Ya'll Give Them Something to Eat | +Quigg Lawrence

Good morning, friends. Y'all pray for me. This Bible is a little smaller font than I'm used to. Somebody stole my other Bibles. That's what I always say—something goes missing, somebody stole it and it turns up later.

I want to set up a video we're going to watch in just a second. You're going to see a little video of my granddaughter, Mary Mack. Her first year, she didn't walk at all and we were getting worried. We had one child that didn't walk until they were 17, so we were like, "Heavens to Bessie, she's going to be in kindergarten or first grade and won't even be able to walk." We were hoping little Mary Mack would learn to walk, but she seemed to like to scoot on her knees. We're watching her scoot on her knees on concrete, just wearing them out. We're like, "Lord, could you help Mary Mack walk?" Well, just recently, after her first birthday, she stood up and she started to take her first steps.

I want you to witness two things: one, how hard it is for her to start walking. Number two, the joy as she figures out it's actually working. So let's roll the tape. Don't blink, you might miss it.

Isn't that adorable? Isn't that precious? I could just show that because she's adorable anyway, but really what I wanted you to see is one, the agony of defeat, and then the beauty of success. She's figuring out, "I can't do this thing." She had such joy. Did you see the excitement?

I think it's much the same with Jesus' apostles. I want to take you to just a little verse before our main passage. If you have a Bible, turn to Mark, chapter six, verse seven.

This is context. Jesus basically told the 12 apostles to go out. He's sending them out two by two, and he gives them charge over impure or unclean spirits. So you guys are going to go out, you're going to go two by two, and I'm going to give you my authority—the Father's authority—over unclean or impure spirits.

If you drop down to verse 12 of Mark 6, it says the 12 went out. They're obeying Jesus. They went out and they, number one, proclaimed that people should repent. Isn't that exactly what Jesus did? One of the first things he says is, "Drop your nets, follow me. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand." You can't have a relationship with the Lord until you stop being your own lord, until you turn around and say, "I'm not worthy, but you are. I receive this gift of faith."

And so the 12 go out. They've got authority from Jesus—really from the Father. They go out and they're proclaiming the gospel, the good news. They're telling people to turn from their sin and turn to Christ. And it says in verse 13:

They cast out many demons, and they anointed with oil all those who were sick and they were being healed. — Mark 6:13

The sick were being healed. And so that's the setup. Do you see it? Jesus sends them out on a mission. I'm sure they're going to think, "We can't heal anybody." But all they had to give was what Jesus gave them. His power, his authority, his love.

The Apostles Return

So when we turn to our main passage, which is just down a bit—Mark 6:30—the passage starts out referencing the same apostles that had been sent out by Jesus, the same ones who had been given his authority, the same ones who cast out demons, healed the sick, et cetera. It says:

The apostles returned to Jesus, and they told Jesus about all they had done and taught. — Mark 6:30

The 12 are like, "Jesus, you're not going to believe this. This is awesome. We saw a lame man, lame from birth, walking." And Jesus is like, "Yeah, I know. I sent you to him. I'm actually the one who healed him." They're excited. Just like you see the excitement of Mary Mack when she's starting to walk and thinking, "Wow, this thing's working." These guys came running back, not with pride, no—with joy.

You see, the lie that I fight in my head is, if I walk and do the things the Lord's called me to, it's just going to be a heavy knapsack on my back. "Oh gosh, let's go be religious and do these things and don't do these other things." But what I fail to see in the scriptures is that when folks walked in the way of the Lord, there was joy. Even in trials and hardships, there was joy. Paul and Silas down in jail, they're singing to the Lord. They're worshiping.

And so one of the takeaways from this passage is this: when you walk in the Lord's ways and do the things he's called you to, rather than experience some big, heavy burden, you can actually experience joy. There's more joy.

Friends, have you seen people that answer the call to the Lord? They've refocused their life, not on themselves, not on their own wealth or success or fame, but really in pouring into others. Have you met people like that? I have.

Do you see joy in them? Of course you do. And so as these 12 are coming back to Jesus, they're so excited. They're telling him all about it. Then Jesus, because he loves them and he cares for them, he goes like, hey, time out. I want you guys to rest.

Do you know what it's like to work? You had weeks where you worked like eighty hours and you worked so much and you're just like, I can't even get out of bed. Well, imagine if you add to that the spiritual component of doing battle for the souls of men and women. When you're facing people—a lot of people say I don't believe in demons or the devil. C.S. Lewis said the first trick that Satan uses is trying to convince people that he does not exist while he trashes people. And so Jesus is basically saying, hey, you guys have been doing all this ministry. There's a time to rest.

The Gift of Rest

Really, if you're doing ministry—I would even say ministry where you work—if you're doing that and you never Sabbath, you're going to burn out. You're going to fry. There's a reason God made seven days, but told us to take one to rest. He knows. He knows you have a need to refill spiritually, refill in him. So he says, hey guys, come away to a desolate place, and I want you to rest. That's so awesome.

For some of you this morning, that might be worth the price of admission. You're running, running, running. You know what you look like? A gerbil in the cage. Have you ever seen the gerbil in those little wheels? Run, run, run, run. But how stupid is a gerbil? Dumb gerbils. And yet we do the same thing. Thinking they're dumb, we do the same thing. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work. But you've got to put yourself in a position to trust God.

So basically, if I work seven days a week, I could probably get more done. But God goes, no, for my kids, I don't want that. I want you to only work six. You guys are special. You're my beloved. You work six. I'll take care of the wages you would have earned in day seven. You go, oh Quigg, please, that's so ridiculous. Well, except for it's not. It actually works.

Have you ever been to that nice Christian restaurant, Chick-fil-A? I love Chick-fil-A, and honestly, I feel like a better Christian when I'm at Chick-fil-A. Am I the only one? Do you ever feel like you're in a Christian bookstore back in the old days? When I go to Chick-fil-A, I'm like, hey, I'm with God's people eating chicken.

So what does that have to do with this? They don't work on Sunday. Yeah, they don't work on Sunday. So this is the whole trust thing. It's a trust thing. Like the Chick-fil-A guy—I mean, how crazy could you be? You know, Chick-fil-A attracts a lot of Christians. Christians go to church, and then they go eat, often chicken, right? But they're closed on the day Christians go to eat. So it doesn't make any sense except for it works because in God's economy, he covers it.

And so he's saying, look, I want you to rest. Some of you guys, you need to rest. And rest does not mean playing golf necessarily. It doesn't mean just sleeping. What you need to do is just cease from your regular work and refill. That's what a good father gives his kids. He gives you rest. Are you smarter than God? Are you smarter than God? God himself rested on the seventh day. This is not a legalistic thing. It's a gift. It's a grace.

So he says, come away. But there's a problem. What's the problem?

The Crowds Follow

So these apostles who've been doing this incredible ministry, they're just tired, y'all. They're just so tired. They get in a boat, and they're scooting across the Sea of Galilee. Now, if you've never been to Israel—how many of y'all have been to Israel? Anybody been to Israel? Not too many. We'll take you. We'll take you next time we go. But if you've never been there, you have this idea that the Sea of Galilee is like the Atlantic Ocean or it's like Lake Michigan. No. Do you know how big the Sea of Galilee is? It's seven percent the size of Smith Mountain Lake. Basically, it's just like a big fishing pond. I mean, you could see across the other side.

And so they're in the boat, and they're going to go across the lake to some desolate place. They're trying to get away from all the people. The problem is the people really, really, really wanted to keep getting healed, and they love the ministry that was coming from the apostles. So they're like, well, if you're not going to take us in the boat, we'll just find another way to get there. So they put on their Nikes and they run, run, run. And by the time Jesus and the apostles get to the other side of the lake, guess who's there? They're there. The apostles are like, come on, can't a man get some rest? And they just basically wanted to send him away.

Now many of them saw them going, recognized them. — Mark 6:33

They ran on foot from all the towns, and they got there ahead of Jesus and the apostles. And when Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd. I want to freeze frame right there. Great crowd. Great crowd. Great crowd.

One of the things you'll see if you actually read the New Testament is almost every place Jesus is, there's a crowd. In fact, I would argue every place except for when he hung on the cross. Where were all the people? But when you see Jesus, friends, we don't need to be embarrassed or like, "Oh, here, let me take Jesus and put a little honey around it and shove it down your throat as if we're giving them a bitter pill." No. What you see is when people see Christ, when they are in his presence, they are attracted. They want to be with him. So let's get over this whole thing of like, we have to make him palatable to the world. That's just not true.

When they land on the shore, there's a great crowd. And even though the disciples were probably grumpy and thinking, "What are these people doing here?" Jesus was different. And what does it say? Look in verse 34b. It says, as Jesus looked, he had compassion on them. Compassion, compassion, compassion. That word in Greek basically means from the depths of his bowels. From the depths of his bowels, he had such a love for them. Like his heart went out to them. He knew that most of them would reject him. He knew that. And yet he had made them. Every cell in their body, he loved them, and he saw them, and he was so distraught, much like he was later when he said, "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I long to bring you under my wings, but you would not." And Jesus stands weeping.

And so here we see that same compassion. What I want to tell you friends, a lot of you think this morning that, "Well, if Jesus really knew about me, he knew what I've done or left undone, he wouldn't love me." What I want to say is, that's the way you think. That's not the way Jesus thinks. These people are no more deserving than anyone, but it says he had compassion on them. And then it goes on and says there's a particular reason he had compassion on them. Why? Why did Jesus have compassion on these people? It's not because they interrupted his rest. Why did he have compassion? Because as he looked at them, he said:

"You are like sheep without a shepherd." — Mark 6:34

Let me give you an example. How many of you have been driving down the road, and all of a sudden you see a box turtle walking across the road? I saw that twice this week, big turtles. I'm like, "I don't want to kill a turtle." I don't love turtles, but I don't want to smack them with a car. So what do we do? We stop our car, we get out, and we let our wife take the turtle and put it across the other side of the road. That's right? I don't kill no turtle. I've got compassion.

What else was I thinking? I was thinking about these little fawns. You've seen them out in the fields now. These little fawns, they got spots on them, all kinds of bull's eyes. Anyway, I know it's terrible. It's terrible. But you see that little fawn and they're bad actors in the woods, man. They're coyotes. If you think nature—oh, nature is so loving—you ain't seen nature. Okay? Mr. Coyote and Mr. Bear, they want to eat that thing like a snack. So the mother is so protective. But could you imagine, even if you found just a little deer caught on Interstate 81, wouldn't you be like, "Oh my gosh, that poor thing is going to get smacked by a truck or some redneck in a pickup?" I mean, I don't know, but you would have compassion.

Jesus says, "How much more I see you, and the wolf is at your door, I know what lays ahead for you. You are lost. You can't even find your own way. You can't protect yourself. So you are like a sheep without a shepherd." A shepherd's job is to protect the sheep, to feed the sheep, take them to water. And he goes, "Without a shepherd, you guys are going to starve. You're going to die. You're going to be annihilated." And that's why Jesus had compassion—because he cared.

Jesus as Teacher

And then it says, and he began to teach them many things. You know what? One thing about Jesus is that he was a rabbi, which means teacher. In the Great Commission, what did he say? Just go make converts? No. He says:

"Go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you." — Matthew 28:19-20

And so Jesus is not simply a teacher. He is the Lord God in the flesh, but he is a teacher, and he has much to say to you and to me. And you know what, friends, if your Bible sits on its desk like the old family Bible—King James White—that's seven inches tall, and you never crack it, you just won't learn from the Lord the things he wants to give you, the graces he wants to give you. And so it says, he taught them many things and it was growing late.

His disciples came to him and said, "Jesus, this is a desolate place." He's like, "Yeah, I know. I was the one who told you to go there. Remember?" He says, "This is a desolate place and the hour is now late."

In verse 36, the apostles have a solution to this. Sun setting, it's getting late, stomachs are growling. There's no McDonald's there. There's no K and W cafeteria. So what did the apostles do? What was their solution for the problem at hand? Sun going down, all these people, big crowd, people are getting hungry. What's their solution? Shoo. Shoo. Go away. Go get your own food. Right? Go away.

But Jesus says, "Wrong answer."

In verse 37, he answers. He says, "Tell you what, 12 of you, the guys I just sent out with all authority in heaven and earth, the ones that just prayed and the lame started walking. Those of you who just started praying and the blind who could never have seen in their whole life are starting to see, people that were lost are found, he goes, I actually want to use you guys to minister to these people. Don't send them away. I don't think government's going to do it or they're going to do it. You guys do it. Use what you have. Use what I've given you, and I'll do the rest. So he says, You guys give them something to eat."

Then they answered back, "Well, gosh, Jesus, should we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?" In other words, like, "Lord, do you want us to pay for feeding all these people? Holy cow."

I did the math. A denarii was the wage of a construction worker. Now, I realize it varies state to state. There are some states it's probably $7.50 or $8 an hour. There are some that's like $17, $18 an hour. In Virginia, a construction worker makes about $15.50 per hour. A full day's work for a construction worker is eight hours. So $15.50 times eight is about $120—that's what they would make in one day. But this figure that they're trying to arrive at is actually two hundred days of work. They're saying 200 denarii. So 200 times the amount they made per day, which is $120, comes out to $2,400 or $2,500. Basically Jesus is like, "Hey, you feed all these people that you're trying to get away from, and oh, by the way, you need $25,000 to do it." These guys didn't have that. They left their nets. They left their boats. They had no means. The Bible even says the Son of Man didn't have a place to lay his head. And so they're just like trying to make an excuse like, "Jesus, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

And then Jesus stops him in verse 38. He goes, "Well, how many loaves do you have?" He's not asking them to fix it, but he's asking, "What have I given you that you already have? What do you have?"

They said to Jesus, "We have five loaves and two fish."

Five loaves. Now, you're thinking there's big honking loaves of bread like you have at a bread craft downtown. No, you'd be wrong. The little things they have were flat. They're a little bit bigger than an English cracker, and they're made out of barley. They're so small that a child could easily eat five to six to seven of them. So they had five of those little things. They're about the size of the host we use in communion. Then they also had something else: two fish.

Now, the fish they're talking about are as wide as your finger. In other words, they're teeny tiny little fish from that teeny tiny little Sea of Galilee. This is gross, but it'll help you remember. How many of you guys have actually dental flossed in the last week? I admit, I'm a little OCD with dental floss. I love to dental floss. I've even done it at a dinner party with my wife because she's like, "Stop that. That is disgusting. That's for private." But I want you to get a size in your head. So let's say you have two fish that are about as wide as your finger. We know the end result is like over five thousand men are going to eat, maybe some women and children as well. So if you take those two little fish and divide them into 5,000 or 6,000 portions, like I'm not smart enough to figure this out.

You need a nanometer, but I think the Lord gave me a pretty good illustration of the size of the serving. You ready? You're flossing because your dentist told you to. It's good to floss. When you floss, you're trying to get stuff out of your teeth. Do you ever do it one time, and you're maybe in front of a mirror and it goes pop, and this little thing pops out? That's the goal. That thing is probably twice the size of the serving that each man or woman would have gotten from that fish. Do you see how small it is? It's disgusting, but now you see the size of it.

In other words, there's no way, humanly speaking, that these two little fish that look like overgrown sardines are going to feed more than one little boy, much less 5,000. But Jesus says, "Hey, what do you have?" And so they tell him: five and two. Five loaves, two fish.

Then Jesus—this is kind of a strange verse, verse 39—it says he commands them to sit down in groups on the green grass.

Sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups by hundreds and by fifties. — Mark 6:39

Why do you think that's stuck in there? Why is it there? Jesus knows a miracle is getting ready to happen. He knows they're going to have to distribute this food, this amazing miracle that's about to happen. So he has them sit down in an orderly fashion. This is how we're going to dispense all that we have.

The other thing this points to is that our God is an orderly God. Do you know God is a God of order? Just go out one night, look at the stars. Fly over Roanoke, look at the mountains, the trees, the leaves, all that the Lord has made. He is a God of beauty, but he's also a God of order. And if you don't understand that God is a God of order, then you really don't know him very well.

And so here's where we land. It says that after they sat in groups on the green grass, Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and then what? He looked up to heaven. He gave thanks to the Lord. He broke it and he gave it back to them, and what was the result?

They all ate and were satisfied and they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were around 5,000 men. — Mark 6:42-44

Friends, do you see what happened? God did a miracle. Just as he'd been doing miracles through the apostles in his name and in his power, he did it on something as simple as loaves and fish. And that's a great story. But guess what? The apostles are not here this morning. The people that were there that day at the lake, they're not here. So really, who's the scripture for? Is it for them? No, it's for us.

What do you get from it? God is a God of order. God's a God of compassion. But the main point I get from it is that God has given us gifts and graces. He's given you gifts and graces. And the question is, you might look at those and go, "Well, what I have, it's too small. I have nothing to offer." And what the Lord would say is, "Listen, I don't care about how qualified you are. I don't care about any of that. I just want you to come and bring what I've given you, put it in my hand, and walk, minister in my name."

A Call to Action

And so what I want to ask you this morning is: make it practical. There are kids all over Roanoke, hundreds of kids with no dad or maybe with a mom in prison, and I'm too busy watching some crazy show on TV to get up and walk across town and form a relationship. What has the Lord given you? What has he given you that you could use? Maybe something as small as five loaves and two fish, but in his hand, God will use it.

And let me tell you this. The punchline is this: when you use what God has given you, however small, and he empowers it, you're going to experience what Mary Mac experienced. Did you see her face? Did you see the joy of that? People that use the little they have for the Lord are not people that walk around grumpy and like, "Oh, I don't get the point of life." No. They experience the Lord's joy. That, my friends, is what he's calling you into.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.