Saturday 25 July 2009

Sermon for Sunday 26 July 2009

John 6:1-15 - FAITH - Kim

The story of feeding the 5000 is a well known one and it speaks of about faith.

Andrew said to Jesus, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?" But isn't that the age old question. We look at what we have then we see the many who need more than we can possibility give so we ask, but “what are they among so many”. This lad didn't realise how much he had until he gave it over to the Lord. He saw he had only 5 loaves and 2 fish, but the Lord saw it as a gift to be used to feed the hungry people. The Lord made much of the little the boy was willing to give.

Notice, who did the action in this story, Jesus and the boy. It shows the faith of the boy and the power of Jesus to use our gifts to a great purpose. Notice how this all begins. The crowds had gathered and it was time to eat. The crowds numbered about 5,000 men plus women and children. And Jesus says to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread so that these people may eat?" Notice the respond that Philip makes, he comments that it would take more than eights months’ wages. Philip never once asks Jesus what he can do about the situation. Never turns to Jesus and asks him to do something, he relies on his own resources and because of that he fails. Philip is like many of us, we rely on our own resources we rely on me, myself and I so when the tough situations in life come along we have a difficult time coping with them. Philip viewed the situation hopeless even though Jesus was right there, he didn't turn to him and because Philip could not see beyond his own power, he could not help in the situation.

We are like Philip. We see need, we look at our resources, and we decide that we are powerless to help, so we don't do anything. We never think of turning our resources over to Jesus, we never think that maybe he can do something with our little gifts in a way we would never think of doing. Our faith as Philip's faith in the power of Jesus to change situations is often lacking. We would rather trust our own resources, own power, own pride and maybe even fail, instead of turning everything over to Jesus and letting him be in charge.

Now Andrew saw the same problem, he saw all the hungry people and he knew there wasn't enough money to buy food. So Andrew went out among the crowd to see what could be done. He found a boy who had a picnic lunch. It was only enough food to feed one hungry, growing boy, but Andrew decides instead to go and tells Jesus what he had found. Andrew might have had thoughts similar to this: "Well, this boy has only a limited amount of food? But maybe Jesus can do something with it. Yes, I will tell Jesus, if he can calm an angry sea, if he can heal people, if he can turn water into wine, surely he can do something with bread and fish. So, Andrew takes his resources to Jesus. He turns over to Jesus what he has found out. He lets Jesus be in control of his resources.

Then Jesus turns the little into much. Jesus takes the 5 loaves and 2 fish and he turns it into enough food to feed 5,000 men plus women and children with 12 baskets of food left over. Andrew knew that Jesus could do something very special with the limited resources that were present. Jesus took a few fish, bread and turned it into a feast for over 5 000 people.

Andrew is like the boy in the following story: A boy walking along a beach. All along the shore there were thousands of starfish washed up. You could hardly walk on the sand for them. The boy was putting a few in his bucket and taking them back to the sea. A man came along and said, “There are thousands if starfish stranded. Why do you bother? You will hardly make an impression. You will only be able to put a few back.” The boy replied. “It will matter for these few and it will matter to me.” Though our effort may be small, it is counted as worthwhile, and who knows what God will do with it?

Andrew took what the little boy had and shared it with Jesus and look what happened. Andrew did not understand exactly what Jesus could do with the boy's loaves few fish. He really wasn't quite sure what Jesus could do, or how this could help the crowd, but it is important to note even with his doubts, and wondering he still gave this resource over to Jesus, he still surrendered his own will to the will of Jesus.

We are called upon by Jesus to do the same thing. Even if we cannot understand what Jesus will do with our resources, even if we think what we have is very little, we must have faith that Jesus can do something special with our gifts. Remember the story of the widow's mite. She gave the smallest coin, but Jesus said her gift was special because she gave all she had. She was willing to turn her resources over to God so that God in his mysterious way could do something very special with it. It is this kind of faith and trust in God that we are called upon to possess. It is this thinking that everything we have is a gift from the creator, and it is our responsibility to give to him those resources which he has given us for him to use in his way to further his kingdom. He doesn't want us to give with strings attached, or conditions, but he wants our free gifts, he wants our gifts because of the great love we have for him.

We tend to look at ourselves as people who have worked to get everything we have by ourselves. Most of us have worked hard to reach the kind of level of living we have, but just think about those gifts, those talents, those people in your life who were there when you needed, maybe, a helping hand or an encouraging word, or a piece of advice, all of those kinds of things I feel are God's hand working in our lives. So, yes, we have made ourselves what we are, but at the same time we have not done it alone, because God's hand was in there guiding the process whether we were aware of it or not. So isn't it appropriate for us to give back to him some of what he has so generously given to us?

This story is about giving back to God what he has given to us so that God can make out of our little, much. Philip saw the hungry and didn't know what could be done, Andrew saw the hungry and brought a little boy to the Lord hoping that the Lord could do something. He wasn't sure how the Lord would use his gift, but he gave it the Lord, anyway.

And here was a boy who had a picnic lunch, in it contained the poorest bread, and some pickled fish. Probably, his whole meal for the day. And now these men want him to turn it all over to a man named Jesus? Can you imagine what must have gone through his mind? There must have been a lot of thought, questions, of hoping that it would all work out. But the one thing that definitely went though his heart and mind was some faith in this man Jesus not to cheat or hurt or let him go hungry for he was willing to hand over to him the only food he had. Here was a boy with a simple faith. Faith, enough to turn over to Jesus all that he had. He turned over to Jesus not only his bread and fish, but his entire life, for he trusted Jesus to take care of him, to not let him go away from there hungry.

Each week in the YP and verbally, Clergy will ask is there any more ‘Angels’ for the Renewal Project and if you need a modern day story I can think of the SMYL group who on a cold January night walked down to MacDonald’s with their £3 and had a meal together and learning about the children of Cambodia said ‘We must do something!’ ‘What can we do?’ said another. ‘We can raise the money!’ and one could say the rest is history. But God turned their small effort into something bigger than they thought on their own. God turned the £72 they wanted to raise into £510. Allowing them to give £255 to the Renewal Project and give £255 to the Children of Cambodia. Enough to feed 1470 children plus a football.

And Jesus provided, didn't he? He provided for this boy and for more than 5,000 people. What if all of us turned over our resources to Jesus, what if we surrendered to him our entire lives, what if we trusted him to provide for us, can you imagine what he could do!

Amen

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