Matthew 14:13-21 reveals Jesus' compassion for crowds following John the Baptist's death, contrasting their needs with corrupt elites. While disciples doubted five loaves and two fish could suffice, Jesus multiplied them to feed thousands, illustrating that faithfulness outweighs resource quantity. The sermon concludes that God provides daily sustenance to foster humility, warning modern culture against insatiable desires for excess rather than trusting Christ as the sufficient bread of life for both physical and spiritual needs. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Jesus Pity for the Crowds00:13:13
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Today we continue our.
Preaching series through the Gospel according to Matthew.
Our text for today is Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 21.
Again, our text for this morning is Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 21.
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is the Gospel according to Matthew chapter 14, verses 13 through 21.
The Bible says this.
Now, when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Now, when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place, and the day is now over.
Send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
But Jesus said, They need not go away.
You give them something to eat.
They said to him, We have only five loaves here and two fish.
And he said, Bring them here to me.
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing.
Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples.
And the disciples gave them to the crowds.
And they all ate.
And they were satisfied, and they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
Three primary points that arise from the text today are as follows Number one, Jesus has compassion for the crowds.
Jesus has compassion for the crowds.
Another word that the text uses to describe.
This sympathy or compassion is pity.
Jesus does not have pity for himself, he does not have self pity, but rather he has pity and compassion for others.
The second point, as we see it in the text, is this the disciples have doubts.
The disciples have doubts, they doubt whether or not the feeding of this crowd of this magnitude can be accomplished, they doubt the sufficiency of Christ.
Sufficiency for healing supernaturally, perhaps.
Sufficiency even for the life to come, eternal matters, salvation from hell, and forgiveness of sin.
Perhaps at this point, some or even the majority of the disciples trust in Christ to that degree.
But sufficiency for the small things, the practical things, the daily physical needs of man, namely a meal.
In this, the disciples still doubt.
And third, and lastly, the sufficiency of Christ, further fleshed out, what all is Christ sufficient for?
This is the final question that we'll address from the text today.
Beginning from the first point, compassion for the crowds, I've written the following.
The passage begins with a moment of personal sorrow for Jesus.
For he has just received news of the death of John the Baptist, who is related to him by birth, but also a friend.
We see this in the very beginning of our text, namely verse 13, which says, Now when Jesus Heard this.
If you were with us last week, as one of our elders, Michael Belch, faithfully preached Matthew chapter 14, verses 1 through 12, we saw the death of John the Baptist.
And now we see in the beginning of our text today that the news of John the Baptist's death has now reached Jesus, who was his friend.
So Jesus has just received bad news.
And not just bad news in a trivial way.
A trivial matter, but bad news as it comes dealing with the death of a loved one, the murder of a loved one, the untimely, seemingly, death and unjust death of someone he profoundly loved.
Jesus just hears this news, and it's because of this news and the hearing of it and the magnitude of this news at a deep, profound, and personal level.
Grief that Jesus was experiencing, that he chooses to withdraw from the area where he was ministering in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
There are many times throughout the gospel narratives where Jesus would withdraw from one place where there was a crowd, where there was a town, civilization, and go to another to minister to another set of people.
He would leave one town to enter another town, one crowd to find another crowd.
He would stop preaching one sermon to start preaching another.
But this is not one of those times.
Jesus is intentionally withdrawing from one place of ministry to go to a desolate place, as the text says, by himself, meaning that his purpose was to be alone.
His purpose is to grieve.
But the second half now, verse 13 of our text, informs us when the crowds heard of it, Not hearing of the death of John the Baptist, but hearing of Jesus moving to a desolate place.
Jesus hears the news of John the Baptist's death.
He's grieving and he wants to be alone.
But the crowds hear of Jesus' transition to a desolate place, another area, and they followed him on foot from the towns.
So Jesus leaves the towns to go into the boondocks, to go into the wilderness, to go into a private, lonely, desolate place.
The crowds also leave the towns to go and find Jesus.
Continuing in your notes, I've written this.
We see that Jesus withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
Yet, even in his grief, we observe the unrelenting love and compassion of the Christ.
When the crowds follow him, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them.
That's verse 14 of our text.
Notice that Jesus does not dismiss the crowds or send them away.
Instead, he takes pity on them, healing their sick, but not only tending to their physical needs, but also addressing their spiritual needs by preaching and teaching to them.
So Jesus heals their physical needs, those who are sick with ailments.
He also attends, most importantly, to their spiritual need by giving to them himself in his preaching, and he is the bread of life.
And he also attends even further to their physical needs, as we see later in the text, by feeding them, healing their sickness, filling their stomachs, and also nourishing their souls.
And his preaching Jesus cares for all their needs, even as he himself is in need.
Jesus is grieving.
Jesus wants to be left alone.
And yet, when the crowds find him, he is not irritated.
He is not angry, but moved with compassion, moved with pity, not pity for himself, but pity on the crowds.
See, often in our own grief, if we are confronted, if we're surprised by a visit from a friend or crowds, perhaps, a group of people at a funeral, perhaps we've experienced the loss of a loved one.
And now we're bombarded all day long.
Everyone trying to be kind, and in many cases, truly being kind.
But there are many times where, in our grief, we may be preferring to be alone.
And yet it's text message after text message, it's visit after visit, casserole after casserole.
And all of this is a genuine kindness.
But there are moments where we're annoyed.
There are moments where we'd rather be left alone.
We'd rather be left to that desolate place.
Maybe it's our living room.
And left with our own thoughts, our own prayers, and our own grief.
And yet, when people come to us, even well meaning, we tend to put on a smile, put on our best behavior.
But let's be honest the motive for many of us when we're confronted by people in times of grief.
When we'd rather be left alone, the motive for us is often to put on faith in order to secure or maintain the approval of others.
Now, notice from our text today, that is not the motive of Christ.
Christ is grieving, he intentionally leaves the crowds, he doesn't want to be with them.
He's then found by the crowds, and then he thinks to himself, Oh no.
This would be bad PR for the crowds to find me in an irritable mood or to find me in tears as I'm grieving the loss of one of my dear friends.
So I'll put on a smile.
I'll put on my best so that I can continue to have the crowd's approval.
No, not Jesus.
Jesus is not motivated as you and I in our sin are often motivated.
Jesus does not receive the crowds because of what the crowds might think of him if he chooses to walk away.
Jesus does not receive the crowds out of a slavery towards their approval of him in self pity.
No, Jesus receives the crowds and ministers to the crowds not just in one element of their need, but covering the full gambit of all of their needs needs for physical hunger, needs for physical healing, needs for spiritual nourishment.
And he does this not for their approval, but he does this out of compassion.
Because he truly loves them.
Not self pity, but pity on others.
Pity is not a sin, self pity is.
We often are given to self pity.
We pity ourselves above others.
But pity in its rightful place, when it's targeted towards those others.
Who needs it is actually a virtue, a righteous characteristic, something that each of us could stand to grow in.
Do we have genuine pity on the crowds?
Now, that last piece that I want to deal with before moving on to the second point is Jesus' pity for the crowds.
Grace Amidst Unbelief and Sin00:12:52
I think that you could preach whole volumes of sermons on this one principle.
Pity for the crowds.
Are the crowds guilty?
Yes.
Are the crowds sinners?
Yes.
But there is a different category, a different degree of culpability, moral responsibility, guilt, and sin as it pertains to the crowds than there is for the rulers.
And Jesus knows this.
Not all sin is equal.
That is a misnomer.
That is a popular trope that shallow, weak evangelicals will drag out on a regular basis.
Well, all sin is equal.
No, it's not.
Do not, parents, teach your children that all sin is equal, that telling a white lie is somehow equal in its weight and consequences.
To one day when they're grown committing murder, you're a terrible parent.
If you give your children the impression that no matter what they do, it's all equally bad, that's simply not true.
We know instinctively that that's not true.
See, all sin is equal apart from it being covered by the blood of Jesus through faith and repentance in its ability to eternally separate us.
From the benevolence of God in hell.
In that sense, and only that sense, all sin is equal.
All sin has the power to equally set you apart from God for eternity if it's not forgiven.
That's true.
But not all sin is equal in its earthly effects, and even for the reprobate.
Who dies apart from faith in Christ and goes to hell forever.
Even for him, not all sin is equal in its degrees of eternal judgment.
Jesus teaches this.
He says it will be more bearable.
What does that imply?
That phrase right there, what concept does it introduce?
It introduces degrees of eternal punishment.
It will be more bearable on that day for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for Tyre and Sidon, certain Jewish.
Towns where Jesus ministered publicly in their midst, and yet they still rejected him.
Now, Jesus, one thing that he's communicating when he says this is that an added degree of moral culpability comes by added measures of grace.
Added measures of grace, particularly in the form of revelation.
What Jesus is saying is that these Jewish towns that rejected him, like Tyre and Sidon, would be.
Experiencing a less bearable judgment in the life to come because their sin was greater than the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?
Not exactly.
But that their sin was comparable to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, but the sin was more blatantly wicked on its face because the sin, although comparable, was committed in the face of such great degrees of grace and revelation, namely the Son of God in their midst.
In their towns, preaching, teaching, healing, performing signs and wonders, and yet they still chose unbelief.
So, there are degrees of sin.
There are also degrees of grace.
One degree of sin can be worse than another, and any sin, when committed despite great revelation and great grace, great mercy, Becomes a more heinous sin.
And if that be the case, there are greater earthly consequences for greater sins, and especially greater sins committed in the face of greater grace, but also there are greater degrees of judgment eternally in the life to come, more bearable for one town than another.
So not all sin is equal.
And although the crowds were culpable for sin, Every single person is a sinner.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans says.
Although this is true, and certainly we may assume that Jesus knows this is true, Jesus still had a certain degree of compassion on the sinful crowd that he seemingly does not have for the sinful ruler.
Now, there are some rulers who came to Jesus in faith.
And he had great pity on them, great compassion on them.
There are individual rulers who prove throughout the gospel narratives to be exceptions to the general principle I'm espousing now.
But when it comes to the collective crowds, we know that within this crowd that Jesus is standing before, many of them are not like individual rulers who approach him in faith.
There are individuals among the crowds, perhaps.
Half the crowd, perhaps even the majority of the crowd that are not regenerate, that are not coming to Jesus in faith.
They are not approaching Jesus because he's the bread of life, the Son of God.
In fact, we know this because many members of this same crowd approach Jesus elsewhere, namely John chapter 6, wanting another free meal and only another free meal.
And when Jesus begins to speak to them, In that instance, saying that he's more than a vending machine and that he's actually not one who merely multiplies physical bread to give physical sustenance for the day, but that he is the eternal bread of life, the one who takes away the sins of the world, they reject him.
So it's not as though Jesus is having, this is the framework I'm building here.
Stay with me.
It is not as though Jesus is having a particular pity and compassion on the crowds because the crowds are.
Are particularly faithful, or the crowds have a certain degree of humility, repentance, and belief in Jesus for who he truly is, namely the Son of God.
No, he has a compassion on the sinful crowds, and even I think the argument can be made, especially when paired with John chapter 6, the sinful crowds and even majority unbelieving crowds that he does not have on sinful.
And unbelieving rulers, because the crowds, while sinful and responsible, still bear a lesser degree of moral culpability for their sin than rulers do.
In other words, what I'm articulating from the text today that may feel for some of you a bit far fetched, but I believe that it's valid, is a little bit of Italian elite theory, if you will.
What I'm saying is that everyone's sinful.
But not equally so.
Everyone's guilty, but not equally so.
And this is something that you and I must understand.
And you must understand it because I believe it's biblically, theologically true, but also the way that it impacts our role in seeking to fulfill the Great Commission, in faithfully doing the work of an evangelist.
When you look at your country, These United States, you need to know that she is exceedingly wicked.
But you also need to bear in mind that the average American is not wicked in the same way or the same degree as many of the elites and rulers who have engineered that wickedness.
I believe that if Jesus was here today, That he would have compassion on the crowds, knowing that there would be many crowds that would gather for Jesus.
If Jesus came physically on the scene today in America and held rallies, they'd be big.
I believe that.
But many people, like the crowds here in Matthew chapter 14, would be gathering for the wrong reasons.
They would be gathering for a free meal, they would be gathering for what they saw as a parlor trick.
And not necessarily gathering because Jesus truly is the bread of life.
They would be gathering for temporal reasons, petty reasons, physical needs, practical needs, but not necessarily in true faith.
And yet, I believe that if Jesus was ministering in America today in the flesh, he would still, like he did in Matthew 14, have compassion and pity on the crowds.
Because although those crowds, You know the statistics.
Those crowds, it is a statistical impossibility that those crowds would not be filled, filled with women who have had abortions, with men who have committed adultery.
We know these would be sinful crowds.
Go to your average MAGA rally, it's filled with degenerates.
And Jesus, being omniscient, God Himself, would know this.
And I believe he would still have compassion.
And I say this because if that be the case, it implores you and I likewise to have compassion.
And compassion, true compassion, true pity for others, does not require self delusion.
Right?
It does not for us to be compassionate to the crowds as Jesus was.
It does not require that we lie to ourselves about the crowds.
True compassion does not require flattery.
In fact, true compassion mandates that we not commit sins of flattery.
True compassion allows, in fact, it necessitates, that we admit the true state of the crowds that they are filled with sinners, profound sinners, deeply in need of the grace of God.
And yet, even in their sin, even in their unbelief, We pity them.
And we pity them in a different way and in a different degree than we would pity certain elites who have engineered the current circumstances of our country today.
I'll give one illustration and I'll make it G rated because we're family integrated here at Covenant Bible Church with our Lord's Day worship.
Christ Saves Without Compromise00:15:20
If you think that in the 1950s, I believe it was 1959 that Leave It to Beaver in black and white first broke the airwaves.
If you think that in the late 1950s that a bunch of housewives got together and said, you know what, we love Leave It to Beaver.
But if they could just add, you know, Hollywood, if Hollywood could just inject a little bit of degeneracy, if we could just, Leave It to Beaver, it's a fine show, but just it needs a little adultery.
And a little perversion.
And then, man, that would be our favorite TV show.
We would love that.
And then Hollywood, you know, is hearing the rumblings, pulling the market.
Like, well, I mean, we're righteous and have, you know, some pretty high moral standards, but, you know, the customer's always right.
Capitalism for the win.
So, against our better judgment, even though it breaks our hearts, we'll go ahead and add a little slop.
Made it extra sloppy for you.
Sloppy Joe's for everyone, add it into the TV show so that at least the consumer, although we disagree, gets what he wants and the bottom line goes up.
GDP, red line, go up.
Do you think that's how moral decay in America happened?
Sometimes it helps to do an illustration that's just ridiculous to help you feel the weight of the point.
That's not how it happened.
It is not as though the crowds, the average American said, we really want X, Y, and Z.
And then the elite said, we don't like it, but we'll give it to them.
That's not how moral decay happened in America.
No, nefarious elites, it was not the many, it was the few.
The elites, not crowds, the few, not the many, they said, We hate Christ, we hate God, and we hate America, and we're going to corrupt it.
Now, the crowds, back to them, still received it.
Some opposing at first, but later compromising, coming along.
Others compromised right away.
So the crowds are not innocent.
That's not the point I'm making.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
There is none righteous, Romans chapter 3, no, not one.
Everyone is guilty, but not in the same way and not to the same degree.
And I believe that this is one, not the only, but one reason that I wanted to highlight from the text today that Jesus has pity and compassion on the crowds.
Because he knows that they're guilty of sin.
Just like everyone else, but that they are also like sheep without a shepherd, he says.
Jesus has far less compassion and sympathy and pity on shepherds that use the sheep to merely feed themselves than he has on sheep who are honorary sheep, guilty sheep, sinful sheep, but sheep led astray.
Sheep without a shepherd.
Jesus has far greater judgment for the one who causes even one of these little ones to stumble and therefore merits a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea than the little one himself, who was one of the individuals who stumbled.
Is this not a perfectly biblical principle?
Of course it is.
And so when you, seeking to be ambassadors for Christ, For his glory, pushing for the crown rights of King Jesus, seek to fulfill the Great Commission, doing the work of an evangelist, seeking to make disciples of all nations, starting at home, America first, this nation.
You need to have those theological categories.
Your average fellow man, your fellow American, is a sinner who needs Jesus.
He is guilty and needs forgiveness of sin, or he will die and go to hell and it will be just.
But he is not the same as the elites, the few, who have not just allowed for corruption, but actually with intent and malice engineered it.
And that's one of the ways that we can be righteously frustrated with our fellow American as he tolerates such compromise, but also, like our Savior, have a certain sense of.
Of pity and compassion.
Because Jesus did, and we should too.
Second point, the disciples doubt.
In your notes, I've written the following.
As evening approaches, the disciples suggest to Jesus that perhaps he should send the people away to find food.
After all, they're in a desolate place.
There's no McDonald's nearby.
And even if there were, that wouldn't count as food.
But Jesus responds by saying, They need not go away.
You, Give them something to eat.
That's verse 16 of our text.
The disciples, with limited understanding, point out their insufficiency, saying, We have only five loaves here and two fish.
From a human standpoint, the need is overwhelming and the resources are insufficient, but we must learn to trust God even when our circumstances seem impossible.
The one who calls us to act is the same one who will provide the means for obedience.
A simple and short point here, but we need to catch it nonetheless.
God always provides the means for our obedience.
Brothers and sisters, keep in mind if the Lord Jesus has called you, to put it a little bit more of a fine point on it, if he has commanded you, and he has, to do anything, then he has also promised to provide the means for you to obey.
There is not one command in the Bible that God has ever given to you that He has not also provided the means for you to obey.
God is not a father who exasperates his children.
Christ is not king like Pharaoh is king, demanding bricks without straw.
God is not asking you, again, namely, commanding you to do anything.
That he has not also empowered you, enabled you, resourced you to do faithfully.
There are many things, not just some, many things that are outside of your power, my power, your ability, my ability, your resources, my resources.
Well, good news those things that are outside of our own sufficiency, either God has not called us to do those things, or if he has, He will supernaturally provide the means.
But everything else in our life, the day to day commands of Christ, the moment by moment faithful obedience in our personal lives, in our families, in our homes, these things, all men are without an excuse.
There is nothing that God has commanded that He will not also supply the means for us to obey.
And even when it comes to the big things, the collective things that don't merely fall on any one of us as individuals, but the big things that fall upon the church at large, the capital C church in a corporate sense, and particularly in a national sense for the church here in America, even those things,
the same principle still applies that God has not called the church in these United States.
To do anything that he will not also provide the means that we might obey.
1 Samuel 14, verse 6 says this Jonathan said to the young man who carried his armor, Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised.
It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing can hinder the Lord from saving by many or by few.
The Lord saves, and he will save.
We don't know when, we don't know how, but he will.
And we know that he is able to save by many or by few.
In other words, our job at the end of the day, more important than anything else, is faithfulness.
The worst thing that we can do is come to a point where we are convinced the only way to win.
The only way that we might achieve salvation is to compromise.
The Lord does not need your compromise, He needs your obedience.
And in the technical sense, the truest sense, He doesn't even need that.
I think of Esther.
Salvation will come for her people.
If not through you, then God will raise up another, and you and your household will be forgotten.
God doesn't need your craftiness.
He doesn't need your ingenuity.
He doesn't need your creativity or your raw innovation and genius.
He needs, or rather desires, your faithfulness.
He can win by many or by few.
So whether it's, hey, you disciples, you meet the needs of these hungry people.
And they work really hard and are able to secure enough fish and bread for everyone, or five loaves and two fish.
In either instance, here's what matters it needs to be real loaves and real fish.
That's what matters.
The Lord can save by many or by few, Jesus can feed by much or by little.
But what matters is the quality.
Is it real?
Is it genuine?
Is it faithful?
Is it true?
Is it true?
If God does choose to save these United States, He does not require more compromise to do it.
He requires faithfulness.
Lastly, our third point the sufficiency of Christ.
The disciples doubt because they're painfully aware of their own insufficiency.
But what they have is true.
Lastly, what we see in the text is that although the disciples, and we too as Christ's disciples, are painfully insufficient, Christ is all sufficient.
In your notes, I've written the following This miraculous multiplication of food is not merely a demonstration of Christ's divine power, although it is that, not less, but more.
It is also a sign of the spiritual abundance that Christ offers to all who come to Him.
It is a miracle and a metaphor.
It is a wonder, but also a sign.
And it points towards the spiritual sufficiency of Christ, not only physical.
He offers bread to those who are physically hungry, but He Himself is also the bread of life.
As he provides food for the body, he also nourishes the soul.
Christ's provision extends to every area of our lives.
It is not just the physical sustenance that he provides, but the spiritual nourishment that we receive through his word and his presence.
And lastly, the final paragraph in your notes I've written this.
In verse 20, we see that they, being the crowds now, not merely the disciples, but all who were present, They ate and were satisfied.
And they took up 12 baskets full of the broken pieces left over.
And those who ate were about 5,000 men, just the men, besides also the women and children.
Christ is always sufficient, but here's the key we are not always satisfied.
May we be reminded that Christ is enough for the day and the life to come.
My concern as I was reading and studying the passage is that for us and for our nation in a broader sense, if Christ were to come and multiply food to feed the 5,000, I know that he could do it.
Pursuing Daily Provision00:06:19
I don't know if we would be satisfied.
That last part of the text, they all ate because he is all sufficient, but the final portion, And they were satisfied.
That's where I feel as though we, in our culture, in our particular moment in history, are particularly wicked.
Would we be satisfied?
How many of us would be saying, Yeah, but is the bread gluten free?
Really, fish?
Why not steak?
Notice, Jesus doesn't wow them with a gourmet meal.
But it is a sufficient meal.
He doesn't wow them by providing a meal that's the best thing that their taste buds have ever experienced.
It doesn't say they all ate and they all, generally, the consensus among them was that it was the best meal they ever had.
No, what the text says is they all ate and they were satisfied.
What Jesus provides is enough.
You and I, in many cases, are not satisfied with enough.
Now, notice what Jesus provides.
Could go even further and saying that not only is it enough, but technically at the physical level, right?
He's the bread of life, he is enough for not only this life but the life to come when it comes to our spiritual deficiency and our need for spiritual sustenance.
He's enough not only for today but for tomorrow and every day after for eons and eons into eternity.
He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
But in terms of the physical miracle, Of multiplying the physical bread and physical fish for physical needs, what Jesus provided was enough, but only enough for that day.
And the problem is not that Jesus fails in making physical provision for the needs of each day, the problem is that you and I are so woefully unsatisfied with Him providing.
For the needs of each day.
You are here.
You are alive.
I trust that you slept somewhere last night.
You ate something this morning, even if it was only donut holes on your way through the door.
Well, God provided.
There are all different human means that brought these things together, but standing above it all is God.
Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.
He clothes the lilies, He feeds the sparrows, and He gives sleep, even the psalms say, to those whom He loves.
All of this comes from Him.
There's nothing in the Bible that promises that Jesus would provide Ferraris or mansions.
But there is much in the scripture that says not only will He provide eternally for our spiritual need, But also, even physically, but for the need of the day.
Do not worry for tomorrow, for tomorrow has enough trouble of its own.
Tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has sufficient trouble.
The Lord promises to provide not only spiritually, but even physically.
But He promises in that physical category to provide day by day.
What you and I often want is we want to be able to see the provision ahead of time.
I want to see next year's provision, I'll admit it.
I want to see, you know, the whole budget filled.
But that's not often how God works.
And if He did, it would actually, in many cases, be unloving because of our finitude, our feebleness, our weakness, and our sin.
If God provided for the year, Guess when many of us would go and pursue God next?
At the end of the year.
But because God provides for the day, He keeps us in a state of humility and dependence where we pursue Him day by day.
This isn't God providing too little, this is God actually providing in many ways more, providing the physical needs for each day so that we always have enough.
And providing just enough, but not too much, so that the spiritual needs, which are of much greater importance, that dependence spiritually still remains, so that we would pursue Him again and again.
And all of this is His compassion and pity for you.
He loves you, so trust Him.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for who you are, what you've done, and what you continue to do through Jesus, your Son.
Who is the bread of life?
The problem is not his sufficiency.
The problem is that we are too often not satisfied.
There is no change or shadow or variation with you, and praise God for it.
The change is required in us.
You do not need to be made more sufficient, we need to be made more content.