The Gospels/The Life of Christ

Transcription

1 The Gospels/The Life of Christ NT504 LESSON 10 of 24 Terry C. Hulbert, Th.D. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Columbia Biblical Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina Let s pray together. Our Father, we thank You for the fact that You have revealed Yourself to us. We thank You for the joy of learning about Yourself and the revelation of Yourself in Jesus. Truly Lord, no one has seen the Father at any time, but You have revealed what You re like through the Lord Jesus. We pray that we might see that revelation today, that we might, in this class, in this session, see facets of His personality and His love and His grace and His power and His significance to us that we have not seen before. Help us, Lord, to walk in the sandals of these people and sit at Your feet, in Jesus name. Amen. We continue our study of the scene in Capernaum when Jesus had returned from casting the demons out of the demoniac on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. He came back to Capernaum; there the people were waiting for Him, and especially Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, who had a daughter 12 years old, very sick, near to death. And as He made His way up through the little streets of Capernaum, a woman came and touched His garment, and He turned and said to her, Who has touched me? (Mark 5:31). Who has allowed this power to go out of Me for healing? A question has been raised as to whether or not He had to ask the question to know. No in His humanity, He would not have known. But the Holy Spirit, of course, had given Him insight into the hearts of people. We read in John 2:25 that no one needed to testify as to what was in man. He knew what was in the heart of man. So I have every reason to believe that He knew who it was. But He wants her to say something. He wants to bring her out in this situation and make a lesson to her, as we have seen. So that He can demonstrate to her that He has healed her, not on the basis of her touching His garment, but on the basis of her faith. Incidentally, we re going to find after this that the word spread that If you touched Jesus garment you got healed. And we ll see as they get over to the Plain of Gennesaret and elsewhere, quite 1 of 17

2 often the phrase is used. They try to just touch his garment. So the word of this certainly did go around. We could also make a point of the fact that Jesus treated her as an individual in the crowd. Although the disciples said, Lord, this is crazy! Why do you ask who the one person is? Lots of people touched you. And I think we could say that lots of people touched Jesus. But not everyone has that connection, we might say, of that power going from Jesus to the individual. It s one thing perhaps even to sit in a church [and] hear the Word of God. But the connection isn t always made. And here it was made. But here this had delayed the procession up to Jairus house until the little girl has now died. Apparently, there was a lot of opposition to Jairus coming down to get Jesus, because the people back at the house were ridiculing Him for this. And as He got back there they said, The child has died. This is what we told you was going to happen. He couldn t do anything about it. And they already had the funeral people there. In Matthew s account, verse 9:23, When Jesus came into the official s house and saw the flute players and the crowd and noisy disorder, so they were already there for the funeral. Then He makes this amazing statement. He says, The girl has not died, but is asleep (Matthew 9:24). And in Mark s account, The child has not died, but is asleep. (Mark 5:39). Of course, Jesus used the figure of sleep for death, because death is not permanent, and there will be a waking afterwards. And it is a gentle way. Sleep as a synonym for death is used only of believers. In John 11, of course, He said that Lazarus is asleep. In I Corinthians 11:29, He said, for this reason many are weak and sickly and sleep among you. In I Corinthians 15 and, of course, those in I Thessalonians 4, who are asleep in Christ will be raised as Jesus Christ returns. So this concept of death as sleep is frequent in Scripture. But they go into a room, and so as not to frighten the girl, they put all others out, and He brings in just the three: Peter, James, and John, and the parents (Mark 5:37). It s interesting that if He did not expect to raise her from the dead, it wouldn t matter if there were 50 people in the room. But because He knew there was going to be a resurrection, He knew this little girl would perhaps be frightened by all these people and certainly frightened to wake up in the middle of her own funeral. [So] He put all the flute players outside. And in verse 5:41, in Mark s account, He speaks to her, uses the same words that her mother would have used to rouse her in the morning. And she awakes. And He mentions that 2 of 17

3 she needs some food. He says, Give her something to eat (Mark 5:43). [It is] a very personal touch. Can you imagine the reaction of Jairus in this? I wonder if Jairus ever got together with the centurion and also with this officer whose son was healed and compared notes. But certainly there would be much joy in that household. Section 96, we just take a note there that as two blind men were healed, they came to Him, He touched their eyes (Matthew 9:29). He told them not to go out telling about this, but they went out and spread the news (Matthew 9:30). I guess we could say that God would wish that Christians would be as good at spreading the news as some of these people were when He told them not to speak. But I want to make the point here that as Jesus confronted the Pharisees in the Beelzebub incident on this matter of signs and said that No sign will be given you but the sign of the resurrection, (Mark 8:12) that from that point on He did not (in my estimation) do any sign miracles for the general crowd, certainly not for the Jewish leadership. He did miracles. But it seems that there s a shift now, because up to this point, he is doing miracles, partly at least, to demonstrate His deity. From now on, He s going to do miracles to instruct the twelve. And I want us to notice this particularly, that there s a shift in His ministry now. We ve reached a watershed. Following the Beelzebub incident, we now find that Jesus concentrates not on a ministry to the multitudes, but on a discipling ministry to His disciples. One of the outstanding initial instances of this will be the feeding of the 5,000, as we will shortly see. But in this case, He is saying, Don t go out and tell. I m not trying to advertise Myself. I did it for you. But you ll notice the result of it, in Matthew verse 9:34, the Pharisees were saying He cast out demons by the ruler of the demons. There s still mumbling about this. They re still muttering about it. And this is their defense. He s threatened them, at least, they feel threatened by Him. They re intimidated by Him. So this is their way of fighting back, to say that He s doing it by the power of Beelzebub. As a matter of fact, it s very unusual and very striking to me that they would actually say this after He had pronounced such a heavy judgment on them for doing that. Section 97, He comes back to Nazareth for the last time. And in this passage we learn some interesting information about His family. They are still saying, Where did this man get His wisdom and these miraculous powers? In a way, this is the origin issue, 3 of 17

4 and what better place for the origin issue to be addressed (that is, the origin of Christ did He come from earth or did He come from heaven?) than back in His own hometown of Nazareth, because these people have seen Him grow up. And they re still wrestling with where He came from. How would He get this? They were, in effect, saying, We don t know where He got this special wisdom. He s just one of us. We ve seen Him grow up and work in His father s shop. This is to be taken in connection with Luke 4:16 and following, where He came first into the synagogue. Some have suggested that this is the same event. But there are serious differences with it. I think it is a different event. This one is toward the end of His Galilean ministry. You ll notice in Matthew verse 13:55, we re even given the names of his brothers. Apparently, again, we should remark that Joseph, the legal father of Christ has died. Mary is mentioned. And his brothers, James and Joseph, obviously named after his father, and Simon and Judas. Imagine that, Jesus had brothers with the same names as three of His disciples. And they were unbelievers, as we will see. For some reason His sisters didn t get named. Moving on to Section 98, we again see that Jesus is emphasizing the ministry of His disciples and how He is training and teaching them. Up to this point, Jesus has given them no assignments. Up to this point, Jesus has been demonstrating His own power, His own authority, doing His own teaching. Now He is starting to delegate, and this is one of the moves in Jesus discipling, or working with His disciples, to train them following this rejection in Galilee. Because Jesus knows that He is not going to establish the kingdom at this time, that He is going to die, that He is going to be buried, that He is going to rise from the dead, that He is going to go back to be with the Father. And when He goes back to be with the Father, there s a whole world to reach with His message out there. In other words, He has in mind Acts 1:8. He has in mind Pentecost. He has in mind the whole Book of Acts. He has in mind, we might say, the whole rest of the New Testament. And He knows that all of this is going to take place. So starting back where He is in time, He now begins to develop these men for it. We must always remember that these disciples had no idea whatsoever of their future. They had no idea that they would not be officers in His kingdom. As a matter of fact, up until the very last moment almost, before the cross, they re still arguing about who sits next to Him and who sits on the right hand and who sits 4 of 17

5 on the left hand and so on (Matthew 20). And so when Jesus died on the cross, they were devastated, they just didn t know where this fitted in. He had talked about it. He predicted it. But they still couldn t handle it. They couldn t come to terms with it. Then after the resurrection, when He met them in the upper room, the first thing He says to them is, As the Father has sent me, even so send I you (John 20:21). That is a brand new concept to them. That will start them in a whole different direction in their lives. But He is here, back in these days, preparing them for that which is going to come ahead. In other words, He is training them for a job that they don t know anything about yet. And, of course, the same thing may be true for any one of us. That He may be giving us experiences and putting us through difficult times and teaching us things now that will be useful, will be very important, something of which we have no idea, two, five, 10 years down in our lives. So in Section 98, in Matthew s account, we have again one of these summaries about His going about teaching, proclaiming, healing, and so on. Verse 9:36, Seeing the multitudes [again, multitudes following Him], He felt compassion for them because they were distressed, downcast like sheep without a shepherd. No wonder David said, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want (Psalm 23:1). But if the Lord isn t the shepherd, if there is no shepherd, there s great want. And that was the problem here. And He said to His disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few (Matthew 9:37). He looks at the people and He sees, I ve done all this teaching. They re still downcast. They still have a need. They need someone to help them. The harvest is plentiful. This is going back again to that image of the harvest that we had in John 4. The harvest is plentiful, there are many people out there to be brought into a relationship with Myself and with God and to be developed in their lives, but the workers are few. Still true. Therefore, Beseech the Lord, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers and do His harvest (Matthew 9:38). Why pray? Well I think we could apply this today as well as in that day, because this involves everybody. He says, I want you to have a burden for this. I want you to have a compassion for these people. And if you have a compassion for these people, and if you have an awe and respect and love for God, then you will pray. You will be motivated to pray. It s important that you be involved in the prayer aspect of this, because praying, in this case, is cooperating with God. It s joining with Him, [and it s] one of the ways in which we are coworkers with God. 5 of 17

6 Second, it makes ourselves available. In fact, this happened here. As they prayed and presumably they did pray that the Lord would send out workers; they had no idea that they were going to be some of the workers. It made them available as part of the answer to the prayer. And third, of course, it leaves the selection, the choices, to the Lord Himself. So in Section 99, we find Him commissioning the twelve. And He summoned the twelve disciples and He gave them authority over unclaimed spirits (Matthew 10:1). You ll notice they didn t have it automatically. And I don t think they had it always. In fact, we know they didn t have it always, because when they came down from the Mount of Transfiguration (Peter, James, John, and Jesus), they found that the nine down there had not had authority over the unclaimed spirits. There were certain conditions. And you ll notice that the things that He gives them authority to do, and a mandate to do, are those very things which He Himself has been doing. So this is not a different ministry. It is an extension of the kind of ministry that He had. But it s to a limited audience, Jews (Matthew 10:6). And it has a limited message, the kingdom is at hand (Matthew 10:7). I think we should be very careful about taking parallels out of this for our ministries today. Because in verse 10:5, He says, Do not go in the way of Gentiles, and do not enter into any of the cities of the Samaritans. And later on He said, Don t take any extra provision for money. Don t take anything that you can collect money in (Matthew 10:9-10). So if we take part of this passage out here and say, Well God has sent us out to heal and to do all of these things today, then we must remember that there were certain limitations. You can t take part of the passage out and not use all of it. But this was a limited ministry. It was to reflect His own kind of ministry, and it was to expand it. Perhaps we could see it as one last mass effort to get the word out all over Galilee. And I dare say that by the time Jesus got finished going, as we see, to all the synagogues in Galilee (hundreds of them), His disciples fanning out all over Galilee, that probably there were very few people in that whole area of Galilee that had not heard of Jesus of Nazareth. I doubt if there were many unreached people in all of Galilee by the time they were finished. You ll notice several conditions about this, The worker is worthy of His support, in verse 10:10, and where they should say, etcetera, etcetera. But notice in verse 6 of 17

7 10:16, He says, Behold I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore, be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. Now, that seems to end His discussion of their immediate mandate to go out at that time. The reason I say that is that beginning with verse 10:17, He says certain things to them that could apparently only apply to the future. For instance, He says, Beware of men that deliver you up to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues. That did not happen in Jesus lifetime. But Jesus is going to mention that again in the Upper Room Discourse. And He s going to start doing this in John 15: And He s going to say, The time will come when they think they ll do God a service by persecuting you and putting you to death and so on. So I would take verse 10:17 as growing out of the immediate scene. But from verse 10:17 on, He s speaking basically of a future ministry they will have of which they know nothing. For instance, He does not expect them to be scourged and put out of the synagogues, and so on and brought before governors and kings for My sake. This did not happen until after Pentecost. So apparently, this passage is future. You ll notice over in Matthew verse 10:37 He speaks of discipleship there. And He says, He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. The family must come second to our relationship to God. That is not in conflict, that s not a contradiction. God does not contradict Himself, but certainly our loyalty must be to Christ Himself. Verse 10:38: And He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. Taking up the cross is mentioned several times. It is mentioned again in Matthew 16 when He speaks of taking up the cross daily. We just should notice here that, although in our colloquial usage of this word we relate the cross to any kind of burden, any kind of sickness or disability in our lives, this is not what Christ meant there. And it s certainly not the meaning they would take from it. The cross meant death by crucifixion, obviously. The cross meant obedience onto death. The best commentary on this is Philippians 2:8: He became obedient onto death, even the death of the cross. Not obeying, but obedient up to the point of death. So the Lordship of Christ would extend how far over our lives? Well if it s on a scale of 1 to 10, if 10 means that we would die for Christ and to obey Him, then we might say, I d go to 3 or 4 or 5. He s saying, Go to 5, 6, 7, 8. Jesus Christ was obedient right up to point 10 Even to the death of the cross. 7 of 17

8 So when He says here, Take up your cross and follow Me (Matthew 10:38), what He is actually saying, I think, is that I am asking you to be obedient to My Lordship and to make a commitment that will stop at no place before a commitment that might even bring you to death. That s the idea of cross. Cross speaking of death. Not something we bear. We think of carrying the cross: I bear my cross, and so on. He s not talking about bearing the cross in the sense of; we would carry some infirmity or disability or whatever, perhaps a relative we have troubles with, or people in the church that we don t like: That s my cross. Or, I ve got this old car, that s my cross. This is all very trite. He is speaking here of absolute obedience. Then in verse 10:39: He who has found his life shall lose it. He who has lost his life for My sake shall find it. So finding one s life is here, of course, in this parallel: keeping one s life; keeping control of it; taking control of it for oneself. Then values we ve just seen in verse 10:39, the absolute value is in giving your life to Him. Verse 10:40 relationships: He who receives you receives me. He who receives me receives Him who sent Me. This is a theme that He ll mention many times. And it s very, very important. Just as people were judged on how they received Christ because that showed how they related to God, so how people receive us will indicate how they are receiving Christ. This is a tremendous responsibility and a tremendous privilege. We are ambassadors for Christ. And so at the reception of an ambassador reflects the reception of the ambassador s country. So the reception of the believer reflects one s reception of Jesus Christ Himself. Section 100 then they have gone out and they went out to preach. In Mark s account, They went out and preached that men should repent (Mark 6:12). Notice that s the message of John the Baptist. It s the message of Jesus. Why repent? Because they were headed in a direction away from the kingdom. They didn t know it. He said: The kingdom is over here, and you re headed in the other direction. You re sons of Adam and Eve. You ve been born into that family. If you re going to get into the kingdom, you ve got to be born from above and get turned around. Because born into Adam and Eve s family and even born into Abraham s family doesn t change your direction, you re headed for eternal destruction. You ve got to be born from above, and that will 8 of 17

9 turn you around and head you back the other way. Repenting, meaning a change of mind, a change of direction. Section 101 is intriguing because this is a flashback of a problem that Herod Antipas has had. You recall that Herod Antipas controlled Perea, the land over on the east side of the Jordan, and also Galilee. In fact, he built the city of Tiberias, named after a Roman emperor for purposes of gaining favor undoubtedly. In Section 101, we find that Herod hears the news about Jesus. He hears about His preaching. And, of course, we ve seen that the word has gotten down to Judea and that whole area. And all of a sudden, he s conscience stricken. And he [Herod] says, This is John the Baptist. He says, I put John the Baptist to death. I didn t want to do it. I had his head cut off. And now he s coming back to haunt me. That s John the Baptist up there! (Matthew 14). Can you imagine the sleepless nights and the fear and the agony he went through in thinking that John the Baptist somehow had his head back on. If I were Herod, I d go out and look for the body and see whether or not John was still there. This was a real problem. In the passage (we won t go into it but) we get the detail of the flashback of how it came about that John was put to death and why Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) was in this situation so very, very fearful. Moving on to the end of that section, onto Matthew 14:12: we see that his disciples, that is, John the Baptist s disciples, came and took away the body and buried it after John had been put to death. And they went and reported to Jesus (Matthew 14:12). Then in Section 103, we find the workers coming back, the twelve coming back who had been sent out. And they gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught (Mark 6:30). So here you have the sorrowful disciples of John the Baptist, who had lost their leader. Now if they were still disciples of John the Baptist, that does not mean that they were not open to Christ and hadn t received Christ, but they were loyal to him. Some of John s disciples (John the Apostle and Andrew, for instance) had come and followed Jesus, but not all of them had followed Jesus. Some had stayed with John, and it took a lot of loyalty and courage to stay with John and to minister to him, even as he was in prison. But then the awful news came that John had been beheaded. And they came back and took the body and buried it, and they came and told Jesus. Jesus would console them. He could comfort them. What would Jesus say to them about the loss of John? What would He say to them about John? He would say, 9 of 17

10 There s been none born greater than John. He was the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. Whatever Jesus said, He would comfort them. Then His own apostles come in, and their very happy and excited and joyful over how God has used them in this ministry that He sent them out to (Mark 6:30). In Section 104, He now is going to take them aside and they re going to have a little R and R. In Mark s account, He says, Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest awhile (Mark 6:31). In Luke s account, it says, He withdrew Himself to a city called, Bethsaida (Luke 9:10). Now Bethsaida means, house of fish or fishtown, as we would call it. There were probably two Bethsaidas: one right at the shore of the Sea of Galilee, just as the Jordan River comes in at the north; and one, the main town, back up about a mile or so. Today, you can still see the hillside (behind Bethsaida) on which very likely the feeding of the 5,000 took place. There s something I haven t mentioned so far, and I should have before, and that is to strongly encourage you to read the footnotes in Thomas and Gundry. I realize that the text is somewhat small, but you will find in the footnotes a lot of very, very helpful information. And I m assuming that you do read it as you take the course. I would particularly like to point out to you the footnote on page 101, where we are right here. The one on the withdrawal. You ll notice that second footnote there: At this point in His ministry, Jesus relationship with the multitudes changed. Prior to this, He had made it a point, for the most part, to go to them, though there were exceptions. The following months were especially characterized by His withdrawal from them. In addition to this section, five factors have merit in accounting for these withdrawals. Now this is parallel to what I was saying a few minutes ago. That He is now, not so much ministering to the multitudes and demonstrating who He is. He is now discipling His own people, getting them ready to carry on the ministry after He leaves the scene. This footnote concerning the withdrawal of Jesus parallels what I was saying earlier about the change in Jesus ministry. The emphasis of it previously had been on: (1) going to large multitudes doing miracles, (2) speaking to the great crowds that came around the shores of the Sea of Galilee and elsewhere, (3) the Sermon on the Mount and so on, and (4) doing miracles to demonstrate His deity. But now, after the Beelzebub incident in which that 10 of 17

11 kind of witness, especially the miracle kind of witness, had been rejected (there had been an unofficial rejection in Galilee by the leadership), now He comes to minister to the twelve, especially preparing them for the ministry that they will have. So that is part of the withdrawal part of thing. Notice these five factors. First, there was the jealousy of Herod Antipas. Suddenly, instead of thinking about John the Baptist, now John the Baptist is dead, Herod begins to worry about Jesus as a threat. The second point there is the misguided zeal of followers. Some were trying to force Jesus to accept some kind of a throne. We re going to see that in the feeding of the 5,000. And third, then, there was the great hostility of Jewish leaders. This is what we have seen in the Beelzebub incident. Fourth, and the disciples needed rest from their very hard work. But the most important one is that fifth one the opportunity for more personalized instruction of the disciples. [He was] preparing them for their ministry. He calls them aside for a retreat. But this is somewhat of a paradox, because as they get into the place behind the city (it s called a desert place in the old translation. It s really an uninhabited area back up from the city of Bethsaida), He heals people. In Mark s account, it says, They ran there together on foot from all the cities (Mark 6:33). And as they came ashore from their boat He saw a great multitude. He felt compassion for them; and this multitude gathers around him, and he heals some of their sick (Mark 6:34). You don t have a quiet retreat if you start to heal the sick because you know there s going to be a multitude. Now I rather suspect that Jesus has more in mind here than just what we would call a quiet retreat somewhere, getting away from the crowd, because if He had wanted to do that He likely would not have healed the sick. But He now sees this multitude around and He takes this opportunity to teach the disciples something that was very important to them. As a matter of fact, this is one of the first major lessons to them concerning their future ministry. It is called, The Feeding of the Five Thousand. [It is] a very familiar passage to us. It s the only miracle that Christ did that s recorded in all four Gospels. We ll follow Matthew s Gospel and pick up a few items from the others. When it was evening the 11 of 17

12 disciples came to Him saying, The place is desolate, the time is already passed, so send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves. The Jews recognized two evenings: one about 3:00 in the afternoon and the second evening was 5:00 or 6:00 on towards sundown. So this would probably be the first evening. They recognized that there were a lot of people there. There was no provision of food for them and they said, Let them go and buy food for themselves (Mark 6:35-36). Now in terms of what Jesus was teaching them, as far as their relationship to the multitudes was concerned, they were headed in the wrong direction because they said, Send the multitudes away. Jesus never sent the multitudes away, certainly not empty. The multitudes came to Him, and the first lesson these disciples had to learn was they had to have compassion for the multitudes. And they were sending them away. In terms of world-wide evangelization or even evangelization today, the parallel would be in not going to people. Because in not going to people, not going to Samaria, the outermost part, we are de facto sending them away. Because if we withdraw ourselves from them, the result is the same as sending them away. So this was the first point that He s making. Furthermore, they said, They can go buy food for themselves. It s true that they theoretically could have bought food for themselves, but in spiritual terms, they have no other resource than Jesus Christ. In fact, this is the problem today around the world. People are trying to buy spiritual food for themselves on their own. Matthew verse 14:16, They don t need to go away, you give them to eat. This was certainly a stunning statement to them. Us? We don t have anything. Yes, He says, you give them something to eat. This is going to become very important, because if the disciples didn t give them something to eat, they weren t going to be fed. But, of course, the problem is the resources. And Jesus checks this out in John s account. He said to Philip (and by the way, Philip was from Bethsaida. This was his hometown). He said, Where are we going to buy bread that we may eat? (John 6:5). He said this to test him. I like this statement. He said this to test Him, for He Himself knew what he was going to do (John 6:6). I wonder if Jesus does that with us sometimes. He tests us. He says, All right, go do such and such. Or How shall we handle 12 of 17

13 this? And Jesus knows what He is going to do. And possibly we come up with the same kind of response that Philip does. Mainly, we don t have the resources. In fact, usually it is: I don t have enough money for it, Lord. My car won t make it. I don t have enough time. I don t have enough training. I don t have whatever it takes. Now He s going to do something about the resources, which seem to be quite insignificant. Back to Matthew s account: they find this little boy. And somehow Andrew makes friends with this little boy, in John s account, and then they have the fish and loaves, barley loaves. The barley was used by the peasant people. Verse 14:17 of Matthew s account, We have here only five loaves and two fish. And He said, Bring them here to Me (Matthew 14:18). I think there s a special point to be made here of the word here as it occurs in these two verses. Because in verse 14:17, they had control of the resources. In verse 14:18, Jesus said, Give me control of the resources. And this makes all the difference in the world, because as long as the little boy had them, or as long as the disciples had them, only two functions could be performed. They could be divided and they could be subtracted from. In other words, you could divide up those loaves and fish and make them into little pieces and you could subtract them. But that s all there would be to it. When they were handed in the control of Christ, He could add, but more importantly He could multiply. And Jesus knew this. I think this obviously says something to us. That our resources, kept to ourselves, in our own control, we can only divide and subtract. We only have so many years. We can divide up the years. We can divide up our days, our times, our money, or whatever. But we can t add to it. But there s something literally miraculous that Christ can do for our resources, whether it s time (and that s the greatest resource we have) or material goods (which is the lesser). And He can make them go farther than we ever expected. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and He looked up toward heaven, and He blessed the food (Matthew 14:19). He who created it all receives this. I think that says something to us too, because does He need our loaves and fishes? Does He need what we have? Did He need these loaves and fishes? Did He need five of them and two of them? Could He have done it with four or three? Supposing the little boy had said, Here s two of them and one fish. Could He have fed them? Did He need any? Well, Yes and No. Theoretically, He didn t need them. But He did need them because He limited Himself to what He was given. Does He need you and me in world- 13 of 17

14 wide evangelization? Does He need us in ministry? Theoretically, No! I mean, He could do it without computers. He could put a transistor in everybody s brain and broadcast to them in their own language. He could do it a million ways. He could have said to these people, Be fed! And they all would have gone away feeling full. But that s not the way He did it. He was training the disciples. And that s not the way He s doing it today. [It] depends on individuals. So did he need all these loaves and fishes? No, He could have done it. And just to speculate, perhaps idly, for a moment, supposing the little boy had given two loaves and one fish and supposing Jesus had fed all the 5,000 men and all the women and children with that and they came back with all the baskets full. Then the little kid looks at what he s got left over. And what would he say? He probably would have said, Wow! What could he have done if I gave Him the whole thing. And I think perhaps that s true of our lives too. You see what He can do with the little that we give to Him. I hope we re not in the condition, the situation of the judgment seat of Christ, when we look back and say, I wish I had given Him more, the whole thing. [This is] something to think about. Then, of course, the key to it is, in verse 14:19. He breaks the loaves. He gives them to the disciples and the disciples gave to the multitudes. So Jesus does not feed the 5,000. He provides the resources and the disciples do the feeding. They do the delivering. This delivering was very important because we read in Luke s account that before this He had had them recline to eat in groups of about 50 each. Can you imagine? Five thousand people into groups of 50 each, and the women, the children, all of them out there in groups of 50. This is so the disciples can get through. How would you feed 5,000 people if they were all mobbed together? He wanted the disciples to deliver it, so He sits them around. I suppose missiologists would liken this to people groups today. That He has these people sitting all around in groups, ready to receive the Word. And so they delivered. And I guess to carry the picture on a little bit farther: If they were seating in the hillside, or if they were in these groups, where would the disciples start? Well they probably would start right where they were, with the front rows. And then the next rows and the next rows, etc. And you re way up on the top of the hillside and you look down and think, They re not going to get to me. It s going to run out. They re not going to get 14 of 17

15 up here. But they got up to the back rows. It s the only time in history that the back rows have all been fed in this way, because today in the world, we have three billion people in the back rows that have never had the Bread of Life. And yet, if I may say so, the bread is being passed back and forth in the front rows very frequently. Well, you say, but that was for the disciples. Well was the communion, the Lor s Supper, just for the disciples? Don t we take the communion? Do we say, That was just for the apostles? No, we say, That s for us as well. Set as is it is history, I see this as having the kind of overtones and the kind of impact that I ve been describing. I don t think I m reading anything into this. I don t think I m spiritualizing this at all. Because to go back a little bit, when John was put in prison (Matthew 4:12), Jesus began His public ministry. When John was beheaded, Jesus began His private ministry to His disciples. And if you take this scene in the context of the whole of Jesus teaching and of His ministry, especially in Galilee, I think we ll see that He was doing this in this way to teach the disciples something. This is a dry run through for Pentecost. This is what s going to happen from Pentecost on. This is what they re going to be doing. And as they had 5,000 there that day of men, they had 3,000 save the day of Pentecost. So He was preparing them for this very event. Just before we leave this, let s notice two constants and two variables in relating it to our own situation. There are two constants, we might say, speaking mathematically. [First] there were the people. And there are people today. They were hungry for food in that day. They are hungry for something (for spiritual food) today. Not that they recognize it. But there is a need there for their spiritual food. We see that in the discourse of the Bread of Life. Second, there is Christ. Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is a constant. And He has the resources. The two variables, I would say, in this story are the boy and the disciples. Variables in the sense that they had to make decisions. The boy had to decide whether or not to surrender his resources. The disciples had to decide whether or not they would obey in delivering. And so today we have the opportunity to decide whether we re going to give Him our resources to multiply, or keep them and use them for ourselves. And in the case of the disciples, we are going to have to decide whether or not we re going to obey Him in delivering this. Just a verse to tie into this is II Timothy 2:15: Be diligent to show 15 of 17

16 yourself approved under God a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. I d change one word, rightly delivering the word of truth. Because no matter how well and how rightly the word is divided, if it s not delivered, it does not have its desired affect. Right after that, in Section 106, we find in John s account that there is a desire to make Him king. And in verse 6:15 it says, Jesus, therefore, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. Some have suggested here that Jesus never did intend to be a king because here He rejected the offer. But as we look at the offer, we see that it certainly was not an official opportunity. It was very inappropriate for Him to do this. They were simply saying, Let s make Him king. As a matter of fact, some people have suggested that maybe Judas had incited this. We don t know that, of course. But this was inappropriate in its purpose. For instance, all they wanted really was food. He said that to them the next day. It was inappropriate in the people. These were sick, hungry people. They had no authority to act. They couldn t make Him king. It was inappropriate in the place. After all, if a king came down from Galilee (which was suspected as being the place of freedom fighters), how would that have played, we might say, in Jerusalem? And certainly, it was inappropriate in preparation. There s no evidence of repentance or regeneration in this. So Jesus defuses the situation by sending the people in one direction, sending the disciples out into a boat to go across the lake, and He Himself went up into a mountain to pray. So the three elements here, we might say, divided, and this defused that situation. Section 107, the disciples are now out going to the other side of the lake. Now Bethsaida is in the northeast corner. They were going across. They were rowing westward. And as they row westward, they row on until about 3:00 in the morning. They had been rowing for approximately nine hours and they ve only gotten about three miles. And they re opposite Capernaum. They re having a very, very rough time. And they re just doing all they can to get the boat across the lake. And they re wondering because Jesus hasn t come to them, in John s account. But then He does come to them. And when He comes, they re frightened. He walks on the water. And as He walks out on the water, they cry out with fear in Matthew s account (Matthew 14:26). They see Him as a ghost. He 16 of 17

17 says, Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid (Matthew 14:27). And then in one of the most startling and almost amusing if I may use that word situations in the New Testament, Peter says, Lord, if it s you [remember, Satan had said, if you be the Son of God ], command me to come to you on the water (Matthew 14:28). In other words, he didn t say, If it s You, come on over here and sit in our boat. He said, Command me to come. That s a bold move. So Jesus (I think with a smile) said, Come (Matthew 14:29). And Peter got out of the boat and he walks on the water. And he comes over to Jesus. And then he looks around, and he sees the waves and says, What am I doing out here? I can t walk on water! And he starts to go down (Matthew 14:30). [He says a] very short prayer: Lord, save me! (Matthew 14:30). And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took Him and said, O ye of little faith, why did you doubt? A real lesson to us is the fact that Jesus may not want us to walk on water. But spiritually, we re walking on water all the time, as we combat Satan, as we live on this earth. It takes just as much a miracle for us to live for God on this earth as it does to walk on the water of the Sea of Galilee. And it s done by faith, trusting who He is, who is power is. And when they got back into the boat, those in the boat worshiped Him saying, Surely you are God s Son (Matthew 14:33). But one solemn word in Mark s account: They had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, for their heart was hardened (Mark 6:52). In our next session, we re going to see some of the implications of this. Christ-Centered Learning Anytime, Anywhere 17 of 17