. I don’t know if he realized he was providing the raw materials for a multiplication miracle, but I want to believe that he saw in Jesus someone he could trust.

Do we trust God that way? Do we give up to God without hesitation? Until we do, we will not experience all the fullness that God has to offer. God is into multiplication. What we give to God, He multiplies. The boy gave and got more than he had. He ate until he was full!

When we surrender all, God takes it, blesses it, multiplies it, meets needs with it, and then gives it back to us with an exponential increase!

I believe that this young boy was never the same after this.

INSPIRATION I want to ask you to bear with me right now in a little bit of Bible ‘What if?’. This is not in any way authoritative, but I asked myself the question: “Who is this young man?”

In Mark, Acts, and 1 Peter, we are introduced to a young boy named John Mark. He was around during the Last Supper because it was in his mother’s home. Some believe he was the man carrying water that led the disciples to the upper room. He was also present at the arrest and betrayal of Jesus. He was almost arrested, but fled naked after soldiers grabbed him by the sheet he was wrapped in.

Could it be that John Mark Was this young boy from the “Feeding of the 5000“? We cannot be certain, but I think he could be. If so, he was often around the early Christians who met in his mother Mary’s house to pray and worship, especially when Peter was released from prison. He was close to Peter, who called him his son. He went on the write the Gospel of Mark, the first of the Gospels written, and was a missionary with both Paul and Barnabas. He became a leader in the church in North Africa, and according to Coptic tradition, was the founder of the Coptic Church and served as their first pope. Coptics believe Mark was tied to a horse and dragged to his death by a mob of pagans on Easter, 68 A.D., in Alexandria.

What difference does it make? None, really. The important thing is that Jesus reaches out and used the faith of a youth to feed a multitude and the youth was forever changed!

APPLICATION What is the application for us today? There are so many things we could emphasize. Let me pick one.

This sign reveals that Jesus wants to relate to you. You decide the level of the relationship.

1.  You can choose to be in the ’crowd’ and follow Jesus because of the signs. Jesus will meet your needs.
2.  You can choose to be a ’disciple’ and follow Jesus because ’only He has the words of life’. Jesus will give you life.
3.  You can choose to be the ’one’, like the young man who gave it all, and follow Jesus without reservation. Jesus will give you Himself!

INVITATION Where are you today? Are you willing to move to the next level?

One last thought…

John 6:12 (NLT) After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.”

I know Jesus is talking about food, but when I read this, my heart broke. I heard Jesus say, “Gather up the leftovers, the outcasts, the ’ones’ no one else wants, so that no ’one’ is lost! That is my calling, our calling, to restore the fallen, rebuild the broken, refresh the weary. We must not forget that!