LISTEN
This sermon was preached by Claire Biggs at the CCM Kingsway site of Christ Church Manchester on Sunday 18th July 2021.
SERIES
This message was part of the ‘SERIES NAME’ series, preached at Christ Church Manchester’s church in Burnage in EARLY/MID/LATE YEAR. The full series included the following sermons:
BIBLE VERSES
This sermon was based on Luke 9:10-17.
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
10On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11When 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. 12Now 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.” 13But 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.” 14For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16And 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. 17And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
KEY POINTS
The Bigness of the Problem is Not a Problem
- There is no problem that is too big for God! Feeding all of these people was a massive problem. It’s actually impossible! However God didn’t look at this problem like that – and he doesn’t look at any problem that you present him with that way either. However big we think the situations, problems and circumstances of our lives they are not too big for God.
- When we come to Jesus we come to the one who created heaven and earth. We come to the one who holds all things together. We come to the one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given, the one whose name is above every other name. The Alpha and Omega, beginning and end we come to the source of all things, the King of Kings. Most importantly we come to the one who lived perfectly, who died a horrible death on the cross and 3 days later rose again and in doing so defeated sin and death for good in order to bring us back into relationship with God!
- Throughout the Bible, throughout history and in the lives of many of us God has done things we thought were impossible. He is the God of Miracles and Multiplication.
The Smallness of Your Offering is Not a Problem
- What the disciples can manage to pull together is not enough. Whatever we bring it’s not enough! We have all felt that we aren’t gifted enough, we don’t have enough, we’re not strong enough. We can’t fix the problems that we find ourselves in, nevermind the problems that others bring to us! We’ve all felt small!
- On Ready Steady Cook they are able to make these amazing meals from rubbish ingredients because they have great chefs who can draw on what they called “store cupboard ingredients” (all those things that you might reasonably expect people to have in their storecupboard!). Well God is like the absolute best 5* chef with an endless store cupboard which contains, well, everything!
- So if you are feeling small, inadequate & weak – that’s a good place to start because our God is big, more than adequate and strong!
We Are Called to Play Our Part
- What we see in this story is Jesus fully including the disciples in the solution. He tells them to feed the people, they tell him what they have, their small offering, they bring it to Jesus, Jesus gives thanks to God. Then he breaks it and begins to pass it out – not directly to the people but to the disciples – he gives it back to them to use.
- There are 2 things the disciples bring to Jesus in this story, they bring the offering (5 loaves 2 fish) and they bring their faith. They trust him. They trust him enough to do what he says and how fantastic are the results of that? Thousands of people, men women and children eat their fill.
- God calls us to play our part, to bring the little we have and to step out with it. He wants us to be involved! He wants us to use the abilities that we have, however small, the finances we have, however little. More than that he wants us to bring the faith that we have in him, even if it’s just a little bit, to trust him and do what he says. We each have our part to play, we each have to be ready to bring the little that we have and to give it to Jesus and then to trust him for the outcome.
The God of Abundantly More
- Notice where this story ends, once all the people have been fed and satisfied, the story could end at that point – but it doesn’t – each disciple collects a full basket of left overs as well. There is more food left over at the end than there was at the beginning!! That is the nature of God. He is the God of abundantly more and so often he does so much more with the little we bring than we could ever have expected.
- We can hear these stories in far off places and somehow think that this doesn’t happen here, somehow it doesn’t apply to us. Especially when we are talking about our little acts of faith leading to seeing people come to trust in Jesus! But believe me it does! We can look at the state of our city, our nation, far from God, following other faiths, rejecting all faith and we can think its too big a problem, what we can bring is too little!
- Right now it may seem like its just small breakthroughs, we start talking to a neighbour, we give them a listening ear or a small gift of friendship and God grabs that little and soon we are able to speak to them about Jesus and even pray with them and one day, one day they might choose Jesus for themselves and they might just bring their family and their whole community along to hear about him too. What God has done before he can do again.
MORE SERMONS
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