God Will Make a Way | I’m Looking for a Miracle, Pt. 1
The only people who experience miracles are the people who follow Jesus.- Pastor Charlie Dates
Matthew 14:13-21 NASB
13 Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard about this, they followed Him on foot from the cities. 14 When He came ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.
15 Now when it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, “This place is secluded and the hour is already past to eat; send the crowds away, so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go; you give them something to eat!” 17 They said to Him, “We have nothing here except five loaves and two fish.” 18 And He said, “Bring them here to Me.” 19 And ordering the crowds to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looked up toward heaven. He blessed the food and breaking the loaves, He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And they all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces: twelve full baskets. 21 There were about five thousand men who ate, besides women and children.
An impossibility is when your resources and your power are insufficient to accomplish the need set before you.
The recipe for a miracle is not the hard things that people can overcome on their own.
The recipe for a miracle is that you need an actual bonafide impossibility…
The disciples face an impossibility in Matthew 14. Jesus has been teaching all day. It’s getting late and people are hungry…
And it’s a lot of people…
We learn in verse 21 that it’s 5,000 men not counting women and children. If you add a child and a woman to every man that’s 15,000 people who’ve come to hear Jesus preach.
This situation is overwhelming, and the supply is insufficient…
That’s the recipe for the making of a miracle.
The day will come when you run into an overwhelming situation with an insufficient supply.
But when that moment comes, remember…
What you need is not as important as who you have.
Sometimes when you’re looking at your impossibility, your solution is looking at you.
Jesus, the Miracle Worker
When you get to Matthew chapter 14, Jesus has already done several miracles:
He’s already healed Peter‘s mother-in-law in chapter 8.
He’s already healed the man with the withered hand.
He’s already given sight to the blind in chapter 9.
There are multiple times in the four gospels where Jesus does something that inspires awe and amazement. Jesus does more miracles than anyone in the Old Testament.
And what He does in the New Testament is distinctly better than anything anyone has ever done.
But, seeing these miracles as only wonders of God from the past doesn’t benefit us…
Jesus still makes Himself and His power available to us.
We should read these wonders of Jesus as a reminder and encouragement. The same Jesus who performed the miracles in the New Testament is the same Jesus who walks with us today.
This miracle took place during Passover.
Passover is a feast for the children of Israel to remember how God delivered them from Egypt in the book of Exodus.
They’d gathered every year to recall how God swept through the streets of Egypt, striking down the firstborn of every family. Only those whose doorposts were covered with blood were spared.
And then they need bread at a time of feasting.
That’s how life works.
Sometimes you run up on a famine at the feast…
You can be celebrating a season of deliverance, but not know how you’re gonna get out of your current predicament.
You can be in a moment where you’re celebrating the relics of God‘s power in the past and forget that God can do that right now.
A lot of us come to church to celebrate what God has done in the past, but we forget that He’s the God of the future too. And He’s the God of right now.
After Jesus hears about John the Baptist he goes to be alone…
But the people needed help and they knew He was the only one who could help them.
Pursuing Jesus Leads to the Miraculous
Whenever Matthew records a miracle in his gospel, he always does it in sequence.
In Matthew 4:24-25, 8:1-2, 8:10-13, 9:27-28, 12:15-16, 19:1-2, and today’s passage…
The only people who experience miracles are the people who follow Jesus.
No one should have to beg you to come to church, join a growth group, get in a discipleship class, read your Bible, and learn who Jesus is.
Only the people who are in hot pursuit of Jesus get to see Him do something unusual, extraordinary, and impossible.
If you follow Him, you could get a miracle too.
Jesus is not so focused on people’s supernatural needs that he cannot meet their natural needs.
In fact, natural needs are met through Jesus’s supernatural power.
Jesus says I’m with you…YOU feed them.
Your impossibility will remain an impossibility as long as you keep it in your hands.
But the moment you decide to put it in Jesus’s hands…
That’s when you get a miracle.
Jesus didn’t just come to give us bread…
He came to be bread.
In the same way that bread satisfies, Jesus came from Heaven to Earth to satisfy you.
Jesus satisfies.
Reflection Questions:
Are there areas in your life where you’re celebrating God’s past power but struggling to trust Him for the present?
In what ways might you be holding onto your impossibility instead of placing it in Jesus’s hands?
How can you pursue Jesus more intentionally, knowing that miracles often follow those who seek Him wholeheartedly?