Jesus Feeds Physical and Spiritual Blessings

We'll open your Bibles to John chapter 6, please. John chapter 6. We return to our study in the book of John after this Christmas and New Year's season. John chapter 6 and we'll read verses 1 through 15. I'll go to the Lord in prayer. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.

And a large crowd was following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. and Jesus went up on the mountain and there he sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?

He said this to test Philip for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them even to get a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, There's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many? Jesus said, Have the people sit down.

Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. perceiving then that they were about to come and take jesus by force to make him king jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself let us pray oh father again help us we ask lord let your word be opened up to us not only on pages but also in our hearts god we know that we are sinful people and we are constantly following the the desires of the flesh and so we're in desperate need of Christ right now. We're in desperate need of his forgiveness of sins and power and righteousness for us to have ears to hear and a heart to receive. And so would you help us now in this time?

Let this be a beneficial time. Let this be a time in which your word is planted deep within our very souls and the response is faith in Christ and obedience to his will. For we know that this is the life that you have for the world. So we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I know many of you guys are already missing the Christmas season, so I decided that I will start my sermon with a reference to the Christmas season.

There's a very famous song called, and we all know it, I'll Be Home for Christmas. and I'll be home for Christmas is a song about a World War II soldier who is missing home like crazy. He's missing the blessing of home. He's missing the love of his home that he could feel within the very walls even as he's fighting in a war. And the second verse captures it well when it says Christmas Eve will find me where the love light gleams.

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams. And I'm sure if the mom could write a song back to this son of hers in war, she would write a song about how much she wants to bless her son with food, dessert, and love at the home. And indeed, the feeling is mutual. The son wants to feel the blessing of home, and the mom would more than willing, would want to with all her heart, to bless the son for only if he could come home and be blessed there.

And I thought of this while studying John 6. John 6 is a narrative of a people wanting desperately to be blessed by Jesus. And Jesus wanting to bless the people. And if I could add a nuance here, it is a challenge also for the people to want the blessing Jesus is wanting to bless the people with. So it's not only the people desiring blessing, like the son at war, desiring to be home, but it's Jesus, like the mom, wanting to bless this people.

But there's a nuance, right? There's a challenge for them to want the blessing that he has for them. Indeed, if the not wanting the blessing that Jesus has for them is like the soldier coming home from war, going to his home and not hugging his mom at all, instead just going right to the food and to the desserts. The mom would say, you should want this blessing for me and not just simply food.

And so here is a challenge from Jesus in John 6, a desire to bless the people, but yet a challenge for them to want the blessings that he has to offer. And so going through John 6 the next few weeks, we will be challenged with these three things I want you to have in your mind, especially today as we're looking at this narrative. Do you desperately want to be blessed by Jesus?

Do you, like the man away at war, wanting home so bad he could taste it, do you desperately want to be blessed by Jesus? And then the second thing is do you view Jesus as someone who wants to bless you And the third thing I want you to challenge yourself with is are you wanting the blessing Jesus is wanting to bless you with Or are you trying to satisfy yourself with a counterfeit blessing? John 6 begins with the sign or the blessing of the feeding of the 5,000, where we will begin and see the start of answering these questions.

So let us begin. Look at the setting of this blessing, or of the sign that Jesus does in John 6. Look at the setting of the blessing. Look at verse 1, the place. After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. So after this means in chapter 5, if you remember, Jesus was in Jerusalem, and Jesus had just healed the man by the pool, and he declared that he is the Son, and if these people had eyes to see it, there's plenty of witnesses that he is the Son, but they just simply don't believe because they seek their own glory, right?

And so Jesus was in Jerusalem fighting with the religious leaders, healing people. That's what he was doing. But in chapter 6, we see after this, he leaves Jerusalem in the south of Israel and he goes to the north of Israel that is on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And another name for the Sea of Galilee, for the Rome, was the Sea of Tiberias. So John is just making sure everyone knows what he's talking about here.

And if you see Israel, and I've already mentioned this before, but just to remind ourselves, Israel, you have in the north the Sea of Galilee, and then in the south you have the Dead Sea, and then you have the river Jordan connecting those two. Jerusalem is closer to the Dead Sea, but Jesus has left Jerusalem in chapter 6, and he's now at the Sea of Galilee in the north, on the other side. But the thing I want you to put your mind on with this is that this place is a desolate place.

What that means is there's not many people there, there's not many resources there as opposed to where he was at in Jerusalem. That would be like going from Columbus going north up to LaRue, right? Not much people, not much resources, there's not much going on. It'd be a different feel. But yet despite going to a desolate place, Jesus does not have a problem drawing a crowd to him.

Look at verse 2. And a large crowd, mind you, this is a large crowd. Okay, John means it when he says large crowd. This is probably about 15 to 20,000 people. Okay, a large crowd is following him to a desolate place. Imagine a large crowd, 20,000 people flooding into Leroux.

It would be a huge deal, right? Wouldn't be able to feed all those people. It would be overwhelming. And here Jesus goes to a desolate place, and yet a large crowd, it doesn't stop them from desiring to be with Jesus and we see to be blessed by Jesus. Because if you notice in verse 2, it also says they were following him to a desolate place because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick.

These were people that saw Jesus' blessing and they wanted to be near the blessing. And so they follow him all the way to the north, even to a desolate place, just to be near the blessing of Christ. These are people desperate for blessing. But also I want you to see Jesus' willingness to bless these people. Look at verse 3. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples.

Now you might look at that and be like, how does that tell us that he wants to bless the people? Well, I think John is using very important biblical language here to talk about the desires of Jesus. Now, in the other Gospels, all four Gospels, by the way, present this story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. That's very unique for all four Gospels to tell the same account.

And all four Gospels, or the other Gospels, tell us that Jesus saw the large crowd and he had compassion on them. He had compassion on them. And here in John, he doesn't say he has compassion, but he talks, he details the desire that Jesus has to want to bless them by saying he went on a mountain and he sat and he waited for them. Why is that significant language?

Because mountain is a very significant thing in the Bible. A mountain is a place where God likes to bless people. You see all through the scriptures, mountain is a place where God likes to bless the people. We see this throughout all the scriptures. You think of Noah's Ark, it settled on a mountain, and that's where the Noahic covenant was given. Or we think of when God spared Abraham's son, that was on Mount Moriah, and then the covenant was renewed or given again to Abraham.

And on that same mountain was a place where Jerusalem was built and the temple was built. And on that same mountain was where Jesus was crucified for his people's sins. And before Israel entered the promised land, they were blessed from Mount Gerizim. Before the wandering period, they were blessed with the law from Mount Sinai. And Jesus gave the law, famously called the Sermon on the Mount.

So I want you to put in your mind and your heart that God loves to bless people from mountaintops. He just does. So Jesus, when we see in the scriptures here that he went on the mountain, and we saw from the other gospels with compassion in his heart, seeing 20,000 or so people coming towards him, he has a desire from a mountain being truly God's son to bless this people from the mountain.

And what's significant about this? What's significant about seeing the heart of Jesus' desire to bless people here is why did Jesus go to the desolate place to begin with? Now in John, he doesn't tell us why, but in the other Gospels, they tell us why. There's actually a couple reasons why Jesus went to this desolate place. In Matthew, we are told that he went to this desolate place because he just found out that his cousin, the last prophet of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, died.

And so he wants to go to a desolate place, seemingly, to mourn and to pray to God. He was sad. And Mark he tells us the reason why they went to this desolate place is because the disciples just got back from preaching in all the towns throughout Israel and they were exhausted And Jesus says listen we need to get away from here and rest for a while because we don even have leisure to eat right now And so they go to a desolate place.

And lo and behold, they go to the desolate place, and they're like, ah, we get to finally take our summer vacation. and they look up and they see 20,000 people coming to want to be blessed by Jesus. Now, the closest thing I can feel to this is whenever I'm stretched very thin and I want to relax in my living room and all of a sudden 20,000 kids come jumping all over me, right? It is difficult.

It's not easy. I just want to sleep. But yet, I am to give myself. And here, Jesus, with a desire to bless, he has a desire to look up, see them, compassion in his heart and bless this people that are coming to him wanting to be blessed now what's the nature of this blessing what is the nature of this blessing well look at verse four in john six now the passover the feast of the jews was at hand okay that's the context of the nature of the blessing now jesus has turned the water into wine he's been healing the sick and now the nature of this setting the context is the passover and the feast which is why it's going to be about food.

Now that's significant. The Passover was a time in which Israel celebrated the fact that God's wrath passed over the Jews and or on the Israelites and went on the Egyptians so that they could get out of Egypt and get to the promised land. Right. You understand that, right? That God's wrath passed over the Israelites and went on the Egyptians instead so that the Egyptians would say, get out of here.

We don't want you here anymore. So they could go into the wilderness and go into the promised land. And so the Passover was celebrating that fact, that fact that they were protected from God's wrath and they actually got to enjoy the presence of God in the wilderness and in the promised land. And so there's a deeply spiritual component here in the context of this feeding that Jesus is about to do.

It's celebrating the Passover, God's wrath being taken away and his presence dwelling instead. But notice it's a Passover feast. This Passover time was celebrated with a physical nourishing meal. And so it only makes sense that now here Jesus seeing these hungry people coming to him, 20,000 Passover feasts is coming and now he's going to feed them miraculously.

And I want you to know that this feeding that he's going to do has a spiritual component like Passover with a physical component like a meal. The spiritual component Jesus is showing or reflecting and revealing is I am the one that can stop God's wrath from being on you. And I can give you God's presence instead. And it's revealed and here's a meal, a physical meal that shows that point.

So what I want you to reflect on as you see that this is the Passover feast, is that the feeding that Jesus is about to do has a physical component, here's a meal, and a spiritual reality, that is, I can stop God's wrath by being placed on you, by eating of my body, right? By my flesh being sacrificed, that the Israelites were supposed to eat of, the sacrifice that stopped God's wrath. So there's both of these points being made here in this miracle.

The Passover, the spiritual point, and the feast, the physical point. Now, I think it's important for us to consider that. Because, first off, as we go through this chapter, the people that he feeds are going to miss the spiritual point altogether. They're going to think, hey, this guy can feed me. This guy can feed me whenever I want. Now, we live in an age where McDonald's is at every corner except for LaRue.

And so, not a big deal, right? But at this time, even now, the idea that Jesus can take care of my physical needs whenever I want it to. Think about the last time you lost your job. And think about Jesus, boom, new job. You would want that, right? Or, you know, groceries are just too high bills and I just don't have the money to pay for it.

Boom, Jesus gives you the groceries right there. And so what we're going to deal with in this chapter is a people that do not see the spiritual point that I can give you relationship with God because they're grabbing hold of the physical point And they only want that. And that is like the soldier coming home from battle, going to the house, and not caring at all about his mom, and just wanting to eat the pumpkin pie and the cookies and everything else.

It would be completely wrong. But I want to push something else on you, though. And as we're all good, you know, we all wear ties and dresses, you know, Christians on the Lord's Day, right? And so we know, hey, don't miss the spiritual point. You grab hold of that spiritual point. And I want to press something else on you.

Is that there is a physical component of this miracle as well. Jesus cares about blessing you physically as well. Do you know that? That there is a spiritual point for sure that we do not want to lose. But you don't want to lose the fact that Jesus feeds the 5,000 with literal food. Physical food. you know and missing that like i think a lot of times christians we can do because we want to make sure we hold on to the spiritual that we forget the fact that jesus delights in blessing you physically too it's like the soldier coming home and saying ma i don't want any of your pumpkin pie no you're cookies i just want to hug you forever and she would say no and join me through the physical blessings that i'm giving you here and i think we need to grab hold of both as we're looking at the feeding of the 5,000.

As we're looking at this blessing from Jesus, there is both components coming together that we can grab hold of and have a well-rounded view of how Jesus wants to bless you and I. At the risk of sounding like a what do you call those heretics Wealth prosperity preacher Let me just underline this point again before we get into the problem and the solution that Jesus provides because I think this can so easily be missed Turn with me to Matthew 6. Go to Matthew 6.

It's got the famous command by Jesus, do not be anxious. And in verse 25, Jesus tells us, I tell you, Matthew 6, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food? And the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? Verse 27. And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour of span to his life? Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? for the Gentiles seek after these things and your heavenly father knows that you need them all but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you you see there is that put off anxious anxiety and put on seeking first the kingdom of God and that is seek first the spiritual things of life that is righteousness that is be life with God in Christ seek that first and then the problems of the world will diminish and that's true and that's the spiritual point that's being made here and that's the spiritual point that's gonna be made in John chapter 6 Jesus is gonna tell them you're seeking me not because I am the son of God who can give you righteousness but because I fed you with some food and that's a true point but I also want to highlight the fact that Jesus cared about their physical well-being too and fed them food because they were hungry and you notice in this passage Jesus says God cares about your physical well-being.

Did you notice that? We sometimes miss that because we're so stuck on the spiritual point, which is true. But notice what he said in verse 26. Your heavenly father feeds them the birds who are of not as much value. He says, are you not of more value than they? In other words, he's going to feed you.

Or in verse 29 or 30, but if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you of little faith. And what he says going on in verse 32 at the end, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. So the point is, is that God cares both for our physical well-being and our spiritual.

And I think this can very much help us. That whenever we're anxious over this life, we need to ask ourselves, is this going to take away my ability for spiritual blessing? But there's a physical blessing component too. And so we need to ask ourselves, does God not want to bless me physically? And the moment that you start wanting to go down the anxious route because something has happened to you circumstantially, you need to ask yourself, Jesus fed the 5,000 too, right?

Does he not care for me physically too? Yes. And so because my God likes to bless, and I know that's his character this can overcome your anxiety so Jesus has a people before him wanting to be blessed and Jesus sits on the mountain ready to bless with a desire to reveal that he is the one who can take God's wrath away from them and seeing they are without food he has a desire to give them food and a desolate place he cares both for their physical and spiritual well-being.

But there's a problem, isn't there? And look again at John chapter 6, 5 through 6. There's a problem that Jesus highlights with a question to Philip. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, remember with compassion in his heart, desire for these people, where are we to buy bread so that these people may eat? and he said this to test Philip for he himself knew what he would do remember they are in a desolate area with little resources and here comes 5,000 men it doesn't even count their wives and children so perhaps 15 to 20,000 and they are coming towards Jesus to feed them all and the disciples in the other gospels have already said Jesus this is a desolate place get them out of here let them try to fend for themselves and figure it out and instead Jesus does something very weird.

He says, yeah, we're going to feed them. And how are we going to do that? That'd be like, imagine we're about to have our afternoon meal, not today, someday. And then all of a sudden, all the people from Kenton times like three come over into our church and they're all hungry. And Pastor Tim turns to the ladies and says, how are we going to feed them all?

Right? It'd be like, we're not going to feed them all. They're going to go and figure it out on their own. But Jesus is insistent we are going to feed them. How are we going to do it? Philip.

And we see that this is a test to Philip. Jesus knew exactly what he was going to do. It's not like he was like oh man this is a jam let's figure this out together guys. He knows exactly his power, his ability, his love for these people that will enable him, that will cause him to want to feed them. And he's testing to see if Philip is on the same page as Jesus.

Now, how could, with this test given to Philip, how could Philip pass this test, right? So Jesus asks 20,000 people, right, how are we going to feed them? What could Philip have said to pass this test that Jesus had him in? Well, perhaps. Philip could have said, hey, you know what, Jesus? I know the history of the Israelites, and this reminds me of when you fed the Israelites in the wilderness.

That's exactly what is happening here. And so, hey, why don't you do it again right now? I know you can, miraculously, just like you did back then. That would be a good way to pass this test that Jesus has him under. Or perhaps Philip could have said, hey, Jesus, I've seen you turn water into wine. I've seen you heal a lot of people.

You can do miraculous things. I'm sure this won't be a problem for you here. Or Philip could have responded the same way John responds to the elder in Revelation. Remember the elder in Revelation says, who are these people in the white robes? And John has no idea, but he knows that. The elder knows.

And so he says, sir, I don't know. You know, though. So perhaps Philip could have been like, I don't know, but I know you know. I know that you'll bless them. I know your desire to do that. And I think, really, it's important for us to just consider that for a moment.

How do you react when you see no way a possible blessing coming forth from a situation? Right? This is a situation we all find ourselves in. There is no way a blessing here. It's far too much, humanly speaking. Jesus loves to put us in situations where we do not see with our own eyes what he will do to bless us in that situation.

He does that all the time. Just like with Philip, how am I going to feed these people? Remember what God has done in the Bible. Remember what God has done in your own life. Or simply just say, I have no idea, God, how you're going to do good things for me in this situation like you promised, but I know you will. Sadly, many times we fail the test and we end up just looking at the hopelessness of the situation with anxiety lodged within our hearts and we answer like Philip. in which Philip does not pass the test.

Instead, he turns into a human calculator. In verse 7, Philip answered him, 200 denarii worth of bread would not even be enough to fill him in a little bit. So he's looking, with his mind upon what we just went over, God's history in the Bible, his own experience with Jesus, or just simply saying, I know you'll do something. Instead, he says, listen, I'm counting these people, and 200 denarii would not be enough to even feed them just a little bit.

Now, 200 denarii is 200 days of work. Okay, so calculate that right now in your head. 200 days of a common laborer. That's a lot of money. And the disciples did not have that. Judas did not have that in the pocketbook that he was stealing from, by the way.

And so that's what he's saying. He's saying, I have no idea. What are you talking about? Look how many there are. We don't have nearly enough money even to feed them a crumb, Jesus. And I want you, in verse 7, highlight in your mind, we can't even feed them a little because John's going to make the opposite point in a couple verses and then Andrew comes in in verse eight and nine verses eight and nine one of the disciples Andrew Simon Peter's brother said to him there's a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish but what are they for so many so basically Andrew looks at a boy's lunch and he says we got that Jesus I don't see how that's going to work I don't want to look too much in the text here I don't I want to be careful.

But think about how ridiculous this would be if Andrew's being completely serious here. There's 20,000 people coming, no food around except for a boy's lunch. And he says, what about this? You know, maybe this would work. Honestly, this is what I think is going on. The disciples are telling Jesus, get the people out of here.

We can't feed them. They're hungry. We can't feed them. They're looking for a blessing. We can't do it. And so they're basically saying, okay, this is what we got, Jesus.

This is all. A boy's lunch. This is it. They need to be told to go. And the opposite happens where Jesus says all right that do Sit them down We get ready for the feast Again imagine that for a moment You a disciple You like what is going on I sitting down 15 to 20 people and they are ready for a feast and we have a boy lunch This is what Jesus says in verse 10.

After being told about the boy's lunch, we see the blessings start to happen, in which he says, have the people sit down. Now, there was much grass in the place, So the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. Again, that's just men, not including the women and the children. The number could be up to 20,000, 25,000. So we have this interesting situation, right?

No way of actually being able to bless them, but yet Jesus tells them to sit down. And I can imagine the questions being had, right? Why are we sitting down? Is there food coming? I don't see any catering. I don't see Chick-fil-A anywhere.

What's going on here? And they'd have to tell him, just wait and see. And I want you to notice here in verses 11 through 12 how John flips the script. Whereas there was not even enough to even give everyone a crumb, there's abundance. Right? Look at verses 11 through 12.

Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost. And so what you need to grab hold from that is that the situation called for not even being able to provide even a little bit, and because of Jesus and his power and his love for these people, they ate as much as they wanted.

They ate their fill. And then there was some leftover. In fact, what was left over in verse 13, they gathered them all up, the leftover fragments, and there were 12 baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. The leftover portion was more than what they started with to begin with. There was plenty, despite what it looked like.

You would not have thought this would be possible after you saw what Andrew and Philip said. but Jesus is able to provide as much or even more than what they wanted. It's very interesting that there's 12 baskets. All four Gospels make sure they say that there's 12 baskets full. And most people assume or the understanding is that this is saying that Jesus had plenty of blessing for all the tribes of Israel.

Remember, John says that he came to his own. to his own people, and his own people did not receive him. And it was not for a lack of his ability to bless all of Israel. Jesus has the desire and the power to bless his people to the fullest. It's interesting, when Christians are on their deathbeds, you never hear them say, God should have blessed me just a little bit more in my life.

You'll never hear that from a solid Christian on their deathbed. Instead, you will hear of their conviction that God was always faithful to bless me with all that I ever needed. Nay, more. So what's the reaction to this blessing? Well, let's look at the reaction of the people first in verse 14, 6-14. When the people saw the sign, the feeding, this miraculous feeding, unexpected. when they saw the sign that he had done they said this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world and feel the excitement behind there because what they're saying there is that this has happened before in our history moses the prophet during his ministry god rained down manna for 40 years and now here we are this is the prophet that has came after him and he going to do this Hey who knows 40 80 Let see what we can get out of this guy Which is why in verse 15, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king.

Isn't that interesting? We will by force make him king. We will by force grab this guy and he'll be our king and he'll do what we want him to do. Feed us when we want him to feed us. Heal us when we need healing. He'll be it all for us.

He'll be our own personal genie. We will bring him and handcuff him and force him to go to Jerusalem, take out Rome, and he'll be our king in Jerusalem. They were ready by force to make him king. They want to harness this power of food on demand and storm Jerusalem, even taking Jesus by force, they want Jesus to be a king according to their will, their desires.

But Jesus, in verse 15, at the end of that, look at what it says, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. See, Jesus desires to bless the people, for sure. And Jesus desires to bless to people with food and to bless the people with spiritual food as well. But he blesses as a king according to his own will. He does not follow the orders of you and I.

He blesses according to the will of his father. In fact, when we try to force Jesus to dance to our tune, which we like to do, we will find his presence is far from us and it will leave us feeling anxious. The fact is Jesus would one day make his march to Jerusalem to become a king. Jesus would one day make his march to Jerusalem as a king and he would take his position on the throne but it wouldn't be at the will, at the desire of the people.

Instead it would be through humility and sacrifice. We see this. In Mark 10, 32-34, this march to Jerusalem as a king, which the people wanted in that moment, so that they could have him as their genie. We see in Mark 10, 32-34, and they were on the road going up to Jerusalem. This is when Jesus actually did make that march. And Jesus was walking ahead of them, and they were amazed because he was walking with so much desire to go to Jerusalem.

And those who followed were afraid. They knew something was about to happen. And Jesus, taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen, saying, See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him, and after three days he will rise.

That would be Jesus' march to Jerusalem, and it would be by sacrifice to give spiritual blessing to the fullest by his death and resurrection. His kingdom is one of blessing to the fullest, righteousness given by his sacrifice in which now all the physical blessings that we receive in this life as Christians we desire to then use that to grow in our love and the mercies and the grace of Jesus Christ to grow in righteousness. So, like a soldier away at war desiring to be blessed by the presence of his home do you desire the blessing of Jesus in this way?

Are you like a wandering Jew in this chapter, desperate to be blessed by Jesus, seeking them even in the most desolate areas? Are you seeking Jesus this way Do you see Jesus seated high up desiring to bless you We need to see Jesus rightly He wants to bless his people There never a moment where Jesus is like I tired of you I don want to bless you anymore He desires to bless you like he wanted to bless the people in John 6. Our anxieties often start with the presumption that we will not be blessed somehow.

Do you realize that? Whenever you find yourself in a world of anxieties, do you notice that the first step to get you there is because you assume Jesus isn't going to bless you? What a foolish thing to think if you are a follower of Christ. And how much your anxieties would be assuaged if your first step was, Jesus is going to bless me, he desires it, and I want it.

Our joy, despite our anxieties, begin with the presumption that God desires to bless his people. It's the first thought in your head when you feel that pull and anxiety. My Christ is seated on the mountain with compassion. He's ready to bless. Does your conviction that we have a God who loves to bless overcome your inability to see how in a given situation?

I don't know how, but I know who my God is and I know that he wants my best. or like Philip do you just grow anxious as you desperately try to see how God could possibly bless in such a place like this and finally are you following the king the father has ordained or are you following the king of your own making the king that the father ordained sits on his throne now ready and willing to bless you with all the spiritual places that are in the heavenly places. All the spiritual blessings that are in the heavenly places. So that with the physical blessings he gives you, you say, it is enough.

It is more than enough to respond with joyful and happy spiritual worship to your king who has done all things well in the forgiveness of sins and the kingdom of Christ. Let us pray. Oh God, we thank you for Jesus Christ. We thank you for his character. we thank you Lord that as he came to bless those desires never stopped even now he reigns on high wanting to bless I pray God that we would grab hold of all the blessings of Christ we would see that all the blessings find their completion and the spiritual blessings that we would be one with you through the forgiveness of sins but let us remember that it is your desire to bless us physically as well, that you fed the 5,000.

So let us take the physical blessings that you've given to us with joy and use them to produce spiritual worship to you. Let us, whenever we face certain scary times in our lives, may we, God, presume upon the fact that you are going to bless us. You will bless us to cause us to see Jesus more clearly, to follow him, to enjoy him more, and that may be in less resources, but nevertheless, you will be faithful to give us what we need.

God, help us to have this kind of presumptuous or this assumption about you, which is a good thing, because you reveal that as your character all throughout Scripture. And I pray that it would cause us to turn away from the anxieties that the Gentiles feel, because we know who our God is and we know the promises of Scripture and you'll be faithful. So we thank you and we praise you for this truth.

Lord, may we respond and worship to you for Christ has done all things well that we can be close to you through him and that all the things that you give us in this world can be used for your worship and praise and it is enough. We thank you and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.