Sermon Notes: John 6:1-14

Healing Hands: Feed the World                            John 6:1-14

1. “Triple threat stance” of wakefulness appears again: crossing over/willingness, sit down/purposeful rest, dare to feed the crowd/risk-taking
2. Crowd (GR: Ochlos) – Frantic (Matt. 9:23), Unruly/Pushy (Mark 2:3), Needy (John 6:2); Desperate, exhausted other alternatives
3. Jesus asks, “How are we going to feed the crowd?” Interesting, that John comments parenthetically that Jesus already had in mind a solution. He was testing the disciples’ resolve and innovation.
4. Disciples’ latent nihilism
   1. Nothingness, hopelessness, meaninglessness, why bother attitude, whatever attitude
   2. Emphasis on the negatives. Emphasis on what cannot be done.  “It would take more than half a day’s wages to feed the crowd.”
   3. Unable to imagine possibilities. “There is a boy who has fish and loaves, BUT…”
   4. Scarcity is the platform from which latent nihilists launch. And you don’t get far if you operate out of an attitude of scarcity, the impossible and hopelessness.
5. The biblical platform from which to launch your life in general and especially in difficult circumstances is overcoming.
   1. Jesus takes a completely different attitude toward the problem at hand
   2. Have people sit down, he says. Realistically assess the situation, consider the possibilities without immediately drawing negative, cannot do conclusions
   3. Notice how the mood and tenor of the story changes from scarcity to abundance and gratitude
   4. Key words/phrases: Plenty of grass…gave thanks…distributed…as much as they wanted…all  had enough….with some left over
   5. “Let nothing be wasted.” Not extravagance but abundance.
6. The Way of Jesus is neither the gospel of poverty nor the gospel of prosperity. It is the Good News of abundance, of fullness, of wholeness.
   1. Twelve baskets were left (Israel); It was just the right amount.
   2. His grace is sufficient
   3. Life and life abundantly
   4. The crowd does not depart with diamond rings on each finger but they were filled
7. The fullness of God living in you is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers if you will accept Christ into your life and live into the Spirit life, the Way of Jesus Christ.
8. Col. 2:9-10 “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness.
9. Ephesians 3:19 – “May you experience of the love of Christ though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
10. 20a: He is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think
11. 20b: according to the power at work with in us.
12. J. D. Walt, a Wesleyan scholar and leader, put it this way: We are challenged in our “overall way of understanding the relationship between God and people. God can do it all right, but he chooses to do his work according to the power at work within us[.] We pray so often for God to “show up” in our gatherings and in the midst of our impossible situations with little regard for the fact that God’s primary and preferred way of doing far more abundantly than all that we ask or think is according to the power at work within us[.] When God comes to save the world he comes as a person in Jesus of Nazareth. When God sends the Holy Spirit, the Spirit visibly anoints, fills, marks and seals twelve people. The Spirit is not working in some kind of spiritually “at large” dimension in the air. The Spirit works directly, humanly yet supernaturally through men and women…people of God, where is the Temple now? Two words: within us. Where is Jesus now? Two words: within us. Where is the Holy Spirit now? Two words: within us.
13. Part of our spiritual work as Christians is to not give into this present day spirit of skepticism, cynicism and nihilism. Our work in the Church is to proclaim overcoming as the alternative for victory.  We have become more than conquerors in Christ.
14. The twentieth-century author Flannery O’Connor said this about the role of the Church vis-à-vis overcoming nihilism: “If you live today, you breath in nihilism … it’s the gas you breathe. If I hadn’t had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.” A logical positivist only believes and trusts what’s in front of them, what they can see and verify with their sense.  They lack an imagination for unseen possibilities.
15. Yet it is this very hope that gives us the vision and the platform from which to achieve great things in our lives, new beginnings, to be steadfast in the low moments in our lives, knowing Christ has gone ahead of us to prepare a tomorrow full of abundance. As the Psalmist said, “Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5)
16. Or as the writer of Hebrews proclaimed, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).
17. I want to encourage you today to launch your life from the platform of overcoming and hope, because that leads to victory, to abundance, to fullness, to joy in the morning, even after a season weeping in the night. Refuse to breath in nihilism and cynicism.  Those are worn out modern notions that lead only to defeat, self-destruction and despair.

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