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Feb. 7, 2023 - Just Informed Talk - Craig James

14:21

Jesus Feeds The 5000 with 5 Loaves and 2 Fish! - Luke 9:7-17 | God's Grace Is Greater

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	Hi, and welcome back to another God's Grace is Greater segment.
	I'm your host, Craig.
	Thanks for joining me.
	We're going to jump right into Luke chapter 9, where we left off in our last videos with Jesus commissioning the 12 disciples to go out and perform great miracles with his authority and the power of God given to them.
	We're going to pick up right where we left off and get right into it in a second.
	Before we do, though, I've got to say a little bit of a message to everybody watching over on YouTube.
	If you're watching this on YouTube, you probably remember I used to have a channel that had a pretty big following over there called JustInformedTalk.
	And now that channel is no longer there because it was deplatformed by the censors at YouTube.
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	And particularly my Rumble account where I do live stream Monday through Friday every day.
	We do a news show where we talk about the stuff you can't talk about on YouTube anymore because they censor the truth.
	Just like Facebook and all these other platforms try to censor the truth.
	That's what's happening in this particular case.
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	Go check it out.
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	Now, let's get into Luke chapter 9 where we're talking about Jesus feeding the 5,000.
	Picking up where we left off after the commissioning of the Twelve Disciples.
	And we're going to talk a little bit about King Herod and his desire to find out about Jesus and what that's all about.
	And we're going to talk about this incredible moment where Jesus, not only does he test his disciples again, but he does it in a way that we can all learn a lesson from in faith.
	And that's a lot of what we've learned in Luke so far is talked about faith.
	And I think that could almost be a theme for the whole Bible, of course, in a lot of ways.
	But in particular, in Luke, we're seeing a lot of themes of faith and Jesus giving us the ability to understand what that faith needs to look like.
	So, let's go ahead and read in chapter 9, verse 7 through 17.
	And we're going to talk about King Herod and feeding of the 5,000.
	So, Here it says, When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus all that they had done.
	He took them along and withdrew privately to a town called Besida.
	When the crowds found out, they followed him.
	He welcomed them, spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and cured those who needed healing.
	Late in the day, the twelve approached and said to him, Send the crowd away so they can go in the surrounding villages and countryside to find food and lodging because we are in a deserted place.
	You give them something to eat, he told them.
	We have no more than five loaves and two fish, they said, unless we go and buy food for all these people for about 5,000 men which were there.
	Then he told his disciples, have them sit down in groups of about 50.
	They did so and had them all sit down.
	Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he blessed and broke them.
	He kept giving them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
	Everyone ate and was filled.
	Then they picked up 12 baskets of leftover pieces.
	Now, this is an incredible story.
	I mean, think about what's happening here.
	The first part is interesting because we have this...
	Just randomly kind of inserted exchange between Herod and his servants, you would imagine, where he's basically asking himself, who is Jesus?
	Who is this guy?
	Because he was hearing that Jesus was the reincarnation of Elijah, perhaps, or that John the Baptist, the man he had just beheaded, had been raised from the dead, or perhaps he was hearing that one of the ancient prophets had been risen and were fulfilling a prophecy through Jesus.
	Regardless, Herod was interested.
	Now Herod the Tetrarch was called a Tetrarch, interestingly enough, because upon his father Herod the Great's death, his kingdom had been divided into four separate regions, and that's why he had been given the name the Tetrarch.
	And In his own vanity and in his own insecurity and in his own need to control others and in his own desire to not be overthrown by the Roman occupying forces at the time, he wanted to find Jesus and he kept sending word to find Jesus, sending messages to him to try to bring him in to have a consultation to which Jesus summarily ignored them all.
	Now, what's interesting about that is when you look at Herod as an individual and all of the things that he's shown to have done, whether it's Herodias and his indiscretion with his brother's wife, I believe it was, and all of that, and then the daughter of his brother Herod.
	If you look beyond all that, you can see a man who is weak and insecure and who is doing everything he can to try to undermine the authority of Jesus while Jesus is doing the opposite.
	Jesus is going to the people and trying to help them, heal them, feed them, to take care of them, to teach them about faith and life.
	And it's just such a dichotomy.
	It's such an interesting dichotomy between what Jesus is doing in his ministry and what the supposed ruler of We're good to go.
	You know, feeding us spiritually and taking care of us, whereas the people ruling over us are more concerned with things like their own power and the fear of losing their own power.
	And I just think there's a pretty interesting parallel to be drawn between then and today with that exchange between Herod.
	The apostles are returning.
	So in the last God's Grace is the Greater segment, we talk about Jesus sending out his apostles two by two.
	The twelve disciples were sent out two by two to go to all the regions and to preach the gospel, especially to places where the Gentiles were, and to share the gospel with all who would hear.
	And they go out and do this.
	And now we're picking up where they have just returned.
	So it's almost immediately as they've returned from this long trip where they've gone into different regions to preach the gospel and they were given authority and power from Christ through God to perform miracles and to heal people.
	And Jesus told them they would know what they would say because God would give them words to speak.
	And they're returning from this.
	And Jesus, of course, is withdrawing privately to this town called Bethsaida.
	And he was alone and he was trying to, you know, have time to himself.
	Jesus always had time.
	He took time to pray, which I think is a lesson for us all.
	If even the Messiah had to take time to be alone, to pray, to contemplate, to talk in meditation toward God, even though he was God, he was the son of God in human flesh and human form.
	It was a connection that he took time to focus on directly, which I think we should be focusing on ourselves as well.
	But beyond that, he's trying to withdraw to a private place to have time to do that.
	But he's followed and found by the crowd.
	And these crowds have been following him for a long time.
	They're following wherever he goes because he's performing great miracles.
	And he's giving these incredible sermons.
	And they're fascinated.
	And he's becoming more popular every day.
	So what does he do?
	He doesn't reject them.
	He welcomes them.
	And he cures them of their diseases and heals them.
	And he teaches them of the kingdom of heaven.
	So the day's getting late, and there's this crowd of 5,000 men, which is probably more because if you count the men, then there's women and children.
	So we're talking, you know, who knows how many thousands of people there.
	And the disciples, who've come back and they want to report to him all that they had done on their journey, and they want to tell him about all the things that they've done in his name, They're saying, well, just send these people away.
	They're like, we're tired.
	We're hungry.
	You're tired.
	You're hungry.
	Let's take a break.
	Let's just send these people away.
	They're tired and hungry.
	They need food.
	They need shelter.
	These are things we don't have for them.
	He's like, we only have two fish and five loaves of bread.
	And this is an incredible...
	Example of Jesus teaching the disciples, and I think us indirectly through this, about faith.
	Because he says to them, give them something to eat.
	Right?
	Because they said, just let them leave here.
	It's a deserted place.
	There's nothing here.
	There's no food.
	There's no water.
	There's no shelter.
	There's no nothing.
	Right?
	So, he's saying, they say, we just need to send them away.
	Jesus says, give them something to eat.
	And they say, literally, we don't have it.
	We have two fish and five loaves.
	So unless we go basically spend all the money we have on food for these people, there's nothing we can do.
	There's 5,000 people.
	You've got to imagine that would be quite a sum to try to feed.
	And he told his disciples to...
	Have them sit down in groups of 50, and they did.
	And then Jesus does this incredible thing where he has done this before, where he looks up to heaven, and he gives thanks, and he breaks the bread, and it multiplies, and it multiplies, and it multiplies, until all 5,000 are fed.
	And not only that, there's multiple, there's a dozen baskets worth of leftovers.
	Now what does he teach us, and what does he teach his disciples in this?
	Well, he teaches us all about faith.
	The faith that the disciples had when they went on their journey didn't end when they came back.
	They had to have faith when they were told by Jesus that they would have authority and power from God to perform miracles and heal people and to teach them in his name of the new gospel that Jesus was bringing.
	And they had that faith and they went and did it.
	And when they returned, they were eager to tell Jesus about it all.
	But what's the first thing Jesus does?
	He tests their faith again.
	And I don't know if it's necessarily a test of their faith, but he was teaching them about what faith means.
	And that's what I think we can learn from this, is that there is a lesson in what the faith means.
	Imagine you're a disciple of Jesus and you're going out.
	The mission never ends.
	The Great Commission is always ongoing.
	And I think that's something we can pull out of here, is that if we have faith, Jesus can make the impossible possible.
	Just like he fed 5,000 men and who knows how many thousands others with just five loaves of bread and two fish.
	We have to have faith, as the disciples would have had to have had, and everyone who was there believing in Jesus, that he will come through for us as well.
	Because sometimes you look around this world, like with some of the stuff that we talked about in an earlier show, if you guys were watching the news show earlier, about how spiritually empty it seems and devoid and how spiritually hungry this world is.
	And it's being fed with things that don't satisfy and don't bring you salvation.
	There is a spiritual...
	Filling that you can get from Jesus.
	You can be spiritually filled.
	You can be fulfilled.
	And I believe that that's what this lesson is that we take from the feeding of the 5,000.
	Is that we have to have belief.
	That even if it looks like it's impossible, God is not bound by the box in which we live.
	And Jesus isn't either.
	And there is a power that we can draw from that in trusting God and His plan.
	So, that's where I'm going to leave it.
	I want to say a prayer and then we'll wrap it up.
	Lord and Heavenly Father, we pray that we have the faith of all those, including the disciples and those in the crowd, to believe in you and your Son, our Lord, and the power to take what's impossible and make it possible.
	Sometimes it feels like we live in a fallen world, Lord, where nothing is going to go right.
	And a lot of times it does look like the evil is winning.
	But Lord, let us remind ourselves that just as your Son fed 5,000 with not but five loaves and two fish, that Lord, you can overcome all evil in this world.
	And your greatness and your glory will be And lead to our salvation.
	We thank you for that, and we pray for all those who need you, Lord, everyone out there watching, and myself included, to find courage and strength and wisdom and discernment, to honor you, and most importantly, be humble servants to you, and to help others.
	We thank you for that opportunity, and most of all, we thank you for our eternal salvation.
	In Jesus' name, amen.
	All right, guys.
	Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode.
	We're going to go ahead and sign off there.
	I want to say thanks to everybody for watching.
	Make sure you like, share, subscribe.
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	I really appreciate it.
	With that being said, we'll see you on the next one.
	Until then, my name is Craig.
	Thanks for watching.
	Another God's Grace is Greater.
	We'll see you next time.

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