God Is Bigger That Our Needs

Do you like to go to McDonalds? I like their nuggets. With ranch sauce.

Let’s pretend we’re at McDonalds and I say, "Order anything you want." What would it be?

I would like McNuggets, ranch sauce, fries and a medium diet coke.

What would you order?

Did you know that there are over 30,000 McDonald's restaurants in over 120 countries? Did you know that McDonald's uses over three million pounds of potatoes a day? That's a lot of fries! Did you know that McDonald's serves over 45 million people each day!

When I was your size, we would have a lot of company on Sunday afternoons. Mama would cook a big meal. My Mama would cook fried chicken, a huge bowl of mashed potatoes, green beans, turnip greens, corn and cornbread. My Mama could sure cook cornbread. Every Sunday, Mama would fix banana pudding.

There was a problem with all that company. The adults would eat first. Only when they were finished did we kids get to eat. Do you think there was a chicken leg left? No! What about a thigh? Somebody already had gotten it. We managed to get enough to eat, but the real feast was already eaten.

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. Jesus had crossed the sea by boat. He wanted to go someplace to be alone. He probably wanted to rest and to pray.  

When He got to the other side, there were people waiting on him. There were thousands of people waiting on him. They came with a lot of problems. They brought people who were sick. Jesus healed them.

Wouldn’t you love to see Jesus heal somebody? I’ve seen it happen and it is amazing. When they saw what Jesus did and heard His words, their hearts and lives were touched.

It began to get late and the crowds were still there, but now there was a big problem. These people got hungry. Jesus’ friends, the disciples said, "It’s late, send them home."

Jesus said, They don’t need to go, you feed them!

Can you imagine having thousands of people there and Jesus said, "You feed them!"

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

If God tells you to do something, maybe you need to see what you have to work with.

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered to Jesus.

These loaves of bread were small loaves. If we had loaves of bread like we get at the store, how many sandwiches could we make?

(Make Jelly sandwiches.) Could we make 1000 sandwiches from this loaf?

What do we do when Jesus tells us to do something we can’t?

We give him what we have..

Jesus said, "Bring them here to me." They gave all they had which was 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.  

That’s not much, you might feed 3 or 4, but not a 1000!

Jesus told the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He gave thanks and broke the loaves. 

 Then he gave them to the disciples and the disciples gave them to the people. They were giving out 5 loaves and 2 fish. How long should that have taken? Less than a minute?

They gave out and gave out. The more they gave out, the more they had.

Jesus took the little they had and He fed 5000 people.

A little is a lot when God is in it!

They all ate and were satisfied and then the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

What can we learn from this story?

Give God what we have. Give him our heart and soul. He can do something amazing.

God is bigger than our problems.