Fortieth Anniversary

The40th Anniversary John 6

Fortieth Anniversary

“Little Is Much”

Expositional Study of John 6:1-14

Written By

©Pastor Marty Baker

September 27, 2015

H

appy 40th Anniversary Burke Community Church! It has been an amazing time since the church’s humble birth in 1975 under the great leadership of Pastor Mike Winship. From the first worship service on July 27, 1975 with 57 people to our current worship services with 3,000 people, we must say that the Lord Jesus Christ, our resurrected and living Savior, has been more than faithful to bless this spiritually committed, passionate, and loving group of people. We give Him all the praise and all the glory for what has been achieved over the years through the fine leadership of Pastor Winship, Pastor Hansen, Pastor John Dorsch, Pastor Jack Elwood, and Pastor Mark Green, coupled with, of course, the outstanding servanthood and loyalty evidenced by the body of believers who call this church their home. Yes, faithfulness is the key word of the day, the word which best describes God’s relationship to this church, and that is why we have chosen Jeremiah’s words from the book of Lamentations 3 as our guiding thought for the morning.

It is the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning, great is Thy faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Over forty years of ministry triumphs and trials, of peaks and valleys, of days of light and days of darkness and uncertainty, the Lord has, indeed, been faithful to us and has used us to be a powerful presence for spiritual good and truth, both in our community, in our nation, and most certainly in the remote corners of our world. We rightfully, then, pause to bless His holy name.

We, also, rightfully pause, as a church inexorably committed to the teaching and preaching of the eternal and inerrant Word of God, to consider a guiding principle derived from the exegesis of the passage from John chapter 6, which John Park was so kind to read for us. Here is the concept God would have us to consider this morning as we look back, as we look at our present, and as we dream of the next forty years.

God’s Faithfulness Plus Our Faith Equals Abundant Living (John 6:1-14)

We just might need to hear that again. Let is sink into your soul. Let it inflame your heart. Sure, the biblical passage before is a very familiar one. Who hasn’t heard it? Who didn’t encounter it in Sunday School as a child? The wonder, however, of the divinely inspired Scriptures is they always re-inforce wonderful spiritual concepts, while driving home new ones; therefore, in light of the truth of this premise, we dig into the rich soil of an old familiar story with great anticipation for what God has to say to this on our birthday.

The Lord is faithful to His people; however, when He wants to perform a spectacular work, when He wants to do something not just memorable, but which will grab the attention of the unbelieving world and cut deep into the Devil’s kingdom, He typically waits for His people to step up to the plate with faith in His faithfulness. Such is the story before us. So powerful is the miracle recorded here that it is the only one recorded in all four gospels. That tells you it made quite an impression on the disciples. That tells you they not only learned from it, but it is re-told four different times by four different writers to serve as much needed instruction for us as Christ’s new disciples to a spiritually hungry world.

Just what do we learn in these well-worn verses about God’s faithfulness and our faith in order to realize abundant living, both corporately and individually? From my study of this text, I can readily isolate four concepts:

Expect Some SelectiveTests (John 6:1-9)

Let’s get up close and personal with this truth by reading the verses in question:

1 After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (of Tiberias). 2 A large crowd followed him, because they saw the signs he was performing on the sick. 3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples. 4 The Jewish feast of Passover was near.

Hold it right there. We can’t help but see how these words establish the time frame for the story. “After this” (Meta. tau/ta) serves as a grammatical pivot from Christ’s previous activities to His current ones. We don’t know how much time elapsed between chapter 5, where Christ healed the lame man in Jerusalem by the Pool of Bethesda and also definitely discussed His divinity with the people, and the opening of chapter 6, but it must have been a good deal of time to allow Him time to walk back to Galilee in the north and guide His weary disciples off into a remote location for instruction, relaxation, and team building. I say “weary” because Mark’s parallel account inform us they were simply spent and hungry because of the time they had invested in the thousands of people who followed Jesus as He walked (Mark 6:30-31). So, they all jumped in a boat and headed to the less populated Eastern mountainous shore of the blue, beautiful lake.

While sitting on the slope of what is now called the Golan Heights, Jesus looked off in the distance and noticed a massive crowd coming up the hillside. Obviously, the crowd had watched where their boat had gone and they simply followed them. From what we know of the rest of the story, this crowd was easily composed of 15 to 20 thousand people, and in their zeal to follow the miracle-worker, Jesus, none of them had bothered to eat.

When Jesus raised his eyes and saw that a large crowd was coming to him, he said to Philip, "Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?" 6 He said this to test him, because he himself knew what he was going to do.

When Jesus starts asking you questions, you know a spiritual test is probably in order.

Why did Jesus ask Philip this particular question? Because Philip was from the nearby coastal town of Bethsaida (John 1:44). If anyone knew where the local Wegmanswas, it would have been this disciple.

What was the point ofthe question? The text clearly says Jesus desired to test Philip, and really, all of the disciples. Test them for what purpose or purposes? To help them to see their progress in spiritual maturation, and to stretch their ability to trust Him to faithfully work in a miraculous fashion even in the face of a tough, seemingly hopeless situation.

How did Philip fare? Look at his response. It’s most telling.

7 Philip answered him, "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little (bit)."

I’d say he flunked. Philip was a man who could have easily lived in D.C. Why? He lived by his calculator, he loved crunching numbers, and he got off on counting beans to determine whether a proposed project was doable or not. Let me put it another way. Philip focused on the numbers, not the Lord of the numbers. He basically said, “Lord, let’s consider the stats. Two hundred days of wages couldn’t secure enough food to fill a crowd of this size. Feeding them is, therefore, just not a logical move.”

God is not always logical.

Philip should have known better, after all, he had already seen Christ perform countless miracles in other seemingly hopeless situations; however, he failed to take prior divine provision and apply it to a current complexity. Ever done that? Such are the ways of God. He presents us individually and corporately with tough situations and thorny problems in order to see if we’ll really trust Him to do the impossible. Do we need Philip-types? Undoubtedly, because God has given us brains to use to evaluate the evidence at hand. Yet, we should always allow those brains to cause us to remember we serve a faithful God who isn’t limited by the facts at hand.

Has this church seen its share of divinely ordered tests? No doubt. When the growing church, under the leadership of Pastor Winship, realized they should probably move out of Burke Elementary School and into the Cardinal Forest Elementary School, and also purchase four or five acres of property, don’t you know these was a test of monumental proportions? Were they heading in the right direction in buying this land at this location? Would this acreage meet their needs for the future, or not? Later, under the leadership of Pastor Hansen, the church leadership determined they needed more than 4-5 acres, so in 1986 they purchased the 13 acres and facilities we now enjoy. But, once more, I ask, “Was this not an even bigger test?” Indeed, “Did they really need 13 acres? Did they really need all of these large buildings?”

Please, don’t ever forget that when the Lord is going to do a great work here are usually tests designed to call His people to study the facts and to then trust in His faithfulness to provide. Such has been our rich spiritual heritage, and I’m most thankful Philip’s pragmatic thinking didn’t win the day.

Listening to exchange between Jesus and Philip, Andrew, who had obviously been scouring the crowd for food sources, approached Jesus.

8 One of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, said to him,9 "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves 1 and two fish; but what good are these for so many?"

Oh, to have seen this. Can’t you just see Andrew coming forward? “Say, Lord, I found this young teenage boy, and he just happens to have five barley loaves and two fish. It’s not much, but in light of the size of this crowd, we certainly can’t do much with this.” Andrew, like Philip, looked at the terrestrial facts, while neglecting the celestial ones. Five barley loaves was the food of the poorest of the poor among Israel, and their size was more akin to a small biscuit … barely enough for the boy. And the fish? In Greek they were called opsarion and they denoted small pickled fish, much like our sardines. Again, Andrew studied the facts, not the Lord of the facts. He studied the physical limitations not the spiritual solutions, he set his eyes, all too quickly, on the temporal while neglecting the eternal. Ever done any of this?

About the only person who had faith that day was the unnamed boy. Really, the Greek for this word, paidarion, can refer to a teen or a young man.[1]I take this lexical meaning for it is hard to believe a little boy had the cognitive wherewithal to pack a lunch, nor would it be logical for a little boy to be here alone. And if his parents had packed his lunch, then why didn’t they have one, or two as well? No, this “boy” was probably an older teenager.

Think about this. Out of thousands of people, he appears to be the only one who planned ahead for his dinner. He’s the only one who packed a small sack lunch, and what’s most amazing is he didn’t hesitate in giving all that he had to Jesus without question or argument. If the Lord needed his lunch, he’d give it to him wholeheartedly, even if his stomach was growling. So, with great faith this young teen gave the Lord all he had to eat. If anyone passed the test that day, it was him. Obviously, he was in the crowd that day because he’d either heard about or seen Christ’s miraculous power. Handing Him his lunch, then, just seemed like the logical thing to do.

As I’ve said, God has tested this church many times and in many ways since its birth, and from what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen we’ve passed those tests because, more often than not, we’ve been willing to give the Lord our sack lunch, as it were. We’ve been willing to sacrifice to buy our current 13 acres, to give sacrificially to build a new foyer and children’s and youth facilities, to construct a new stage, a much needed balcony, a larger foyer, and more office space.

Thank the Lord for testing us over the years. It has stretched us, it has deepened us, it has taught us about the faithfulness of God to His people of faith, and it has prepared us for the next forty years of growing a ministry to impact countless lives for Him. It’s true. Abundant ministry happens when God’s faithfulness is coupled with our faith in a moment of testing. But there more.

We should …

Expect SomeSurreal Solutions (John 6:10-11)

God doesn’t always solve problems like we would.

• With their backs up against the Red Sea, God simply parted the water for the Israelites to deliver them.
• When the people wanted some meat in the wilderness, God sent thousands of quail their way for consumption (Numbers 11).
• When the prophet Balaam wouldn’t listen to him, God caused a donkey to speak and give him some much needed insight.

Yes, it’s true. God’s ways of problem-solving aren’t always ours because He has way more power at His disposal and He is way more creative than we could ever know. The solution before us is certainly no exception.

10 Jesus said, "Have the people recline." Now there was a great deal of grassin that place. So the men reclined, about five thousand in number. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were reclining, and also as much of the fish as they wanted.

This is just like God to get everyone divided into neat little groups in order expedite food service. The word sections, prasiai, was used in ancient Greek of creating rows for a vegetable garden. With all the people assembled, then, in nice, neat rows, Jesus could get on with showing He could more than meet their physical need.

After He blessed the food in the small wicker baskets, Jesus started handing the food out to the disciples. Don’t you know He smiled at them as He filled up each basket? Don’t you know they were simply blown away? Don’t you know they talked among themselves as they came back around a sixth, twelfth, and twentieth time, “I don’t know about you, Peter, but I can’t figure out where all this bread and fish are coming from? It’s certainly no magic trick because we can all see the small basket are simply sitting on some large rocks in front of Him.”

For those who wrestle with the notion of creation ex nihilo, or creation out of nothing, this miracle should immediately change your thinking. All that bread and fish were created out of thin air inside those small wicker baskets. Unbelievable.

Don’t you know the young teen must have been blown away as he watched the disciples come and go. He had packed those bags, personally. He knew he could only fit five small barley loaves and two fish into the limited space. So, then, where was all of this food coming from? You know, when you give to God sacrificially, when you give Him your sack lunch, as so many have done in this church for the last forty years, you should expect God to solve problems in ways which will leave your jaw on the proverbial floor.

Consider the historical facts.

The church prayed faithfully in 1989 for revival in a five mile radius around the church. At the time, there were about 250,000 people within that radius. Prayer warriors at BCC prayed for 10% of those people to come to the Lord, or 25,000. Next, they asked God to guide 1,000 of those people eventually to the twenty-five churches found in the radius. While we still wait for the complete movement of the Spirit; however, in January of 2011, when we added the third Sunday worship service, God quickly and faithfully gave us the 1,000 souls we had prayed about. Talk about a surreal solution. Who would have thought this would happen? God’s people prayed for the spiritually needy (a problem) and God provided an answer (a solution) in a most profound, jaw-dropping fashion.

As we move into the future, folks, we have to continue to be those saints who face individual and corporate tests which come our way with faith in the faithfulness of God Almighty. We have to be those saints who aren’t afraid to give God our sack lunch, the best of our time, talents, and treasures, knowing that He will bless us, our community, and our world in ways we never anticipated. Are you willing to say, “Lord, here’s my lunch. Take it and use it to your glory, not mine.”

When you live like that don’t just anticipate some surreal solutions …

Expect Some Shocking Surprises (John 6:12-13)

Has God ever shocked you as you stepped out in faith? He shocked the disciples that day on the hillside overlooking the beautiful lake: