“Fish N’ Chips”
John 6:1-14
Sermon Series: “Getting Acquainted With Jesus”
Do you think things in the world are getting better or getting worse? What kinds of problems do you see in the world? What kinds of problems do you see in people’s lives? How does this make you feel? What kind of world do you want your kids and grandkids to live in? Are we headed in that direction or the opposite direction? Who can change it and how can it be changed? Is the church making a difference? What is the average church’s ministry like? Who is responsible to change it?
The reality is that we can be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. We can gripe and complain or we can make a difference. How? We can make a difference by applying the principle that this passage of Scripture is teaching us and allowing God to use us to minister to people in miraculous ways.
Main Principle: Jesus supernaturally enables ordinary people like us to minister to people’s needs and point them to Him.
God (Manufacturer)————–Believers (Distributors, Middlemen)—————People (Recipients of God’s Resources)
[Note: Believers are to minister and be ministered to. Members of the body of Christ are to minister to one another, but ultimately, we are to minister to the world of people who do not know Jesus. The point of ministry is for disconnected people to meet Jesus and become His disciples.]
How can we apply this principle and be God’s middlemen? Here are four steps from this passage:
1. Care about people. Jesus cares about people. He was concerned about these people’s physical needs. He wanted them to see that He is the Messiah and personally meet Him. The parallel passage in Mark 6 tells us that he viewed them as sheep without a shepherd. Mark 6:35-37 tells us that the disciples suggested sending the crowd away to find their own food, but Jesus commanded, “You give them something to eat.” It is an absolute command of Scripture to love our neighbor and meet his or her needs (1 John 3:17).
2. Trust Jesus. Jesus tested the disciples, and they failed the test. However, their answers were very logical from a human perspective. The problem was the fact that they left out the supernatural dimension. They did not factor in the miracle-working power of Jesus. They were looking at what they lacked instead of what Jesus could do. Remember that we don’t have to supply anything, but we are only the middlemen who distribute the resources that God supplies. We really can’t effectively minister to anybody on our own, but biblical ministry is Jesus ministering through us.
3. Surrender all of our resources back to Jesus for Him to use as He sees fit. We have nothing that He has not given us. When we give it back to Him, He takes it, multiplies it, uses it to bless others, and then blesses us as well. We are to give our best and our all to Jesus. He equips us with the needed gifts, talents, and resources to effectively minister to others.
4. Obey Jesus’ instructions. The disciples failed the first part of the test, but they got the second part right when they obeyed Jesus’ instructions. We can minister effectively by listening to what Jesus tells us to do and doing it. It is that simple.
Conclusion-Application: We are to be God’s middlemen who care about people enough and trust God enough to obediently distribute the resources He gives us to those in need of Jesus. Are we obeying God and being used by Him to touch others?
