“The Miracle of the Messiah”
(Matthew 14:13-21)
Series: God’s Fulfilled Promise [on screen]
Rev. Matthew C. McCraw, EdD
First Baptist Church, Bartow, Florida
October 20, 2019
The Passage
Matthew 14:13-21
13 When Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
15 When evening came, the disciples approached him and said, “This place is deserted, and it is already late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
16 “They don’t need to go away,” Jesus told them. “You give them something to eat.”
17 “But we only have five loaves and two fish here,” they said to him.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 Then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up twelve baskets full of leftover pieces. 21 Now those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Introductory Comments:
Illustration: When I lived in Kentucky I had one of my wisdom teeth taken out. I had all four but one had become problematic, so it needed to come out. Don’t worry, I still have my other three, so I am still fairly wise. Anyways, to get the tooth out, they had to put me all the way to sleep because the tooth was completely enclosed in bone. In order to help me deal with the pain that came with that type of surgery the oral surgeon prescribed Lortab. Let me tell you, that was strong stuff. I didn’t feel any pain at all. However, the problem started when I came off of the Lortab. You see my body started doing weird things and I wasn’t feeling that well. I actually started to get a little grumpy. I wasn’t feeling well and a church member came into my office and I responded in a less than kind way. You see, I wasn’t one hundred percent and I took it out on others. I was not very compassionate towards others because of my situation.
Well, here Jesus is, just after He has learned of the death of John the Baptist, His friend and cousin. As a result of what’s happened, Jesus wants to be alone. Although He is trying to escape the crowds and be alone, crowds actually start following Him around trying to see and learn more about this man they call Jesus.
That brings us to today’s passage.
Let’s pray together and see what God might be teaching us today.
(prayer)
Today, we will learn three characteristics of Jesus the Messiah.
Thank God He doesn’t respond like your pastor when He is having difficult. Jesus responds quite differently. Let’s see how He responded.
First, . . .
I. The Compassion of the Messiah [on screen]
Let’s look at verses 13 and 14 again.
13 When Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone. When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.
Jesus had gone through some intense stuff, and He knew that He would be going through some more intense stuff soon in the future, so He just wanted to be alone.
However, due to His popularity, people wouldn’t leave Him alone. Even in a remote place that He had gone to by boat, people found Him. When He arrived on shore there were crowds of people waiting for Him.
I imagine that if that were me in the boat I would have just got back in the boat and found another spot, but not Jesus. The Messiah has unmatched compassion for people!
Rather than be alone and tend to His own hurt, Jesus addressed the hurt of the people. He had compassion on them and He healed their sick.
Listen, church: there is no compassion like the compassion of Jesus the Messiah! If you have hurt, He has healing. If you have sorrow, He has satisfaction. If you have challenges, He has compassion.
We see Jesus’ compassion further demonstrated for the crowds, beyond His healing of their sick.
Look at verses 15-16.
15 When evening came, the disciples approached him and said, “This place is deserted, and it is already late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
16 “They don’t need to go away,” Jesus told them. “You give them something to eat.”
We have here this account of the disciples wanting to send the crowds away. They did not want to turn them away because they were being mean. They wanted to turn them away because they knew that they were probably hungry and they needed to eat.
However, Jesus, because of His great compassion for the crowds, didn’t want to send the crowds away. He wanted them to have the best of both worlds: staying with Him and having something to eat.
We’ll see more of this later in the passage, but Jesus is not limited in the way that He can bless you. He can bless you with healing and provision. He can bless you beyond your wildest imagination!
His compassion is deep and wide. His résumé of compassion qualifies Him for any task!
The Messiah is full of compassion!
Well, how are they to feed the crowds? They didn’t have a pizza delivery man near the Sea of Galilee.
Let’s see what happened. See next, . . .
II. The Miracle of the Messiah [on screen]
Let’s look at the passage again.
Look at verses 16 and following.
16 “They don’t need to go away,” Jesus told them. “You give them something to eat.”
17 “But we only have five loaves and two fish here,” they said to him.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 Then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up twelve baskets full of leftover pieces. 21 Now those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Moved by compassion, Jesus instructed the disciples to give the crowds something to eat.
Can you imagine what the disciples must have been thinking? They must have looked around and thought, “Can’t you see Jesus that we don’t have nearly enough food for these people?”
All they had were five loaves of bread and two fish. That’s not enough for a huge crowd. That’s hardly enough for one Baptist!
These words changed everything: Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.” If you want to see something changed miraculously, bring it to Jesus!
Jesus had everyone sit down and He miraculously multiplied the bread and fish so that everyone was able to eat and be satisfied.
By the way, this miracle is very important in the Word of God. In fact, this is the only miracle of Jesus recorded in all four Gospels.
There’s no indication about the particulars of how Jesus multiplied the meal. We don’t even know that the crowds knew that Jesus was multiplying the food. However, we do know for sure that this was a miracle.
The disciples knew that this was a miracle, for sure. In fact, they even participated in this miracle, bringing the original meal to Jesus and then distributing the food to the massive crowd.
You know what I love about this miracle, also? Jesus didn’t merely provide just enough, He provided far more than was needed.
That takes us to our final point:
III. The Excess of the Messiah [on screen]
Have you ever been in a situation where you are hoping you can just meet the requirements? Perhaps it’s a test in school, or a drill at a sports practice of sorts, or a deadline or milestone at work. You just want to do enough to get by.
Well, Jesus didn’t feel that way at all about this miracle. Jesus knew that it was well within His divine power to make way more than enough to feed the crowds.
In Matthew 14:13-21 we have a front-row seat to the excess of the Messiah.
Check out verses 19-21 again.
19 Then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up twelve baskets full of leftover pieces. 21 Now those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
In case anyone is foolish enough to think that somehow everyone was super sacrificial and just took a little bit of fish and a little bit of bread so that everyone could share, rather than an actual miracle happening, verse 20 answers that. Matthew says, “They picked up twelve baskets full of leftover pieces.” That’s more than they started with, so that busts the sharing theory! This was a miracle of God! Not only was it a miracle, but Jesus was showing that He had the power to produce far and abundantly more than what was needed.
He was excessive in His miraculous compassion.
May we never underestimate the miraculous excess of the Messiah!
The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 3:20-21, “20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” [on screen]
Jesus’ power is so great and His compassion is so deep that He can bless us far beyond what we need or even beyond what we can imagine.
To miraculously feed 5,000 men (and any women and children who may have been there) was no challenge at all. Similarly, Jesus can provide love to overwhelm the hurt in your life. He can cause you to desire Him so much that you are set free from addictions. He can provide you with every material need that you have. He can comfort you in the midst of sickness or sorrow. He can provide the love you need to love that unlovable neighbor, family member, or church member. He can wipe away your sins as far as the east is from the west. He can do all of these miracles excessively!
If you’ve not experienced the excessive miraculous compassion of Jesus Christ you need to do so today!
Concluding Thoughts:
Notice again, the first few words of verse 20: “Everyone ate and was satisfied.”
Have you found your satisfaction in Jesus?
That takes us to our bottom line this week:
Bottom Line: The Messiah provides miraculous satisfaction. [on screen]
(repeat)
He can bless us so that He satisfies us more than anything else in all the world.
He can satisfy us more than pancakes and bacon on a Saturday morning. He can satisfy us more than the trip to the bank on payday. He can satisfy us more than a glass of ice-cold tea on a summer day. He can satisfy you more than a kiss on your wedding day. He can satisfy you more than seeing that A+ at the top of your report card. He can satisfy you more than the last time you clocked out at work before retirement. He can satisfy you more than all the riches in the world, more than the pronouncement of good health from the doctor, more than the news that you’re having a child or grandchild, even more than the buy-one-get-one-free sales at Publix. He is compassionate, He is miraculous, He is excessive, and He is all satisfying.
Look to Jesus, church! He is Messiah and He can do more in your life than you can ever imagine.
Challenge yourself this week in the following ways:
Weekly Challenge: [on screen]
- Ask God for more of the miraculous in your life. [on screen]
Do you believe that God can still do miracles?
Ask Him to do miracles in your life.
Ask Him to give you the miraculous with abundance so that there is leftover!
Ask God to allow you to see when He is working the miraculous.
God can bless you in miraculous ways, according to His will. Ask Him to do so.
- Ask God to help you find your satisfaction in Him. [on screen]
This is key. If Jesus doesn’t satisfy you, you will not be able to live the life that God wants you to live.
We must desire and long for Him more than anything else in this world.
He is all-satisfying, and we must see that.
When you find your satisfaction in Jesus above all else you have already experienced the greatest miracle.
Ask God to change your heart so that He satisfies.
Closing:
We are called to follow after Jesus.
Trust in the Messiah. Obey His ways. Faithfully follow the Father through Jesus Christ. Find your satisfaction in Him.
(Gospel presentation)
(closing prayer)
Invitation Song – Trust and Obey
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