The Church of Tomorrow, Today

 

The Church of Tomorrow, Today
Today we a take a short summer break from our Names of God Series.  As we have our children with us through the whole service I thought it’d be a good opportunity to talk about pilchards.
John 6:1-15.
Right away in our Text, we are confronted with a problem.  It seems like the less we have the more multiplied are our problems.
I remind you that every miracle began upon the platform of a problem!  Miracles begin as problems. Water in dry places, quails and manna in the wilderness, stilling the sea, no funds to pay creditors, water into wine; lame walking, dumb talking, blind seeing, deaf hearing, demon-possessed freed, and even the dead raised all began upon the platform of a problem!
We need to be able to see that our children are not just problem bringers but potential ministers in God.
1. Rumbling of the Tummies!
It must have been a brilliant time, swept along with the crowd, no thought for anything other than getting close to Jesus.
But that leads to a problem  They were being fed spiritually with his teaching & healed physically by His touch (verse 2) but eventually, no matter how good a meeting you’re in, your tummy is going to let you know about it!
This wasn’t a little problem! Here are thousands of folk and it’s dinner time.  It’s a long way to the closest eating place and none of them had a delivery service.  There are at least 5,000 men not counting women and children.  But there’s nothing to eat!
The problem simply stated is this: there is a demand for which there is no apparent supply.  The demand was bread, and there was no apparent supply; so that created a problem. A demand and no supply is not new or uncommon in the human experience.
We lose our composure when our supply of patience is exceeded by the circumstances which demand our patience.  We become frustrated when our love supply is surpassed by the trying people who need and deserve our love.  We weaken when our schedules and demands overwhelm our capacities. 
So we have run out!  Patience is gone.  Love has decreased.  Fatigue has overwhelmed us.  Circumstances have demanded more than we can pay.  We find ourselves bankrupt in more ways than one.  There is a need and we can’t meet it.  There is a demand and we can’t supply it.  We are without recourse and resource.  We have a problem.  Good!
This is the place to start a miracle!
Our problem is precisely where God chooses to begin the demonstration of the means of invading your poverty with His plenty; your problem with His ministry!
Once the problem has been acknowledged, the possibilities can be addressed.
2. Recognise the Problem
A part of the demonstration in this miracle centres around the approach of Jesus to the problem.  He asks one of His disciples for a solution! 
5: When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”  He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
I think sometimes Jesus will ask us the same sort of thing!  We might be facing something in our lives and He asks, “What do you want to do about this?”  We might then come up with some solutions and ideas.  You know, sometimes that’s OK.  Sometimes God wants us to do our part in His kingdom.  But hose times are not the insurmountable problems.  Those are just life events.
When we are faced with our lack we know we need his fullness.  When we are at the end of ourselves we have to throw ourselves on Him.
Notice that Jesus knew Philip was at a loss.  The demand outweighed the supply.
6-7: He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.  Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”  
Some versions have 200 hundred denarii; a denarii was a day’s wages for a farm labourer.  So Philip is saying, “even if we had a shop nearby, we don’t have the cash.”
Why did Jesus test Philip?  Why not just along and do the miracle if He already knew there was one on the way?  Because sometimes we have to realise that we’re at the need of ourselves and only a poignant question will help us see that.  We have to ask God for His point of view, not rely on ours.
3. Realise the Potential!
Finally in verses 8 and 9 Andrew comes along with a boy.
8-9: Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
The Greek used for ‘child’ or ‘boy’ in the NT can include a figurative usage, or mean a son. 
The word for a child is pais, and is used to define a child in relation to age. 
From this we would see paidion, signifying a little child or a new born. 
We also see the word paidarion, used here in John 6, which means a young boy.  The NIV simply has ‘boy,’ some translations use, “a lad.” 
The point is that this word is very age specific in the Jewish culture and would not have meant someone who had reached double digits.  Our best guess is that this boy was between the age of 5-9 years old!
Two things might surprise us about this.  Firstly, he was out alone!  There’s no mention of his parents.  But this is not so unusual.  It has been said in some African countries that it takes a whole village to raise a child.  There would have been many in the crowd who knew the boy and were keeping an eye on him!
Secondly, if he really is that young, the greatest miracle here may not be that Jesus fed five thousand men, plus women and children, but that the young boy shared!
4. Release a Miracle
Where the adults and church professionals had failed, this boy leads the way!
There are three words used in the NT to describe fish:
• Ichthus – literally a fish.  From this the early Christians would form the acrostic translated into English as Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour and used the fish symbol as a sign of meeting places.
• Ichthudion – this is a diminutive of ichthus, meaning a little fish.
• Opsarion – a diminutive of opson, meaning “cooked meat,” or “a relish, a dainty dish, especially of fish,” it denotes “cooked little fish.”  This is also used to describe the fish Jesus cooked the disciples in John 21 (Jn 21; 9,10,13).
So what?  It is opsarion that John uses to describe the two fish that the boy has in the feeding of the five thousand.  It is literary a cooked snack, it’s not even a real meal! 
How would Jesus have done this in relation to the boy who had given the gift?  Would he have had the boy sent away whilst the grown-ups did adult church?  Or would he have smiled, maybe given a little wink, and kept him close whispering, “Watch this, this is going to be so cool!”
The question I want us to think about today is this:  is there a place for our children in ministry?


From the viewpoint of social position, the boy was poor was poor: 5 barley loaves (cheapest kind of bread) and 2 fish.  In relation to God, the boy was a servant of God.
What was in the boy’s lunchbox, a simple snack, was about to become a feast for those around him.  I sometimes wonder what we have and take for granted, our salvation, gifts of the Spirit, our church, if these things would be a feast with for those around us if we just opened up our lives little!
Little does become much when you place it in the Master’s hands. Perhaps that why Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ (Matthew 4:19).
5. Raise Ministers not Monsters!
There’s a couple of quick things here we can notice as parent/grandparents and congregation:
• This child knew that he was safe near Jesus!  In the crowd, although some would know him, he could still feel overwhelmed.  But he was close enough to Jesus to be spotted by Andrew.  Teaching our kids to walk close to the Lord is a good thing, and again, something that we model; for them!
• This child was generous!  Teaching our children generosity is a great thing, but it is something we have to model for them. 
We have to show them that giving something away shows it does not have a hold over you.  Generosity is an antidote to materialism.
• This child was sent!  Someone sent him out to be with the crowd.  His mum, dad or grandparents, but someone had sent him to be with Jesus for the day. 
Sending our kids out each day means doing more than packing a sardine sandwich; it means prayerfully praying for the Lord to protect them and be with them daily.
Wrapping it up:
We love our kids and young people in the church but we have to stop treating them like an appendage to the church and see them as the church of tomorrow today.
They have a place with us and it is right here, in the heart of what Life Church does, not just for Sundays, but each day of the week.
If they love Jesus then they are fellow ministers and can be used by God to be a blessing!