Disciple Making

You have your Bibles with you today.

Turn with me, if you would, to Mark chapter 6, and we're going to start off verses 30 through 32. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we want to lift up Jay Krestar today as he has been called to preach in the absence of the pastor at Goshen Presbyterian Church in Belmont today. We would ask, Lord, that you be with Jay anointing and help him, Lord, that he might feed that congregation. Heavenly Father, we continue to pray for our sick. We pray for Fran Ruisi, who is suffering with esophageal cancer, help her through the radiation and chemotherapy.

We pray for Nicole Lowes, who would help her to heal completely from the vertigo. We thank you, Lord, for Jean Voice's healing, and we pray for Bob Reynolds as he mourns the death of his wife, Jean. Heavenly Father, the passage that we are looking at today teaches us a lesson that the modern day church needs desperately. That is that Jesus is not calling for decisions. He's calling for disciples. He wants us to grow up spiritually.

He wants us to so mature that we can train up others. Lord, we're also looking at a miracle that you did. You fed 5,000 men with five Lowes and two fish. That should build our faith. It should make us stand with Paul, who said in Philippians 4.19, For my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus. Father, use this passage today to make us hungry to be true disciples. For it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. The most effective attacks against the modern day church in America today are surprisingly not just coming from communism and the culture. The most effective attacks that are coming against the church today are coming from within through the forms of progressivism and liberalism. Folks, in the name of Christianity, these movements are doing all that they can do to try to create damage in the faith that we have in Scripture and to cripple our witness as believers.

R.C. Sproul, in his commentary on the Gospel of Mark, was sharing some things that helped us understand what the liberals are doing, and he explained how they are trying to discredit the miracles of Christ, and the miracle of Christ that we're looking at today is the feeding of the 5,000. Did you realize that's one of the most important miracles in the Scripture?

It's listed in all four of the Gospels. But Sproul was sharing what they do to try to explain those miracles away, and I want to share with you two of the things that were said. One so-called theologian said, When it came time to feed the people, the disciples formed a bucket brigade, passing loaves and fishes to him through the back of his robe, which he then distributed to this mass of humanity that was gathered in front of him. So the feeding of the 5,000 was merely a hoax perpetrated by a fraudulent preacher. The other explanation was that when Jesus finished his teaching that day, the people were tired and hungry, but very few of them had thought ahead, and they brought food for their nourishment. Jesus asked his disciples to go around and find who had brought food, and it turned out that some had brought loaves and some fish. So Jesus addressed the multitude and said, So the true miracle that took place was an ethical miracle. It was the miracle of human beings sharing their provisions with one another.

R.C. Sproul said it well when he declared, They do not reflect the straightforward testimony of the text that Mark sets before us. I think we need to understand what's going on.

I think that needed to be said. Folks, the Bible is not a fairy tale. We can trust it implicitly. Jesus Christ is not devious.

He is not a fake magician. Jesus Christ is Lord, and the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, we can trust it had happened exactly as the Scripture lays it out for us. I've got three points that I want to share with you today. Point one is disciple making. Look with me again at verses 30 through 34. The apostles returned to Jesus and told Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got their head to them. When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things. Now remember, the disciples had been sent out by Jesus, and they had gone, they'd been out ministering for probably two or three months.

And what had they done? They'd done the same thing Jesus did. They went out and they taught the Word of God, they healed the sick, and they cast out demons.

But now the Scripture says that they were back with Jesus. Now in verse 30, the Scripture says that they were apostles. This is the first time in the Gospel of Mark that they are called apostles. Up to this time, they are always called disciples. A disciple is a student, a learner. He is a follower.

But the word apostle means one who has been sent. I shared with you just a few weeks ago that the apostolic age is over. It's over.

When did it end? The apostolic age ended when John the apostle, the son of Zebedee, died. When John the apostle wrote the last word in the book of Revelation, that's the word amen, then the canon of Scripture was closed. And so we have no apostles today. Our apostolic authority today is what?

It is the Word of God. But notice how Jesus is continuing His discipling of them. Jesus takes these apostles under His wing and He nourishes them.

It doesn't matter if they're apostles or not. He teaches them. He feeds them.

Why do they need that? Is Jesus trying to just get them spiritually fattened up so they'll be better at Bible jeopardy? No.

No. Jesus is teaching them and He's putting them under His wing so that they can learn how to take others and put them under their wing. Years ago I went to a pastors conference that was entitled Training Faithful Men. And the speaker in that particular conference looked out at us as pastors. He said, there are many of you that are pastors right now that are spending an inordinate amount of time in administrative duties. He said, what you need to do is this. You need to find people in your church that are gifted to do that and let them do it.

And then you need to do this. You need to be making disciples in your church. And the key verse that he used was 2 Timothy 2-2, the things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou of faithful men which shall be able to teach others also. He said, find faithful men who are committed to Christ and committed to the church.

Find faithful men who love the Lord and care for His people and then put those men under your wing. Train them one on one. Meet with them at least once a week and teach them the principles of God's Word. Make memorization and meditation on Scripture a daily practice and then teach them to do this. It might take a year.

It might take two years. But teach them to be trained up in the Word of God in such a way so that they can take someone, a faithful man, put them under their wing and teach them and train them so they can teach others. Folks, I have watched the Lord use this principle and I've watched in people and in the men that I see that happening in, there has been unbelievable growth, spiritual growth. The man who developed this program started a church out in Washington State and he started with four men, faithful men, and he took them and he trained them, put them up under his wing and trained them and worked with them for a year. And then after a year, those four men took four other men and they trained them and that kept multiplying.

In a period of five years, that church had moved from five faithful men to a thousand disciples. And he said people kept coming to him and telling him, this is taking too much time. We don't need to do this.

It's too much trouble. And he said, look, I don't have time to take shortcuts anymore. He said, this is what I've learned. You don't grow oak trees overnight.

The principles of discipleship that Jesus is laying down for the apostles here cannot be overlooked. It's the process of multiplication. Let me give you an example. You see a checkerboard. How many blocks are on a checkerboard?

64. Alright, what if you took one grain of wheat and put on the first block? On the second block you doubled it and put two. The third block you doubled it and put four. The fourth block you doubled it and got eight. And the fifth block you doubled it and got 16. How much wheat would you have on the 64th block?

Enough to cover the entire country of India. Folks, that's multiplication. That's what we are being called to do. That's the key to carrying out the Great Commission. Jesus didn't say to go get decisions. Jesus said to make disciples. I think the greatest translation for the Great Commission would be this, as you were going, make disciples. Well, a very wise Jesus knew the disciples were tired. I like how John MacArthur said it.

Listen to this. The Lord recognized their need for rest and responded with tenderness. Following His instruction, the disciples went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. The boat likely belonged to some of the former fishermen among the Twelve, such as Peter and Andrew or James and John.

Even the trip across the lake provided the disciples with an opportunity to enjoy a short reprieve from the pressure of the crowds. Interesting thing here, Jesus and the disciples get in the boat. They're going to their destination. And in the boat, straight across the water, is their destination and it takes them four miles to get there.

Out there on the shore where they were, there was a huge group of people, desperate people, who desperately wanted to see Jesus. And for them, they didn't have a boat, so they can't go as the crow flies. They can't go across the water. They have to go the land route.

And the land route is ten miles, so they take off. Many of them are running and they go all the way around where Jesus is going to go and they actually beat Jesus to where He's coming in. So Jesus is coming in on the boat and He looks out there and He sees this mass of people. Some of them are sick, some of them are diseased, some of them are infirmed, some of them are depressed, some of them are tortured by demons.

And the Scripture says that Jesus was moved with compassion. That these people were like sheep without a shepherd. You know, sheep are some of the most helpless animals in the world. They don't have anything to fight with.

They don't have sharp claws, they don't have sharp teeth, they can't run very fast, they can't see very well. They are kind of just bloated with heavy wool and besides all that, they're dumb. And you know, that's the picture of us. That's who we are without Christ guiding and directing in our lives. What drew Jesus to these sheep? What drew Jesus to these sheep?

He was moved with compassion. One of the great gifts of the Spirit of God is the gift of mercy. You know, every true Christian has been given at least one spiritual gift.

Some have more than that, some have two or three. But everybody has one and that one particular spiritual gift permeates the personality of that person. My gift is exhortation. And that particular gift is helping people to move up the spiritual ladder.

It permeates my personality, it affects my thinking. Let me tell you what Jesus had. Scripture says that the Spirit of God was given to Jesus without measure.

He didn't have one spiritual gift, He had all the spiritual gifts. And I'm telling you something, I praise God for His justice and I praise God for His holiness. But what I really praise God for is His mercy. I praise God for the mercy of Jesus.

Why? Because I know that I'm nothing but a vile sinner and if it hadn't been for Him going to the cross, I'd be headed for hell right now, for that's exactly what I deserved. But because of Jesus, because of His mercy, because He shed His precious blood for me, I know that I'm on my way to heaven because I know Him and He knows me. In 1 Peter 5 verse 8, I love what Peter said. He said to the church, "'Cast all your cares upon Him, Jesus, for He cares for you.'" Well, the disciples saw that compassion, they saw that gift of mercy in Jesus, and one of the steps of them being discipled was so that they could develop that mercy in them. And they were watching Jesus live it out right here. So what did Jesus do for this crowd? Scripture says in verse 34 that Jesus taught them many things, taught them many things, and they saw that. And what they were coming to understand is this, Jesus had a priority of feeding the sheep.

Very interesting, in the Gospel of John, chapter 21 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. Peter has denied Jesus three times. His heart is broken. He's discouraged.

He hates himself. He thinks Jesus will never have anything to do with him ever again. And then Jesus in His resurrected body appears there on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. He says, Peter, come on with me.

And they start walking down the shore of the Sea of Galilee by theirself. Jesus, I imagine, put His arm around Peter's shoulder. He said, Peter, I want to ask you a question. Peter, do you love me? Peter said, yes, Lord, you know I love you. He said, feed my sheep.

They walked on a little further. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know I love you. Feed my sheep. Walk on a little further. Peter, do you even like me?

Do you love me as a friend? And I'm sure with tears in his eyes, Peter said, yes, Lord. He said, then feed my sheep. Simon Peter never got over that. Thirty-five years later, Peter's in a prison cell in Rome getting ready to be crucified. He writes two letters.

We call them First and Second Peter. In the fifth chapter of that first letter, he's talking to the pastors, to the elders, and he says this, the very first thing, feed the flock of God. Folks, that's the pastor's greatest responsibility. Over and above everything else, we can let some things slide. We don't have to be great in everything, but we better be serious about teaching the people of God the Word of God.

How important that is. Well, that's what Jesus was doing there. Huge multitude of people, and the scripture says that Jesus taught them many things. The disciples learned a lot that day as they were watching Jesus. They learned a lot about compassion. They learned a lot about mercy. I think primarily they learned the importance of feeding the sheep. The second point that I want to share with you is disciples with a little.

Look at verse 35 through 38. And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, this is a desolate place and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? He said to them, how many loaves do you have?

Go and see. And they found out they said five loaves and two fish. Now Mark leaves out some very sweet detail here. John fills us in.

And so I'm going to say some things. You're not going to see it in the Gospel of Mark, but if you go over to the Gospel of John, you'll see what I'm talking about. But our Lord's teaching was so powerful and so captivating that that huge multitude was absolutely mesmerized. And Jesus kept teaching all day. And they didn't even realize how long it had been until all of a sudden the sun started going down.

And the disciples began to realize, uh-oh, we're in trouble. Here's these huge crowds of people. They're hungry. They're thirsty. And they don't have time to go home now. There's not a restaurant.

There's not a grocery store anywhere around. What in the world are we going to do? And they come to Jesus and say, Jesus, how are we going to deal with this? How are we going to feed all these people? Jesus looks over to Philip. And he says to Philip, you feed them.

You feed them. How much money is it going to take to feed all these people, Philip? Philip's the analytical disciple. He thinks like an engineer, and he's very careful in his thinking. And I think it's also very interesting that this is the only place in the Bible that Jesus ever asked for anybody's advice. And John says he did this on purpose to test Philip because he knew exactly what he was going to do. Well, here's Philip. And Philip has heard what Jesus has had to say. And now Philip's mind is whirring like a calculator. He's looking at it all, this huge crowd. He's trying to figure out how many that are there. And then he comes up with a figure for Jesus. He said, if we could get 200 denarii.

He said, I don't know where that's coming from. But if we could get it, he said, then we could give everybody at least a little bit, a little insignificant bit of food. Philip calculated that he calculated without Christ.

Look, why don't we do that? Why is our vision so small? Why don't we take the blinders off and see the grandeur and the majesty and the power of our Lord? The scripture says in Ephesians chapter three verse 20 that the Lord can do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask or even more than we can think.

While Philip is contemplating all this, a glorious story breaks out. The crowd's enormous, 5,000 men. That doesn't include the women and children.

It could have been 20,000 there. There's a little boy there that morning and he's probably around eight or nine years old. His mom has made him a little sack lunch, five loaves and two fish. He doesn't know the disciples. He doesn't know Jesus.

He's probably there out of curiosity like a whole lot of these people were. And all of a sudden he looks out and the disciples running around in a panic wondering how in the world they're gonna feed all these people. So he goes over to Andrew and he starts tugging on his toga. Andrew looks over there at him and I'm sure he's kind of aggravated. He says, what do you want, little boy? Little boy looks up and he takes that lunch and he hands it up to Andrew. He said, Jesus can have my lunch. And I'm sure Andrew smiled. He said, well, that's a sweet kind thing but what's this little lunch?

That's not enough. And then Andrew thinks, well, at least it's something. And so he takes the little boy by the hand and they start going through the crowd making their way through that throng of people and he takes him right up to the feet of the master, right up to the feet of Jesus. You know, Andrew didn't have to do it that way. He didn't have to do it that way at all. He could have very easily taken that bag out of the hand of that little boy and just taken it up to Jesus himself. He didn't do that.

Why not? Because he wanted that little boy to be part of the experience, to share the experience. Daddies, let me tell you something. Your kids need to be part of your Christian experience. If you're gonna share the gospel with somebody and your kids are old enough, they'll sit still and listen, then take them with you when you're sharing the gospel. Let them hear their daddy tell somebody else how sweet Jesus is and how desperately they need Jesus' salvation. You're gonna take some food to a hungry family? Take your daughter with you. Take your little boy with you. Let them see the Christian experience.

Let them share in that themselves. So with that huge crowd looking on, Jesus looks down at that little boy and smiles, and he says, little boy, can I have that lunch? And that little boy's excited. He reaches up and he hands it to Jesus and he says, yes, sir, here's my lunch. And Jesus takes it from him. Andrew looks over at Jesus, I'm sure probably apologetically, shrugs his shoulders and said, all we have here, Lord, is two little fish and five loaves, but what is that among so many?

Andrew didn't see much hope. He's already written across that little lunch sack, insufficient funds. He says, little boy, you got a little, but we need a lot.

Let me ask you something. Any of you here saying that about yourself? You say, man, I'm just insufficient.

I'm insignificant. I just don't have the talents or the gifts or the abilities to really be used of the Lord. Nobody ever says, I'll never really be used of the Lord. Nobody will ever ask me to teach Sunday school. Nobody will ever ask me to sing in the choir. Nobody will ever ask me to help figure out the church budget. Nobody will ever ask me to be on the mission committee. Don't worry about it, because if you're a true child of God and you stay ready and you stay available and you stay open before the Lord, Jesus is going to lift you up and He is going to move you to the forefront.

The providence of God is going to single you out and He's going to use what you have. You say, well, Doug, I don't have much. Well, it's got to be more than five loaves and two fish. But this little boy didn't own a bakery. He didn't own stock in Chick-fil-A. All he had was a little snack lunch.

That was it. But he took it and he put it in the hands of Jesus and Jesus said, I'll take it. You know, we've been so conditioned by society that we try to apply the world's system to the Christian faith and we shouldn't do that. The world tells us bigger is better. It's always better. No, it's not.

It's not always better. We need to understand that. Several years ago, I preached a series of revival services in Saskatchewan, Canada. I met a missionary there who had been a missionary to Saudi Arabia.

Very tough, tough mission work. He shared with me about a young man, 20 years old, that he had a chance to share the gospel with. He said, this man had a father who was a wealthy oil sheik and this father, at his 21st birthday, his son's 21st birthday, was going to give him $20 million to start his life with. The man, the missionary, wanted to share the gospel with him and he did. He told him about the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. He told him about the power of the resurrection. He told him about the love of Jesus as he became the substitutionary atonement for his people and he called him to a radical repentance. That boy's heart was broken by God. Right there, he trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior, repented of his sin, turned away from Islam.

All of this just happened just very, very quickly. The boy's father found out about it and disowned him. He said, you'll never get a penny from me.

Then the father got so angry that he put out a contract to have his son killed. I'm going to another country right now. You pray for me. I believe the Lord might use me. I'm just going to give the Lord what I have.

I don't have much, but I think the Lord might use me. He went to Turkey. Nothing in his hand but a Bible with clothes on his back. For a year, he lived in a cardboard box and all he did was look for food, read the scripture, and pray.

After a year of this, an ordinary friend of mine told me, he said, Doug, I've never seen anything like it before. He said there was a power and an anointing that was unbelievable. He said that man just ripped the heart right out of the false religion of Islam. He called the Muslim people to a radical repentance. He said there was hundreds and thousands of people that came to Christ. God didn't need that daddy's money to pay you $50 million. He just took this one young man who was consecrated to him, he filled him with his spirit, multiplied his resources, and then sent him into the Muslim world to penetrate that world with his testimony. Folks, there's nothing scriptural about this idea that bigger is always better.

It's not. I think of Gideon. Gideon said, I want you to go out and defeat the Midianites.

Gideon said, I'll be right back. He went out and got 22,000 troops, brought them back. He said, how about this, Lord?

Lord said, no, no, way too big. And so he went out to the troops. He said, how many of you are scared?

12,000 said we are. And so he cut it down to 10,000. He took that back. How about this, Lord? Lord said, no, no, way too big.

Cut it down to 300. The Midianites defeated them just like that. And what happened? Everybody knew this was not Gideon that did this. This was God that did this. And guess who got the glory out of that? God got the glory. Folks, we can't take the good old American away and try to apply it to our faith.

It won't hold the water. The success formula for the world doesn't fit into Jesus' plans. The church is not a business. It's a family.

It's not so much an organization as it is an organism. And we err greatly when we try to copy the world's agenda. Folks, what we need to do is this. We need to quit looking at our smallness and we need to start looking at God's greatness. In Zechariah chapter four verse 10, Zechariah said that we are not to despise the day of small things. Jesus said, he that is faithful in that which is least will be faithful in that which is much.

Let me tell you something, little is much when God's in it. All right, point three, a Lord with a lot, verses 39 through 44. Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass, so they sat down in groups by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and set a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. He divided the two fish among them all and they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces of fish and those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men.

Erwin Lutzer said the following. He said, I can't prove it but I believe the miracle took place in the hands of Jesus. The disciples could only give away what they had received. Only Jesus could keep giving beyond what he had in his hands.

Imagine this, Peter came to Jesus for a bit of fish. He was amazed that there was enough for him and for others too. Each disciple came to Jesus and each came away with enough food for dozens of people sitting on the ground. And no matter how often the disciples returned, their arms were always full if they came expecting to receive what he was waiting for them. The people received as much as they wanted and if there had been 20,000 on the hillside, they too would have been fed.

A big miracle is no more difficult for God than a small one. Omnipotence has an unending supply. What a picnic.

I guess the best way to describe this situation would be resources in the hands of omnipotence. What this little boy held in his hands was nothing but just a greasy little bag lunch. In it five rolls and two sardines. That was all there was, but when that little bag was placed in the hands of Jesus, then the possibilities were unlimited.

Picture this if you can. Jesus is standing there, he takes the bread and the fish and he starts to break it, starts multiplying it in his hands. The disciples start coming one by one, they hold their togas out, they get filled up with bread and fish, they take it off and start distributing it among the crowd and then the next one comes up to Jesus and the next one, and the first one goes back and gets back in line. That goes on until that entire group of people are completely and totally fed. The scripture says not only did they eat, but they ate until they were about to pop.

They ate everything they wanted and then there were 12 basket fulls left over. Folks, is that not God's way? Does God not love doing that?

He loves to use the insignificant in order to confound the world. In 1 Corinthians 1, 27 through 29, Paul said, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And then the next one comes up that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Dust is nothing, right? God took dust and molded it into man. Donkey's jawbone seems fairly insignificant, but in the hand of God was given over to Samson and he used it to kill a thousand Philistines. What can our church do? We can put our resources into the hands of Jesus.

Folks, when we do that, the possibilities are unlimited. When the thousands of people saw these fish multiplying off the hands of Jesus, I'm sure that they praised God and I'm sure that they thought in their minds this has got to be our long-awaited Messiah. People, that little boy gave his lunch to Jesus and Jesus used it to glorify himself. Little boy didn't have to do that. He could have taken that lunch, he could have got off by himself, he could have eaten his own personal meal and you know it would have stayed five loaves and two fish.

But when he gave it to Jesus, then it fed thousands, thousands. I can imagine that boy going home that day. His mom was probably worried sick. Son, where in the world have you been?

I've been scared to death worrying about you. He said, Mom, you ain't gonna believe what you're doing. Let me close with this. The question we need to ask today once again is what am I among so many? D.L. Moody was over in England and he heard a street preacher, his name was Henry Varley, and this street preacher made a statement and that statement was this. This world has yet to see what God can do with one man who is completely and totally yielded to Jesus Christ.

And D.L. Moody said, by the grace of God, I'll be that man. And he shook two continents for Christ. What are you among so many? What about you? What about me? What can God do with us when we take our resources, our gifts, our abilities, the money that we have, the things that the Lord has given us and we put them in the hands of omnipotence.

What happens then? God can use us in mighty ways. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, this story teaches us that little is much when God's in it. The story also teaches us that true disciples trust you for provision. We too often miss your provision because we're so enamored by this world. We want to apply all the world's tricks and techniques rather than just trusting you. As we leave this building today, may we leave trust in Luke 1-37 that with God all things are possible. For it's in the precious name of Jesus that we pray, amen.