Char Chpl The Significance of the Insignificant

It's been a long day, getting towards the end of the day. It's been a warm day. Thousands and thousands of people are with Jesus and they have a problem.

John chapter 6. Gabriel, if you're towards the end of the reading, just join me in the pulpit here, please. In the pulpit Bible, it's page 1069. In my Bible, it's page 972, and there are probably many other options, so maybe we're not helping you too much with numbers, but if you're in the pulpit Bible, at least you've got some idea as to where to go.

Sometime after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee, that is, the Sea of Tiberias, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover feast was near.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards 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. Philip answered him, Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each to have a bite. Another of the 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? Jesus said, Make the people sit down.

There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, Surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. Well, it was a little boy who handed over his pipe.

I speak to you this morning on what I've entitled the significance of the insignificant. The significance of the insignificant. I sometimes have to try to disabuse students who come in an over modest fashion into the college, terrorized in the first week or so that there is no way in which they can cope with the demands that this professional course of study imposes on them.

And in one sense, a feeling of insignificance is a good starting point, provided it is sincere. But you can take it too far. Traveling around, as I do almost every Sunday within Scotland and within the United Kingdom generally, I often find myself trying to minister encouragement to Christians who sometimes seem to have forgotten that God is omnipotent and he will work out his purposes.

And that song to which I made reference on the borders of Afghanistan near the city of Kabul, not far away from Peshawar, which greedily, astonishingly suggested that the day would come when the praise of Christ would be proclaimed not only in Asia but around the world, that daring faith has biblical justification. It is my contention that the most powerful organism in the world today is the Church of Jesus Christ. And when she is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, she is unstoppable.

And that church is made up of insignificant, inadequate, ordinary people, just like this congregation. Not that long ago I found myself privileged in the centre of London to be addressing the Annual General Mission of the London City Mission. And the Annual General Meeting was an occasion when the 120 or so missionaries were brought together along with the office staff and those who support the mission.

And I thought to myself as I looked upon that congregation, this is just impossible. This is a band of men and women who are targeting a city of 8 million people. 8 million over against 120, it does not tally, it seems so utterly impossible.

Oh, I know there are other churches as well and that has to be brought into the equation. But when you've added it all up, the task seems to be ginormous, impossible. Now, the passage to which I'm taking you is one with which you are familiar.

And you might wonder why in a church which is famous for expository Bible teaching, does someone slip across from Glasgow and take you to the feeding of the 5,000. And I do so for one reason. And the reason is that little boy.

He has dominated my thinking for quite some time. The most unreached group in the world with a gospel today is not the Islamic community. The most unreached group are children under the age of 16.

88% of all children in Glasgow never darken the door of a church. And I doubt whether the statistic is much more favorable here in Edinburgh. And if ever there has been a time to focus on children, children unreached, children exploited, children in need, it is today.

Which is one of the reasons why we built into our course, as far as I know, the first BA in the United Kingdom that emphasizes just children's ministry and trains people in the theology of the child as found in the Old Testament and the New Testament and also to go into the slums of Calcutta and Bombay and also to help children who have been fathered for pedophiles and the like. And it's a child, a child who features in this story. An insignificant child who has significance because he does something in the service of Jesus.

And though I don't want to build more upon this action than the chapter can sustain, it seems to me important or else it would never have been written into the story. You see, this is one of the few parables, or rather one of the few miracles, which is recorded in each of the four gospels. And you wonder why the Holy Spirit, with somewhat an economy of pages in terms of how big and long scripture is going to be, why he causes this incident to be written four times.

And the answer has to be because of its importance. But it has particular, exclusive significance in the gospel of John because it's only in this narrative that you see the little boy. 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? You've got the scene. It's a vast crowd.

Not just 5,000. Double it, out the ladies. If it's anything like the evangelical proportion of women to men in church attendance, you should triple it and add to that the kids.

It's a crowd of huge dimensions, which has been with Jesus for a long time. And before dismissing them, our Savior who comes to save the soul but is concerned about the body, is reluctant to let them go. Unless they have food in their stomachs.

For he's concerned that they may expire on the return journey. So that's the scenario. A problem.

A problem which Jesus poses to his disciples. But before we think about the problem, let's think about this little boy for a moment. It seems to me he's an example of what Jesus Christ can do through the ministry of someone who seems to be so insignificant that in a crowd of thousands, you wouldn't point him out.

The reason why this lad causes me interest, particularly, is that he still has his sandwiches. Oh come on. He's been with Jesus for a long time.

Life in those days did not have the disadvantage of television. Village communities were not perhaps the most exciting place to be in. And here is this kid.

And he sees a crowd. And so he sets off. With the sandwiches his mum has made.

The barley loaves. The food of the poor. Salted fish.

Maybe caught by his father the previous night. And he comes to the crowd and no young kid wants to look at the backside of adults for hours. So, using the imagination that Alexander White said we should bring to scripture, you imagine him getting his way to the front of the crowd.

The hours have gone by. And he still has his sandwiches intact. Some while ago I was visiting my mum.

She's very elderly and she's in a retirement home in a city I was brought up in, in Sheffield. The lady was visiting at the same time and she didn't have a car, so when she'd finished I ran her back and then returned to the nursing home. But I dropped her on the road where my school that I went to as a kid is.

And I remember the occasions when, after the war, the Second World War. My mum would have packed up the dripping sandwiches and we'd make our way to school. And the socialist government had given milk for all the kids to ensure that they were nourished.

And the idea was for the milk to meet the dripping sandwiches at 11 o'clock. But I don't think they ever did. You see, it's the tendency of children to get chocolate into the stomach as quickly as possible.

Or food, not to preserve it, but this lad has been with Jesus for some hours. And the context allows me to make this point. That Jesus seems to be such a spellbinding preacher, the boy has forgotten his sandwiches.

I had one of the greatest compliments ever paid to my ministry just a few months ago in Glasgow. A little kid, I apologise for telling a story which seems self-serving, but that's not the intention, if you hang on you'll understand why. A little kid came to me at the end of the service, it was an evening service, it was full, got a crew cut, got blue eyes.

And he put his arms around me and he looked up and he said, Mr, you were great. When a 12-year-old kid from Glasgow will listen to an evening service and dare to come up to the preacher and express thanks, I think the preacher has a right to feel a warmth in his heart. And here is the beloved Lord, the greatest preacher that ever there was.

And this lad has been with him, has been with him for hours. And when a situation arises in which what he has is needed by Jesus, the boy hands it over. And one cannot, thinking through the personality of Jesus, believe that that was anything but a voluntary action on the part of the lad.

Not a snatched meal by the bully boys, taking it to Jesus. But the offering of a lad who is unknown, of something that seems utterly insignificant and placed in the hands of Christ. I've got a book in front of me, stories from around the world, which I've helped to bring into production, wearing my Operation Mobilisation hat.

It's the brainchild of Keith Damby, who is an OM or STL, a close friend of mine. This book has been printed 50,000 times, completely sponsored by Christian organisations. We're selling it free, at least we're selling it, but the profits that are made go to world missions and also to International Christian College in part.

But my point in referring to this book is this, that in the chapter that I write, I speak about the most incredible things that God is doing in India through the most insignificant people. Amazing what the Lord can do in the most unpromising circumstance to bring about to His praise and to His glory something that really blows the mind in terms of it could never happen, but it has. And when the book comes up for another edition next year, I intend to tell the story of a guy who works on the streets of Calcutta, who I'd like to bring to the International Christian College, but he's a clone of Cliff Richard, and I'm a little scared that the girls would sort of drool if they found him on the front row.

But seriously, he was a child who was disgorged from one of the trains coming in from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to the platform area of Calcutta, which has so many vulnerable children. And he was looked after by two of the most remarkable people I've ever met in Calcutta, along with a vast orphanage and schools. And that lad today is doing exactly the same work in Serampore, where William Carey was a couple of hundred years ago.

An insignificant lad, impacting the society, and yet 20 years ago when he arrived on the platform of Calcutta, you would have said that there is no way that that lad has any hope, there's no way that he could make any mark at all, and yet what he is engaged in, if it was in the United Kingdom, would probably get headlines in the religious press. This little lad offers something that is inadequate in the service of Jesus. But there's more in the story than just the boy.

There are the disciples. You see, when Jesus performs miracles, when our Lord teaches in his remarkable style with those brilliant parable illustrations, he always has his eye on his men, his men who will continue his ministry when Jesus is corporeally no longer present, when in bodily form he is not to be found. And he tests his disciples.

As I try to test my students, he endeavours to bring them to maturity, so he rolls the problem on them. This crowd, so very large, how shall we feed them? And he gets some sort of attempt at a rational, but an utterly inadequate suggestion. Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite.

That's Philip's unhelpful contribution. And Andrew comes along and he says, here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish. But how far? How far, Jesus, will those go among so many? And the implication of the conversation is, not far, not far at all.

It is impossible that this small contribution that we've taken from this lad that's being given to us by this lad can in any way help you, Jesus Christ. The disciples have a lot to learn, as we have a lot to learn, as my students have a lot to learn, that something that is totally inadequate, placed in the crucible of the sovereignty of Jesus Christ, can meet the needs, can impact so many people. How far? How far will 190 students go in a world that has so much need? And the answer is, not far, not very far at all.

We stuff them with theology, we bring them into a discipline program, but if theology is all they leave with, they won't go very far. Neither will this church. It has to offer what it's got, the inadequacy of the membership.

I speak with respect. It has to be placed within the crucible of the omnipotence of Jesus Christ in order to go far. And I find this to be one of the most astonishing passages in the whole of the Bible, when Jesus says to the disciples, make my people sit down, there's plenty of grass in the place, and they sat down, and then Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated.

Jesus, the bread of life, stands before a crowd with an inadequate offering from some village woman who's cooked on her griddle that morning those barley loaves, offers that fish, possibly from the woman's husband's enterprise the previous day. The Lord of Glory brings before the Father of Glory this lad's little sacrifice and gives thanks. And Augustine at this point brilliantly says, Jesus gives thanks for what we are becoming.

Jesus gives thanks for what we are becoming. When he first saw Peter, Peter the unstable man who really did not suggest anything in terms of natural talent, Jesus perceives him in terms of what he can be when he is infused with his word and infused with his spirit. He sees him not as shifting sand, he sees him as Peter the rock, Peter the man who shall lead the apostolic group into the world for the proclamation of the gospel.

Peter he sees as an evangelist extraordinaire, Peter who will make his debut as a preacher on the day of the feast of Pentecost and address thousands and there shall be a magnificent return as people respond to the gospel. Jesus gives thanks for what the bread and the fish shall become as he has such distributed. Now come, you must see the point.

Imagine the little boy, eyes wide open, Jesus takes his mum's bread and breaks it and breaks it and breaks it and breaks it. If you'd had a video camera at that point wouldn't it have been wonderful? Just to have got his reaction. Can't you imagine what he must have said back home when he returned and described the events of the day, what Jesus did to his mum's bread, what Jesus did to his dad's fish, what Jesus can do for those disciples, what Jesus can do through you and me.

Jesus says make the people sit down, there's plenty of grass, he gives thanks, he has the food distributed, he does the same with the fish and then when they've had enough to eat he says to his disciples gather the pieces that are left over, let nothing remain, let there be no waste. You see the extraordinary thing about this boy's, this insignificant unknown little lad's contribution to this event is people started to talk about Jesus. They asked questions.

One of the reasons for us being on earth as Christians is to excite the interest of other people in the Lord whom we serve. And if this kid can do it, unintentionally I admit, but if he is able to achieve this, how much more should people from Charlotte Chapel, having had one of the best ministries that the United Kingdom has known over so many years, how much more should we be impacting our society? I used to have in my congregation overspills from Westminster Chapel, people who'd retired down on the south coast and because there was a sort of similarity in theological emphasis and building structure. One of the saddest things I heard from an elderly lady who for 28 years had sat at the feet of Martyn Lloyd-Jones was of course there's nothing that I can do.

There's very little that I can do effectively to extend the kingdom. She was actually being a little bit dishonest and self-deprecatory because there was a lot that she was doing even though she was unaware of it. But it's this theology of insignificance that I war against because it is utterly unbiblical.

These people start to ask about this man who has dealt with them in such a remarkable fashion. They began to say, surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Their conclusions and their summation may have been erroneous but the point that stands out and is agreeable is that people started to talk about the Lord Jesus and it's a knock-on effect of this insignificant lance, this insignificant offering. I started off by taking you to London and to the needs of that mega city. We could talk about the needs of Europe.

We could talk about the needs of the Western world. Fortunately, the picture that we get of the church here is not representative of the church worldwide. I've just come back from Gabriel's country of Uganda.

I watched on two occasions an Anglican bishop induct into the Church of England in a confirmation, a moving confirmation service, not just one, not two, but hundreds of youngsters who confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. A similar sort of story you can find in Asia. So, thank God, what you find in the West is not representative of Christianity throughout the world but this is my point.

For us to become somehow depressed and cop ourselves into thinking that there is nothing that we can do to withstand the encroaches of materialism and godlessness and post-modernity. The whole of this incident was against that conclusion that the numbers do not tally is utterly unimportant. When did the numbers tally on the sake of Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry? When the Apostle Paul was moving around Asia Minor he could not play the numbers game.

There were no numbers to quote to people in Athens and Corinth and what have you in terms of conversions in Europe. But God, says the Apostle Paul, when he is reflecting on his ministry in Corinth and writes to those people years later, God shows the foolish things of the world. Ordinary people like yourself.

He writes to the Ephesians and he tells them in the fourth chapter of what they have become and reminds them of what they were. And when people who have been made alive to the gospel of Christ engage in daring faith they become that unstoppable force that ultimately shall make its mark on the first century Roman civilization to the end that even their adversaries are saying these are the men who have turned the world upside down. And don't you see the same formula applies today? It has to.

It has to apply today. Don't you see there is significance in the insignificant? Don't you see that sometimes the smallness of numbers becomes a theater into which God can move and work and send his spirit so that that small community of people transforms the rest of society and brings men and women by the thousands to Jesus Christ. That incidentally is how we describe revival.

So I come back to my starting point. The beloved Lord a tremendous impossible need arose a problem on the disciples and they can't cope. We've only got one material one physical contribution for us to make but it's inadequate.

Five loaves and fishes how far how far Jesus will they go? And Jesus says in effect that's good enough for me. Give them to me. And disciples give yourselves to me and I'll show how the eleven true of you will turn society round and make an impact with a message that I have infused into you.

What happened in the first century is an abiding principle of what can happen in every century. But it demands the offering of our lives and our resources to Jesus Christ. So it's right, proper, meet for us to turn to one of our hymns of dedication in terms of a response and prepare ourselves for the receiving of the bread and the wine as we sing 229 Here I am wholly available as for me I will serve the Lord.

Put yourself in the place of the little boy and all that you have in the place of his packed lunch and make your rededication to Jesus Christ and know a holy optimism as you face the future as individuals and as a church. 229 Here I am speaking as a very special people Here I am For those perhaps who are visiting let me introduce myself. My name is Bill Denham and as the Associate Pastor here in Charlotte Chapel it's my privilege to lead our communion service this morning.

In our service we remember of course that he who came, Emmanuel, God with us made himself available for the salvation of all mankind. Let me read some verses from Hebrews starting at the end of chapter 9. Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people and he will appear a second time not to bear sin but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him. The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming not the realities themselves for this reason it can never by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year make perfect those who draw near to worship.

If it could would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore when Christ came into the world he said sacrifice and offering you did not desire but a body you prepared for me with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased then I said here I am it is written about me in the scroll I have come to do your will O God.

Thanks be to God for this reading from his word. Jesus made himself available taking frail flesh on himself willing to die on that cross at Calvary and Paul reminds us in his second letter to that church at Corinth when he says God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I love the picture that I once read someone was writing and he was describing it like this he says it's for all the world like Father God taking our sin and wrapping it around his sinless son because only he was good enough to pay the price of sin only he could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

Before we share together we sing a hymn which focuses on Christ's sacrifice reminding us of its reality and the excruciating pain involved in crucifixion. The last verse summing up all the others his hands, his feet, his heart all three were pierced for me on Calvary. The hymn is number 232 in the book but the words as usual will appear on the screen his hands were pierced and we stand to sing.

Let's take a few moments to prepare our hearts and minds before we share the bread and the wine just to remind ourselves that he died paying the debt we couldn't pay willingly bearing on his body the sins of the world. So before we eat the bread and drink the wine let's speak to God our Father in the quietness confessing our sins asking forgiveness of him and if necessary of each other. Let's just pray together and as we continue in your presence merciful Father melt our hearts by those words of Jesus spoken through the agony of the cross Father forgive them.

How unforgiving and resentful we can sometimes be how self-justifying and uncharitable too. Lord forgive us and gracious God we publicly acknowledge how sorry we are if we have said or done something which has caused hurt or distress to our fellow believers. Lord in your mercy forgive us.

Amen. We'll shortly be sharing these pieces of bread and the glasses of wine acknowledging as we do that fantastic and wonderful sacrifice Jesus made on the cross at Calvary. As our secretary Bill Walker reminded you it's our custom to invite visitors to share with us around this table.

It's our Lord's table. We therefore invite all those who love the Lord in sincerity and in truth to join us. If you are as yet unsure of your standing with the Lord please don't be embarrassed just pass the bread and the wine.

Our elder Norrie Wilson will now give thanks for the bread representing as it does the body of our Lord and Saviour. Let's pray together, let's all pray. Eternal, all-powerful, almighty, everlasting, fantastic, enormous, huge God we come before you amazed that we can call you Father for we are aware of our insignificance we are aware of how unworthy we are we are aware of how sinful we are we are aware that the difference between you and us is just vast and yet we can call you Father and you allow us to consider ourselves to be your children and we pray that in this time when we take these bits of bread and this wine we pray that you would help us to remember the pain and the agony that you went through for us not because we deserve it, not because we've done anything good not because we have given this or that or for anything at all other than your supreme love and so we pray that you would help us to consider what it was consider the cost of Jesus coming into the world to die in such a horrendous fashion so that we might go free and so we take this bread and we remember your body given as a sacrifice for us and we pray that in so doing you would help us to be closer to you for we pray in Jesus' name, Amen