Last Sunday night we looked at how when Jesus and His disciples were trying to get away from everyone, the crowd in ran ahead of Him to meet Him. Then :34 says that when He saw the large crowd, “He felt compassion for them” – and we asked the question: “Do you love the multitude?” like Jesus did.
I think it would be appropriate for us to follow up that message this evening by going on to the next verses in Mark 6, and see what Jesus and His disciples did after that, because we find there are some things that are instructive to us as we would seek to “love the multitude” and minister to people in Jesus’ name.
I. The Lesson of Personal Responsibility
After the verses we looked at last week, :35 tells us that when it got late, the disciples came to Jesus and suggested that they send the people away so that they could get themselves something to eat. But :37 says “He answered them, ‘YOU give them something to eat.’” I am pretty sure this took them aback. They knew what the need of the people was; they were very aware of that – in fact, it was they who SAW the need and suggested a solution to Jesus. But the solution did not involve THEM. They really didn’t see anything they could or should do about it. So they were undoubtedly surprised to hear Jesus’ response: “YOU give them something to eat.” He was telling them that they needed to take personal responsibility for the solution to the problem.
Often times, we are like Jesus’ disciples: we are good at seeing a need – but we don’t feel like we personally need to do anything about it. How many times do you hear somebody say (or say yourself!) that “someone” ought to do “something” about a situation? Instead we need to hear Jesus saying to us: “YOU do something about it!” YOU take personal responsibility for the solution to this, and do something personally about it.
The Good Samaritan is a great example of this. When the man lay beaten and bleeding on theJerichoroad, it was not really HIS responsibility to do anything about it, was it? Who was HE to take that situation in his own hands? At least that is what the priest thought. And the Levite. But the Samaritan saw the man in need, and accepted personal responsibility for what he saw. He took matters into his own hands, and cared for the man, at some personal sacrifice of time, convenience, and money. He didn’t pawn the responsibility off on someone else; HE did something about it.
We need to be sensitive to the Lord’s leadership like that Samaritan was. Listen to the Holy Spirit say to you at key points during the week: “YOU give them something to eat.” (And of course it is not just about food; it is about whatever the need is that God presents you with.) Instead of saying, “The pastor should go do this” or “the church should do something” or “the government should not let this happen”, maybe you should hear God say to you: “YOU give them something to eat!” In other words, YOU take personal responsibility for that need. You are the person who has seen the need; you are the person who has the conviction that something ought to be done; so there is a very great likelihood that YOU indeed are the person God is telling to do something about it! YOU go make the visit! YOU start the new class! YOU pick up the mess! YOU give the money! YOU start the ministry! YOU take personal responsibility for what you see. Maybe there is a matter right now in which you have been thinking that “someone” ought to do something, and tonight God is saying to you, like He did to the disciples: “YOU give them something to eat!”
II. The Lesson of Personal Inability
Now, interestingly enough, one of the first things that we will find out as we step forward to do ministry is that we don’t have the personal resources to do what needs to be done. The disciples saw that right away. When Jesus commanded them to take personal responsibility for feeding the multitude, they knew how many people were out there: 5000 men, plus women and children – probably 12-15,000 people or more. There was just no way they had the resources to feed that many people, even if they DID take personal responsibility for it. So :37 says they responded: “Shall we go and spend 200 denarii on bread and give them something to eat?” It wasn’t a question of, “Do you want us to go and spend that money?” – like they had it all saved up — it was that they didn’t HAVE that much money! A denarii is roughly a day’s wage for a working man. So basically they were saying: It would take a year’s salary to feed that many people! What Jesus wanted them to do in ministry was beyond their ability to do. And of course, it was then that Jesus told them to bring what they had, and He blessed it, and multiplied it, and did more with it than they could have ever done themselves.
There is a huge lesson here: you are not capable of doing what really needs to be done in ministry, but do not let that hold you back. The Lord has the ability to glorify His name by doing through you more than you could have ever dreamed – more than you could have ever done on your own. But that way, HE gets the credit, and not you. When people see things happen that it is obvious that WE could not have done, then God gets the praise for it.
I think that is the point of what Jesus said in :38, when He asked them: “How many loaves do you have?” Why would He ask this? I think at least part of the answer might be that He wanted them to take stock in themselves, and know right up front that they had ABSOLUTELY NO ability to meet the need in front of them. It would have taken a year’s wages to feed all those people. 5 loaves and 2 fish wouldn’t begin to do it. But because Jesus told them to count what they had in advance, they didn’t have to “guess”; they absolutely KNEW — they didn’t have the resources to do what He suggested.
(Ironically enough, the old skeptics’ theory that “the people really had all the food among themselves and Jesus just got them to share it all with each other” goes totally against the evidence of this verse. Jesus had them take stock of what they had on hand, to prove in advance that what was about to happen was not of their own means, but only by of His miraculous power. They did not have the resources to do what needed to be done.
So as we look at what God has called us to do, sometimes we need to take the “positive spin” — which we are so good at putting on things, and just admit: we do not have the means to do what needs to be done. We need the Lord to do what only HE can do. It is then that we may see the Lord work: when we realize that we can’t do it unless He intervenes.
— I am encouraged because I have seen some of that attitude expressed in our church in recent days: we need the Lord to do what only He can do here.
— We have been praying that for our nation; we are headed off the cliff morally and spiritually unless God intervenes.
— Some of you may be that way in some area of your personal life, too – unless God helps you, there is no hope for you.
That’s not necessarily a bad spot to be in, actually. Because when we are in a situation where only God can help, then He often takes that very opportunity to intervene, just so that He gets glory for it.
We should all be that way with the ministries that God has called us to as well. Have the humble attitude of Solomon, who, when he was made king overIsrael, said in II Chronicles 1:10, “Who can rule over this great people of Yours?” He humbled himself and asked for wisdom from God – and God gave him a wisdom that was beyond himself, so that the phrase “the wisdom of Solomon” has survived to this very day!
In the same way, if we will take personal responsibility for whatever task that God calls us to, and admit that we do not have the wisdom or ability or resources to do it – and call on Him – then we are putting ourselves in a position where God can be glorified by doing in and through us what we could have never done ourselves. But it starts by learning “The Lesson of Personal Inability.”
(As a side note, I think it is interesting that :39 says that Jesus had them sit down “on the GREEN grass”! Not just “the grass”, but “the GREEN grass.” I don’t have any application for that for tonight; I just think it is very interesting …)
III. A Lesson on the Importance of the Practical
:40 “they reclined in companies of hundreds and of fifties”.
I think this is a very interesting phrase. Jesus did not just have everyone be seated randomly; it specifically says that He had them seated in groups of fifties and hundreds. This was SO organized – especially for something that wasn’t a “planned event”. He purposefully had the 5000 men (plus women and children) break into smaller, more manageable groups so they could be ministered to. I think there are at least a couple of lessons for us here:
1) This is a picture of the role of the Sunday School in our church. When a church gets larger than the size of a few dozen, it is important to develop some type of structure so that people can be ministered to in smaller groups. For us, of course, that primary structure is our Sunday School. The Sunday School is our larger church body broken down into smaller-sized groups so that people can be ministered to more effectively. Don’t look down on the Sunday School as an “antiquated dinosaur” – it is a vital part of our church ministry. Whatever you call it, or however you do it, it is vital that larger ministry is broken down into small groups like that – and we see that Jesus did that here.
2) I think there is a second, more general lesson as well: and that relates to the importance of the organization, and the practical, in ministry. This was a very “practical” thing for Jesus to do: divide the group of probably 10-15,0000 or more into smaller ministry groups to be served. That kind of “practical” decision is not what we envision when we think of the ministry of Jesus. But He is often more “practical” than we might give Him credit for. (We saw a couple of weeks ago that when He had raised the little girl from the dead, He told them to “give her something to eat.” He was very practical.) We need to remember that practical considerations have an important place in ministry.
Sometimes we can be so concerned with being “spiritual” that we neglect to be organized, and take care of the pragmatic aspects of things. Now, I realize that sometimes the opposite is the problem. Some of us who are very practical-minded need to be reminded that without Jesus we can do nothing, and that we need His Spirit to do anything of eternal value. But others of us – and I would put myself in that camp; maybe some of you are there with me – need to be reminded that there is a practical side of things that needs to be addressed as well. We need to keep a godly balance between the spiritual and the practical in our ministries:
— Pragmatism without the Spirit of God will result in nothing more than dead works.
— But a spiritualism without practical application can be nebulous and virtually useless.
BOTH are important: we need BOTH to totally rely on the Lord, AND put some good practical principles of ministry into practice.
On December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the U.S.S. New Orleans, a navy cruiser, was in the process of having a turbine lifted, and they did not have all their electricity on. So when they needed ammunition to get to their guns to fire at the Japanese during the attack, the men had to form long lines and bring the ammo up manually. The chaplain there walked up and down the line, patted the men on the back and said: “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!” The story of what he said spread, and the expression eventually became well-known, and it was made into a popular song in 1942.
But that expression is a pretty good one for church work, too – “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.” In other words, seek God, seek the power of His Spirit through prayer. Ask Him to do what only HE can do in your life and ministry. But then “put feet” to your prayers and DO something about it. Don’t just pray for the multitude, break them down into smaller groups through a Sunday School organization so you can reach them. Don’t just pray to grow spiritually: spend time with God; get in a discipleship class; memorize verses. Don’t just pray for someone who is lost; invite them to church or to a special event; plan a way to minister to a practical need in their life, and see if God will open up a door for you to witness to them. “Praise the Lord” – “and pass the ammunition!” I think it is similar to what Bro. Rod said when he was here a few weeks ago: “Do what you can – and trust God to do what you can’t.” Let’s be both “spiritual” and “practical.” There is place for both.
CONCLUSION:
In verse 42 we see the end result of the Lord’s blessings: “And they all ate and were satisfied.” May that be the end result of our ministries too: May many people “eat and be satisfied”! May multiplied thousands be touched by the Lord as we take personal responsibility for the needs God shows us, admit our inability to meet them, and begin to DO the practical things that we can do about it!
shawnethomas 