WEDNESDAY 29th
John 6:1-15
NIV (v12) – ‘When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’
ESV (v12) – ‘And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.’
Our portion of Scripture today covers the account of what we call the feeding of the 5000, now we know that the number only covered the men so the complete number of all who had been fed including the women and children would have been much more.
In John 2 we saw how Jesus had been able to change water into the best wine, here in John 6 he was able to take a couple of fish and five small barley loaves (what we would call bread rolls today) and after giving thanks, break it into pieces and feed this large crowd, the end result was that they ended up with the fragments at the end amounting to more than what they started with! Twelve baskets full! It makes me think that they must have been messy eaters!
It reminds us that ‘little is much’ when placed in God’s hands, I touched on this earlier in July. Back in 2000, when we moved to Sudbury in Suffolk to pastor a Church there, it had been pioneered about 40 years previously by David and Anita Perry alongside another couple, Jim, and Martha Hayes. The church had known times of great growth over several years, but prior to our arriving there, it had dwindled down to a few families and was just about ticking over. We were asked to go there and to see if it could become a viable Church again. It was not long before we realised that we had a deficiency in help, and in particular worship was difficult with the means of music coming from a small midi file player.
The first sermon I preached at this Church was from John 6 and the headline ‘Little is much if God is in it.’ To be honest I did not realise at the time how little we had to work with, but we soon began to see that God was in it and he proved himself faithful to us. One particular area was in worship, a lady returned to the Church who had not been attending for many years and she eventually told me she had a son who could play the piano, he had made a commitment to the Lord but needed a Church to attend and some fellowship, he arrived one Sunday and eventually he played the piano for us, I say played, without being disrespectful, it was a good effort but needed a lot of practise. But God was in it and before long we had a Filipino man start attending and together he and the lad on the piano began to do the worship together and before long, the piano was being played like a professional, well, nearly! God had provided and out of the little we had we soon had sufficient to be able to put aside the small midi file player.
We may feel that we have little to offer, we may feel that we are not confident or competent enough, but when God is involved in something he can take what we see as little, lacking or incompetent and he can bless it and use it to bring glory to his name.
Imagine the young lad, leaving home with his lunch box, yet returning home later that day having seen the glory of God revealed because he was willing to give what little he had. Imagine Andrew, taking the lad to Jesus and thinking to himself, ‘What am I doing, common sense tells me this is peanuts in comparison to what is needed to feed this lot’ but he took the lad, and together they would have stood back with their eyes wide open like golf balls, jaws dropped to the floor, as they saw what Jesus did with the little they handed over.
Incidentally, the lad who came to play the piano, a timid shy lad at the time in his late teens or early twenties, is now the leader of the Church. As he stepped out in obedience offering what little he thought he had, God has blessed him beyond measure.
Begin to learn to step out in faith, one day you may be picking up the baskets full of fragments (which I will call God’s abundance) as you see God blessing the effort that you are willing to put into serving our wonderful Saviour.