Transcript for 8-09-2009 Closed Captioned Sermon, Jesus IS The Prophet

Text from the HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, used by

permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. The sermon text

is recorded for us in John's Gospel where we read

the first 15 verses from

Chapter 6. Sometime

after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore

of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias),

and a great crowd of people followed him

because they saw the miraculous signs he had

performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up

on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.

The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him,

he said to Philip, "WHERE SHALL WE BUY BREAD

FOR THESE PEOPLE TO EAT?"

He asked this only to test him, for he already

had in mind what he was going to do.

Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages would not buy

enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,

spoke up, "Here is a boy with five

small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far

will they go among so many?"

Jesus said, "HAVE THE PEOPLE SIT DOWN."

There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men

sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus

then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to

those who were seated as much as they wanted.

He did the same with the fish.

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his

disciples, "GATHER THE PIECES THAT ARE LEFT OVER.

LET NOTHING BE WASTED." So they gathered them and

filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley

loaves left over by those who had eaten.

After the people saw the miraculous sign that

Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely

this is the Prophet who is to come into the world."

Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make him

king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

This is the Word of our Lord.

Let us pray:

Glorious and Gracious God, may the words of my mouth and the

meditation of each of our hearts be acceptable in

your sight, our only source of hope and comfort.

Amen.

Pastor Dave

motions for

the congregation to be seated.

Dear Followers of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The account that John records for us today is

one of those familiar accounts

one of those that we have

poured over in Sunday School classes, one of those that

we haven't even thought of as adults.

The feeding of at least 5,000 people

by Jesus, when he took the small gift ...

of five barley loaves and two small fish ...

and fed soooo many people

that there were leftovers even that needed

to be gathered.

It was a tremendous showing of God's power.

God's power through His Son, Jesus Christ. That miracle

speaks clearly to who

Jesus was. And to what He had come to do.

And there were people who after that event had even

wondered if He was The Prophet.

The Prophet of God

who had come into the world to share

the message of God with God's people.

To bring to them the news of God and

to tell them what God wanted from them.

The Prophet that the Jewish people knew

was going to be someone like Moses who would be raised up

from among themselves. Someone like Moses

that we heard in our Old Testament lesson who came and

brought the people all the commands of God.

Laid them out before them and said: This is what

the Lord expects of you.

This is what you are to do.

And the people gathered there that day responded:

joyously and joyfully: This is what we WILL do.

We will keep the commands of the Lord.

The Prophet is the One who was to come to

God's people and share with them the

knowledge of God, the Word of God and the message of God.

And we see that's exactly what

Jesus did. For the past weeks

in our sermons, we've seen the crowds

that came to Jesus. We've heard of those people who

flocked to Him, who followed Him in boats or

walked around lakes just to

spend time with Him.

Because of the miracles that He was doing because of the

power and the authority that He taught with, they came to

hear Him, they came to understand what it was ....

what message He was bringing to them. And we see that

happening once again as John

describes this LARGE crowd of people that ... at least

FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE ...

CAME OUT to

HEAR JESUS SPEAK!

And Jesus looked

on those people and He had

compassion on them. Jesus looked

on those people and

He had love for them.

He was concerned about them. Even concerned with

their daily needs. Where were He and the disciples

going to get FOOD to FEED these people?

He already KNEW what He was going to do, but He

came to Philip, to test him. He came to Philip

and said: So where are we gonna get FOOD for all

of these people? God wanted

His disciples to THINK! To use

their God-given common sense

as to WHO was going to be the one to make the solution

for the day. He

comes to Philip to test him. Do you think Philip passed?

We couldn't get enough money

if we had months of wages to give any

one of these people, each one of them ... a bite.

Is that our response

so often to God's tests in our life? I don't

wanna be tested. God You should know that I love You.

God You know I'm smart. You know I'm one of the best

children You ever had.

Just like Philip ... I dunno what we're gonna do.

We can't do it. When standing in the presence

of the Son of God ...

do we even think to let the Son of God do His work!

He could just as easily have turned

to Jesus Christ and said: On our own

we can't do this. But YOU can.

Hadn't he SEEN

what Christ was doing?

Hadn't he witnessed those miracles? Hadn't he been there

as those crowds came up? For what purpose and

for what reason?

Isn't it amazing how often those who are so close

to Christ ...

can push Him so far away.

Or rely on their own sensibilities

and their own minds to figure out

what needs to be done. But yet Jesus has

compassion on people. He has compassion on Philip.

He has compassion on Andrew

who points to this little kid

with a few loaves of bread and some fish.

Shrugging shoulders.

.... Whatta we gonna do?

Doesn't say: Jesus do the work.

But yet Jesus had compassion

not only on His disciples,

but all of those thousands of people that were there

and He said: Have them sit down.

You who won't turn to Me,

I will SHOW you what I can do.

I will SHOW you my love.

You have all of those people go and sit down and

we're gonna start passing out food.

I wonder what went through Philip's mind

as Jesus

kept providing bread

and kept providing fish for all of those people that

Philip thought they couldn't feed. Or Andrew who said:

Here we got this little kid with this little offering

that Jesus Himself turned into

a miraculous feeding of at least five thousand people.

And the people KNEW

where that food came from.

The people KNEW that Jesus

had performed a miracle among them. They wanted Him

to be king. They wanted to make Him a king by force. They

wanted to come to Him and set Him up as their earthly ruler.

But that's not what Jesus had come for.

That wasn't the great miracle

that He wanted them to see.

Because the miracle that He had come to perform

was the miracle of His resurrection from the dead.

Having sacrificed Himself

for humanity's sins

and in love for them that He had given them

His life. Shed the blood.

That goes back to that Old Testament lesson

for God's people. Yes, they wanted to do the will and

the work of God

but yet, they still needed to make sacrifices

for their sins. They STILL needed

to SHED blood. And it was

the Father who SHED the Son's blood on the Cross of Calvary

so that everyone's sins would be forgiven.

So that everyone's sins would be washed away.

And then the miracle

was that Jesus Christ was raised to life!

THAT was the miracle Jesus

came to perform! The miracle

of bringing faith in Him to people's hearts

so that they would have eternal life.

Not that He was JUST here to take care of

their physical needs, their daily needs ....

to make sure that people weren't hungry ... or thirsty,

but that people were satisfied on the Word and

the Will of God.

He came as their Lord and Savior and He showed that

to people in His compassion and by His miracles.

And we remind ourselves today

to TRUST in that compassion. To TRUST

in those miracles. To turn to God

in the times in our life when He may be testing us.

Not to rely and trust in ourselves but to fall

at His feet and say: God, do Your Work.

Accomplish what You will.

I stand here as Your child.

I stand here saying I am going to follow Your commands

because of the miracle that You have performed

by creating faith in me.

Because of the blessing of eternal life, I am going to

put into practice each and every one of Your commands and

live in that faith.

As the Apostle Paul reminded us in our lesson

from the Letter to the Ephesians:

Live a life

worthy of the calling you have received.

We have the love and compassion of God

poured out on us each and every day.

We need to live in that love.

We need to look at people with the compassion of Christ.

Not to see a problem of thousands of people

who are gathered together and the logistics of everything

that is going on but to calmly say and turn to God:

God, take care of this.

Handle this!

YOU WHO CAN DO ANYTHING, can

get me through this.

To TRUST Him to do His Will and ALLOW Him to do that Will.

To work WITH the Holy Spirit

through His strength and His power in our daily lives.

To turn to God's Son as the TRUE PROPHET.

Not as an earthly king

but as the One who came as the King of Kings

to be Lord of our eternal life.

Who gives us, and satisfies our need

of a Savior and comforts us with His love.

Let us call on that Prophet

in every day of trouble. Let us call on Him in thanks

and praise for all of the blessings He has done.

He IS our compassionate and loving God.

Let us RESPOND in kind.

Amen.

Let us rise.

Now may the peace of God which goes beyond

all of our understanding keep your hearts

and your minds and especially your lives

in the one true faith unto life everlasting.

Amen.