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John 6:1-15, Jesus feeds 5,000

READ. THINK. PRAY. LIVE.

READ.
John 6:1-15

Questions:
What was the current situation (problem)?
How did Jesus and the disciples view the problem differently?
What was the solution?

This is the fourth miracle Jesus did amoung them and the only miracle in all four gospels. Each miracle is a sign pointing to him as the prophecied messiah and proving that he is from God.

THINK.
John 6
1 After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee (some call it Tiberias).2 A huge crowd followed him, attracted by the miracles they had seen him do among the sick.
Folks were attracted by the miracles. Luke 4:18-19 - Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah. Signs were used as proof that Jesus was the messiah. His first sign was at the Wedding in Cana, then heals the roman official's son, the invalid at the pool and now the feeding of the 5,000.
3 When he got to the other side, he climbed a hill and sat down, surrounded by his disciples.
Can you see how the friendships of the disciples was important to Jesus. He often got away with them and spent time talking with them.
4 It was nearly time for the Feast of Passover, kept annually by the Jews.
This was the "Christmas" time for the Jewish people. It was when they celebrated and remembered how God delivered them from slavery, set them free and gave them their respect back. In the passover, the angel took life and in here he is life - the bread of life.
5 When Jesus looked out and saw that a large crowd had arrived, he said to Philip, “Where can we buy bread to feed these people?”6 He said this to stretch Philip’s faith. He already knew what he was going to do
What is Jesus asking of you? He already has an answer in mind. Go back to him and ask, what do you want me to do Lord?
.7 Philip answered, “Two hundred silver pieces wouldn’t be enough to buy bread for each person to get a piece.”
Philip was looking for the physical practical answer - money was his solution. If we dont' have the money we can't do it. Philip saw and obastacle. Jesus saw and opportunity.
8 One of the disciples—it was Andrew, brother to Simon Peter—said,9 “There’s a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.”
Andrew at least looked for what they did have. But relived what they had to offer wasn't enough.
10 Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” There was a nice carpet of green grass in this place. They sat down, about five thousand of them.
Jesus has the disciples act as crowd control and has them go throughout the crowd and asks them to have a seat.
11 Then Jesus took the bread and, having given thanks, gave it to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish. All ate as much as they wanted.
Jesus took, thanked and broke the bread, then handed it to those who were seated. Bring yourself to Jesus. Whatever you have to offer. And let him take you, bless you, break you and then give you away. Only in the hands of Jesus will you bless the multitudes.
12 When the people had eaten their fill, he said to his disciples, “Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted.”
The people were filled, satisfied, stuffed. From scarcity Jesus created abundance.
13 They went to work and filled twelve large baskets with leftovers from the five barley loaves.
Twelve baskets. One for each disciple to carry back to Jesus. How did the disciples feel when they saw the leftovers? Joyful for witnessing the miracle. Humbled that they didn't believe Jesus could do this. How did this change Philips view of money as a solution? Excited to be apart of Jesus' inner circle.
14 The people realized that God was at work among them in what Jesus had just done. They said, “This is the Prophet for sure, God’s Prophet right here in Galilee!”
The people were looking for the Prophet Moses said would come (Deut. 18:15). The people believed by what they saw. We believe by what we see, much more than what we hear. Our best communication about God (witness, testimony) is by what we DO
15 Jesus saw that in their enthusiasm, they were about to grab him and make him king, so he slipped off and went back up the mountain to be by himself.
The people wanted a king who would free them from an earthly temporal problem - the Roman oppression. Jesus wanted to be a Savior who would free them from a spiritual eternal problem - the problem of Sin and Death.

QUESTIONS:
What are the insurmountable obstacles you are facing? What are the situations at your school or in your life that you need Jesus to step into?
What do we need to bring to Jesus?
What do we learn about God?


POINTS TO PONDER:
Bring what you have to Jesus. Jesus will do great things with what you can bring to him.
Have faith in God. How would you live if you knew Jesus has always with you?
What you see as obstacles, Jesus sees as opportunities.
The people wanted a king who would free them from an earthly temporal problem - the Roman oppression. Jesus wanted to be a Savior who would free them from a spiritual eternal problem - Sin and Death.

LIVE.
Get in groups of 4-5 and share the one thing you are going to take away from this lesson. What is God speaking to you about himself or yourself? How will this impact/change your life?

PRAY.
Pray for the person on your right that the "take away" would come true in them.

GOING DEEPER:
Have you ever stopped to consider what relationship you have with food?

We don’t often think we even have a relationship with food, and yet we do — and it’s pretty intimate.

Think about this: if you’re like me, you spend as much or more time with food than you do with many of the loved ones in your life — several hours a day or more.

And consider this: technically, food is just fuel for living. That’s all — nothing else.

And yet … it has become so much more to most of us:

* we use food for pleasure
* we use it for comfort
* we turn to food when we’re sad, depressed, hurt
* we use food to socialize
* we use it as a reward
* we do it when we’re bored
* food can also be a chore
* we use food as gifts
* we turn to food when we’re lonely
* food can be associated with sex
* food is equated to health
* sometimes, food becomes an obsession
* it definitely can be an addiction
* food can make us hate ourselves
* food is the center of many billion-dollar industries

In fact, the huge food-related industries are at the center of much of our relationship with food: restaurants, fast-food chains, convenience foods, agribusinesses, distributors, grocery chains, snack foods, bakeries, coffee shops, dessert chains, health food, diet foods, supplements, bodybuilding food, and many others. They spend billions upon billions every year trying to get us to eat more and more food — their food in particular — and the horrifying thing is that all this advertising really, really works.

We have been convinced that the answer to almost any problem is food. You truly love someone? Buy them chocolates, or take them to a restaurant, or bake them cookies. Want to lose weight? Eat diet food. Want to get fit? Take our supplements, eat our meat, drink our milk. Want to be healthy? Eat our healthy products. Want to reward yourself? There are too many options to name here. Having a bad day? We’ve got the food for you. Don’t have time? Our food will save time. Want to save money? Buy super size and “save”.

Food is the answer to everything, apparently.

And yet, we forget that food is just fuel. We need to eat a certain amount to live and maintain our weight. If we eat more than that, we will store some of that fuel as fat (or build muscle if we’re exercising). And how do we lose weight? By eating, apparently — eat diet food, drink diet shakes, eat Zone bars, eat vegetarian products, eat meat and other protein sources, eat low-fat products, eat our cereal, drink our diet soda.

But what if we … just ate less?

Despite what the food industries have convinced us, we don’t need to eat as much as we do to survive. Sure, maybe eating that much is fun, and pleasurable, and will stave off boredom, and is fun to do with friends and family, and so on. But we don’t need to eat that much. Actually, we need to eat less.

The problem isn’t that it’s so difficult to eat less. The problem is that we have a complicated relationship with food that started when we were toddlers and has become more and more complicated through the years, through endless amounts of advertising, of eating when we’re sad and lonely and happy and bored and at parties and going out and on dates and watching TV and dieting and so on.

Our complicated relationship with food makes it hard to cut back on how much we eat.

So let’s start building a new relationship with food:

* Start recognizing exactly why we eat — is it just for sustenance or is our hunger often triggered by other things (boredom, socializing, pleasure, etc.)?
* Start realizing the effects that advertising and the food industries have on how we think about food and how we eat.
* Stop eating when we’re bored, out of habit, as a reward, for pleasure, for comfort, etc.
* Only eat what and how much we need.
* Find other ways to entertain ourselves, comfort ourselves, find pleasure, etc.
* Find other ways to socialize than eating large amounts of food.
* Stop obsessing so much about food.
* End our addiction with certain foods — sugar, for example, or starches. We can still eat them, but we don’t need to eat them as much.

Think about it: how much simpler would life be if you could end this complicated relationship with food? Some changes that might happen:

* You’d spend less time thinking about food.
* You’d spend less time preparing food.
* You’d spend less money on food.
* You’d eat less.
* You’d get healthier.