On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida. 11 When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” 13 But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 And they did so, and had them all sit down. 16 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing over them. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. 17 And they all ate and were satisfied. And what was left over was picked up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.
Luke 9:10-17

Introduction

In the Gospel of Luke, we have seen Jesus perform some spectacular miracles. We have listened to Him speak words that far exceeded anything the disciples and the crowds had ever heard. In fact, when he first burst onto the public scene with teaching from the prophet Isaiah, Luke noted: “And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 9:22) So you would think if there was any group of people who would fully trust Jesus, it would be His own disciples who had witnessed so much. And yet, in Luke 9:10-17, we see the same patterns of wonder and amazement slowly turn to skepticism and doubt from his disciples. And from such patterns come that age old root sin that has plagued humanity since Adam and Eve, the sin of unbelief.

Thus, the Bible is filled with story after story of this same cycle: people’s rebellion against God, God’s intervention, people’s amazement and wonder at God’s power and grace, people’s doubt, people’s apathy, people’s rebellion against God, back to God’s intervention. It began with Adam and Eve and continues with us today. What can break this dreaded cycle of sin? The answer is trusting God. But in order to trust God, we must be willing to do so at all times, especially when such times are difficult and especially when we are tempted to forgo our trust in God. In Luke 9:10-17, there are 3 instances where we are called to trust God, trusting that by doing so we will break the cycle of unbelief AND we will experience an incredible joy and peace that we could never experience apart from trusting God. So we must 1) Trust God when signs occur, 2) trust God when circumstances become difficult, and 3) trust God when the impossible is before us.

Trusting God When Signs Occur (10)

So the first instance we must trust God is to trust God when signs occur. Now what do I mean by this? Let’s look at Luke 9:10 again: “On their return the apostles told him all that they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a town called Bethsaida.” We can’t understand this verse without remembering where the disciples had gone. In verses 1-6, recall that the disciples were sent out with Jesus’ power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. And according to Mark 6:13, this is exactly what happened. Demons fled. People were healed in the same way that Jesus healed. This must have been incredible for the disciples. Not long ago, they were nothing more than a ragtag group of men, fishermen, tax collectors, nobodies really. And suddenly they are seeing dramatic and exciting events unfold before their eyes, and THEY were the means by which this was happening.

You could believe that these would have been easy times to trust God. After all, you might have thought, like I used to think, that if you evidenced a ‘real miracle’, you would truly believe and trust God. You would be so certain of your faith that it would never waver. But consider every person in the Bible who witnessed a miracle. They could essentially be divided into two camps, those who trusted God subsequent that miracle and those who doubted God following that miracle. After watching the Red Sea part and all of the Egyptians destroyed in that sea, with over 1 million people, Scripture records only a handful of people who trusted God when trouble came. Many people followed Jesus throughout His ministry and all clamored to see a sign and a miracle. Some even had the opportunity to benefit from Jesus’ power over disease. But so few came to believe Jesus because of those miracles. In fact, as we’ll see later in Luke 17, Jesus heals 10 lepers and only the Samaritan returned to give thanks. Jesus responded: “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.” In Acts 3, Peter and John heal the lame beggar who was disabled since birth. But despite this obvious miracle, the Jewish leaders pay no heed to the miracle at all, but instead focus on their teaching about Jesus as the Messiah. All of this to say that when signs occur, when we see God miraculously move, as the disciples saw according to verse 10, unless there is the continual reminder of what the signs truly were supposed to support, that is the message of the Gospel of God, then signs and wonders are often short-lived in its impact. People will just go back to the same, old pattern of sin and rebellion and apathy towards God. And the speed upon which we can turn back to such sin is shocking.

Therefore, we must keep vigilant, watching our wandering hearts, and relying on the bedrock promises of God’s Word in order to continue trusting Him. Remember when Jesus was about to be betrayed by Judas. He spent the evening praying in Gethsamene with his disciples. But as he left his disciples to go pray, they could not stay awake. Thus, Jesus warned them: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt 26:41) Jesus knew that their hearts were prone to turn away from Him, even if it was their initial desire not to do so. And like the disciples, we are no different. We have a sinful nature like Paul who explained in Romans 7: “For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me… For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” This sinful nature continues at all times to tempt us to doubt God’s Word and to turn from Him. We also have an Enemy who will even try to lead the elect (Christians who are saved) astray (Mark 13:22).

So just as Jesus taught his disciples, unless we watch and pray, unless we are aware that even if we should see the greatest of miracles happen before our eyes, we are still prone to forget Him. Some of you might have made some great promises before God. Lord, if you heal my loved one/if you get me into …school/job/house/income bracket/marriage/relationship, I will never forget you. I will love your Word. I will pray to you. I will serve your people at church. I will not be so consumed by my work. I will give up these toys/possessions. But how quickly do we turn from God, despite His grace and deliverance and answered prayers? How quickly do the doubts come into our hearts? “Maybe it wasn’t God who healed me. It was the doctors’ skill.” “Maybe it wasn’t God who helped us through the difficulties in my marriage. Maybe it was our wisdom and skill in conflict resolution.” Oh how prone we are to turn away from God and to turn to ourselves as God. We are far too quick to do so. This is why in Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man, when the rich man is burning in hell, and he begs Abraham to at least warn his family of that awful place, Abraham responds: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31) The Bible is littered with stories where miracles do not convince people to trust God.

My friends, when God provides for you miraculously, it is at those times that you must watch and pray. As David reminds us in Psalm 19: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart” (Psalm 19:7-8). Depending upon His Word revives our souls, reminds us of His dependability, grants us joy, and allows us to trust Him. And Hebrews 6:17-18 makes this point: “So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.” In other words, God’s Word is absolutely trustworthy because it is tied directly to His unchangeable character. And our encouragement and certainty and assurance that He will work all things out for our good (Romans 8:28) is rooted on His Word. So how important it is, my friends, to spend time reading, meditating, salivating upon God’s Word. His Word, His promises, is the anchor of our souls in both good and tumultuous times. Signs are good. Signs and wonders are special and exciting and dramatic. But unless we believe the message the sign was intended to highlight, we will fail to see the message, trust the God behind the message, and even forget the sign itself. And this is exactly what happens to the disciples. They forget what they saw in verses 11-13.

Trusting God When Circumstances Become Difficult (11-12)

In verses 11-12, we are told of the second instance where we are to trust God, when circumstances become difficult: “When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing. 12 Now the day began to wear away, and the twelve came and said to him, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” Jesus had been teaching for a while and the people were riveted, so much so that they didn’t leave despite the fact that there was no food and it was getting late. For those of us who are adminstrationally or logistically oriented, if we were there we might have been just as concerned as the disciples were. We’re told in verse 14 that there were 5000 men, which could mean close to 20,000 people including women and children. So in other words, think of Oracle arena, where the Warriors play. The crowd would have been the size of a capacity crowd there. I am sure with each passing hour, they were probably really worried. They could have thought, “Oh Jesus is at it again. Just like on the ship, he has no concern for the practical things.” There must have been some worry concerning the crowd’s reaction and their inability to provide for them.

And so when the disciples begin to survey the situation, and when “the day began to wear away,” they had to come up with a solution to their problem. And they told Jesus in verse 12, “Send the crowd away to go into the surrounding villages and countryside to find lodging and get provisions, for we are here in a desolate place.” Now think about this for a moment. They are placed into an extremely difficult position. There are close to 20,000 people who have not eaten perhaps the whole day (remember, there is no such thing as Costco or Safeway). Jesus is busy teaching, probably not at all concerned (at least from the disciples’ perspective) with the time that has passed or the logistical nightmare in caring for the people. 20,000 hungry people can quickly become 20,000 angry people who take it out on those who ‘organized’ this event. And so they consider three options: 1) Provide food for them from what they had, which was virtually nothing, 2) Go to the village and buy whatever food they had for the crowd (which was like no plan at all since no village would have enough supply to feed so many people and of course. But it wasn’t as though they had the money to pay for very much. In fact, according to John 5:6-7 it would have cost 200 denarii or more than 7 months of wages to buy food for everyone.), or 3) Send the people home regardless of their response to Jesus’ Gospel message for them. And so weighing the options in light of the difficult circumstances, it’s very easy to see how they came to their conclusion in verse 12.

But there was one option they didn’t even consider: Ask Jesus to provide the food for them. The circumstances before them were not just difficult, they were impossible really. But during such times, how quickly and easily the disciples resort to their own logic and reasoning and planning to figure out what to do. But remember verse 10? Remember Luke 9:1-6. Remember what they did, what they saw? They healed people of all sorts of diseases. Imagine fishermen, tax collectors, regular people doing such supernatural things. They saw demons cast out. And yet, here they are without even a consideration to the very power and authority that Jesus gave them. Instead, they were stuck to their old ways, seeing the world through human eyes. As Paul told the Corinthians church: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” (2 Cor 4:4) The disciples could not see who they were before in the person of Jesus. So the miracles themselves, as great as they were, could not open their blinded minds. They still could not trust God, especially in the midst of difficult circumstances.

And my friends, this is exactly what we must do. We must trust God because He has always been trustworthy because His promises has never failed us. And as the disciples personally witnessed but had forgotten, Jesus has the power and authority and wisdom to accomplish whatever He so desires. Jerry Bridges comments on this type of trust:

In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God’s relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances. It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity. (Jerry Bridges, Trusting God, 18)

During times of extreme difficulty and trying circumstances, you will be tempted to turn to your own personal solutions, your experience, the counsel of the media, or self-help books, anti-depressants and visits to the therapist, drowning yourself in drugs, alcohol, shopping, work, only to find that your heart still reverberates with anxiety, fear, frustration, emptiness. But Jerry Bridges is right. Adverse circumstances are an opportunity to see if this God of ours is true to His Word. The disciples were being challenged to turn to the Jesus who had told them that they would have His power and authority (Luke 9:1). But would they trust His Word?

John Newton, the former slave trader turned pastor who wrote the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” watched his beloved wife die of cancer slowly and painfully over a few months. Remember that in those days, there was not much regarding pain management. If you had cancer, you felt the cancer cells eating away at you. Well, John Newton could have responded by doubting God’s provision. He could have said, “God, I was a wealthy slave trader who gave his life to you by going into ministry. But is this the thanks I get for trusting you? I don’t think I can trust you anymore.” But instead, this is what he remembered when reflecting on his wife’s suffering:

I believe it was about two or three months before her death, when I was walking up and down the room, offering disjointed prayers from a heart torn with distress, that a thought suddenly struck me, with unusual force, to this effect—“the promises of God must be true; surely the Lord will help me, if I am willing to be helped!” It occurred to me, that we are often led…[from an undue regard of our feelings], to indulge that unprofitable grief which both our duty and our peace require us to resist to the utmost of our power. I instantly said aloud, “Lord, I am helpless indeed, in myself, but I hope I am willing, without reserve, that thou shouldst help me.”(Quoted from Trusting God, 196)

He later went on to add after her death:

I was not supported by lively sensible consolations [trying to make himself feel better through any other means], but by being enabled [by the Holy Spirit] to realize to my mind some great and leading truths of the word of God. (Quoted from Trusting God, 196)

We have so much to learn from the saints who lived before us, and John Newton expresses what the Bible teaches about trust when circumstances seem overwhelming. David resounds with these truths: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. 4 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:3-4) When God does a great work, we need to remind ourselves that the miracle pales in comparison to the message of the Gospel. And when we face difficult circumstances, we do not depend on miracles to save us, but we remember through God’s Word, that no matter what happens, no matter how terrible the obstacles we face before us, we need not be afraid. We can trust Him. This is where the disciples needed to be and this is exactly where Jesus leads His disciples to consider.

Trusting God When the Impossible Is Before Us (13)

Thus, the third instance of trusting God is not just in the difficult circumstance, but even in the impossible one. Let’s consider what Jesus’ response to the disciples in verse 13: “But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” When the disciples had come to Jesus with their practical version, relieving them of the burden for these people, He simply does not let them off that easy. He presses them because they have not turned to the right solution. They didn’t trust the God who had given them the power to heal and cast out demons in verses 1-6. Instead, they trusted their own abilities and in this case in abilities. They didn’t ask Jesus to do this work, believing that if He was God, this was nothing to Him. But instead, once they are given the responsibility yet again by Jesus’ strong words, “YOU give them something to eat,” they turned to unbelief based on circumstances once again, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men.”

This scene reminds me of the Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. There’s a moment where Luke Skywalker’s X-wing fighter sinks in the miry swamp of Yoda’s home planet Degobah. Master Yoda tells his Jedi pupil to use the force to lift the fighter from the swamp. And after several attempts ending with nothing more than a few bubbles rippling the water, he gives up, pouting, sitting in the corner and saying to Yoda: “You ask the impossible.” The diminutive Jedi Master than lifts the fighter from the bog to set in on solid ground. Luke in wonder comments: “I can’t believe it.” Yoda responds with disappoint: “That is why you fail.”

The disciples (and we) are so much like Luke. Our Lord leads us sometimes to the impossible because in the impossible (sick loved one, unsaved loved one, difficult marriage, joy in the midst of tragedy, etc.) we are forced to show our hand, do we really trust God or not? And so often, we become incredibly discouraged, pouting to our own corners, raising our fist to God saying, “You ask the impossible.” We simply can’t believe that God is everything that the Bible says He is, especially during trying times. But frequently, this is exactly where God wants us to be, to see how great He is and to see how small our power is in His eyes. Author Alexander Maclaren is right when he says:

It is often our (God-given) duty to attempt tasks to which we are conspicuously inadequate, in the confidence that He who gives them has laid them on us to drive us to Himself, and there to find sufficiency. The nest preparation of His servants for their work in the world is the discovery that their own stores are small. (Quoted from Kent Hughes, Luke (Volume 1), 332)

And for the disciples, Jesus was asking for the impossible and it was frustrating them. But what they failed to see is what this whole text is all about. They need not be frustrated because Jesus can be trusted. Every miracle, every sign, every wonder had a purpose, to validate who Jesus was. It was to place their hopes not in the miracle, but in Christ. And Jesus would continue to tell His disciples and the crowds that when God does the impossible, we should never again doubt Him. That is, we can trust God with the impossible because He has already done the impossible, He has conquered the power of sin and death, and has brought us into His family forever! When you look at the rest of the text in verses 14-17, what does Jesus do? He looks to heaven and blesses the food. He depends entirely on His Father to provide for the people so they would not be hungry. This miracle was a living illustration of God’s intervention to help the helpless. And there is no doubt that when Jesus said that He was the Bread of Life, He had this miracle in view. In John 6:51-54, He said: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh…Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Obviously, Jesus was not advocating cannibalism. Instead, He was telling His disciples and the crowd around Him that those who trust in Him as God’s provision for their rebellion, for their sins, will be delivered from their sins, and will live eternally with the Father. And it would take the sacrifice of His own body and blood for this to occur. God would do what no one else could do or would even consider doing, handing over His perfect and good Son to be cursed on a tree so that those who believe in Jesus would not have to bear the punishment of that curse. They would be freed from the power of sin. Sinners would be welcomed as family. And so Heb 2:11 so wondrously declares: “He is not ashamed to call them [us] brothers.”

Conclusion

You see, God has accomplished the impossible through His Son and this feeding of the 5000 was meant to be a reminder that this is the God we worship. Do you think it was easier for Jesus to feed 5000, calm the storm, heal the leper, cast out the demons from the Gerasense demoniac, heal the paralytic, or forgive our sins? Do you think it’s easier for our God to heal your sick child, help you to pay your bills, give you direction regarding your career, fix your marriage, help you to deal with trying parents, or forgive sins? Jesus answers this question when he confronted the Jewish leaders in Luke 5:23-24: “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed—“I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” Every situation mentioned earlier is nothing but a finger snap for our Lord. But to forgive sins would required God to give His Son to the world to bear the punishment that we deserve. If God would graciously give us His only Son, can’t we trust Him with everything else? If God welcomes you into His family eternally, where His Son has to bear the punishment of hell for you, can’t you believe that even when difficult circumstances happen, you trust that Romans 8:28 is true: “And we know that for those who love God ALL THINGS work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” We worship, not the God of miracles, but the God who accomplished the impossible. This God deserves our trust as David proclaimed: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7)