Mark 6:30-44 (Matthew 14:13-21, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-15): The Miraculous Feeding Continues.

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 22 September 2024 by Major Michael Ramsay. Based on the Message preached on 02 May 2021 by Captain Michael Ramsay.

  

This is the 2024 Version, to read the much shorter 2021 version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2021/04/matthew-1413-21-mark-630-44-luke-910-17.html

 

Today is a weekend to pray for the end of human trafficking. I have spoken about that a lot recently. The Lord blessed us at The Salvation Army to be used by Him to help out those Vietnamese workers who were living in deplorable conditions – right here in our community. I wasn’t actually going to speak about that today and I wont actually speak much about it. I do hope that we as a society can put an end to closed visas in our country soon or at least some day.

 

This week I actually had to sign an affidavit about all of that. The interpreter who helped with the situation in Port Alberni, the San Group is now suing. She is just a window washer. She has no money. They are suing her. I have spoken to lawyers (plural) this past week. It does seem intimidating. I had previously been warned about San Group. In the next week or so their legal team is going to cross examine me and others. One professional commented to me that this is not what people usually do in these circumstances – sue interpreters; it seems heavy handed in the least. It is intimidating. But I am not going to speak any more about that today. I have already used that as an illustration in two sermons here and one at Summer Rain in August.

 

September, without dealing with all this, has been a busy enough month. Many of you here have been working hard away. Many of you here have blessed us and others, as you have been blessed by serving our Lord and the community.

 

Yesterday was our big annual Thanksgiving food drive, sponsored by Foodbanks BC and spear-headed by Bruce and Dorothy Patterson and their church. You may know Bruce and Dorothy. They have come to our Christmas Eve service for a number of years and in the previous year or two have actually joined our rank of volunteers at the Army. Thank you to everyone who helped. We raised about 5000 pounds of food so far and an undisclosed amount of money. This will help a lot of people this time of year.

 

The weekend before that was the Toy Run. The Salvation Army in Alberni Valley has been involved in that since before we came to town. When we arrived, the Army had already taken over serving coffee and doughnuts at Little Qualicum Falls a couple of years prior .The Salvation Army then took over the Bread of Life Soup Kitchen and for two or three years provided a chilli and hotdog lunch on behalf of the Soup Kitchen at the Glenwood Centre at the end of their ride after providing a breakfast of coffee and doughnuts on behalf of the Army at the start of the ride. That was a lot of work with all the volunteers we needed and a very long day starting at 6am or so and ending when we picked up the toys in the evening or in the afternoon. I was blessed to be able to pray for the riders and this year our team of expert workers just concentrated on serving lunch instead of both doughnuts and lunch – you all did a great job! And many toys were raised for children and others in our community.

 

You all have been busy. The week prior to that we were at the Fall Fair and we were in the Fall Fair parade. This was a great opportunity to share with the community our testimony of how the Lord has used TSA in our community to serve our neighbours in Jesus’ name. Most of that service seems to be around food too! We are blessed to be the community soup kitchen and the community food bank and feed a lot of people. More than 14 000 just at the Bread of Life in August alone – multiply that by 12! That is not including all the families we feed through the foodbank and all the kids we feed through the breakfast and lunch programs when school is out. The Lord feeds a lot us people through us. And like I said, just yesterday we raised 5000 lbs of food for those in need in our community.

 

Today, in Mark’s Gospel, we read about the feeding of the 5000 by Jesus and his disciples. This is a very significant story. The writers of all four of the Gospels included it in their biography of Jesus’ and their record of his ministry. It is actually the only miracle that all four of the Gospel-writers mention. The authors John and Matthew were both present when this event occurred, and Luke’s version of this incident is recorded after some significant research. John Mark, whose account we read today, was certainly part of the inner circle of Jesus’ followers (remember from those of us who are part of the Tuesday night Bible Study: he was Barnabus’ companion on early missionary journey’s and Barnabus and Paul had a big fight about him); so Mark undoubtedly heard about this incident quite a bit - as he himself actually may or may not have been present for this as well.

 

John and Matthew were both there when this happened. John has a little bit different of a memory of this event than Matthew but no more of a difference of a recollection than Susan and I have over some of the events of our life and ministry.

 

This story struck me anew this week as I was looking for something in Mark to preach about. I was surprised to learn this week that I haven’t preached more often on this passage; it seems like a natural one for The Salvation Army to speak about – though I did reference it in a piece I wrote that was included in the 2008 book One Thing and the 2011 book One for All both by Commissioner James Knaggs and Major Stephen Court about a miracle God did while we were helping out with Emergency Disaster Services relief work in Texas years ago.

 

I am going to read an excerpt from my account in One Thing[i]:

Our canteens were instructed to make sure that they gave away all of their food before they came in for the night. They did not want food returned when people were going without. One canteen had some food left. It was getting late so they were seeking out someone to give their last Cambro (container) of food to. They prayed. One person then saw a line of about 12-18 tired and hungry looking construction workers so they headed over to offer them their food. They were really appreciative.

 

As they were feeding these men, a number of school busses filled with people pulled up. It is my understanding that they served over 800 meals at that location – no one went away hungry. Feeling blessed by what the Lord had done they started to clean up. (Now there was a non-believer, a Red Cross worker on their canteen with them today). Someone picked up the Cambro from which they fed the 800 meals and read from the side of it, ‘serves 90 meals’. The Lord fed more than eight times that number and no one went hungry. The Red Cross worker who was helping them on the truck that day began to cry. He said that he had never believed in God – until now. 

 

That is a real-life miracle that I will never forget. We have a similar miracle happening right here in the Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island today, right now. When the crowds in the disciples’ day were without food, Jesus said ‘you feed them!’ to which they replied, ‘we don’t have enough money to feed them!’ to which the response is still ‘no really, feed them!’ They do and God provides the food needed in the miraculous way He provided the needed food.[ii]

 

In the Alberni Valley here we have for a long time, long before we arrived, been used by the Lord to feed a lot of people in the Valley here. Throughout the pandemic we fed people hundreds of thousands of times – people who may not have eaten otherwise. At our height we were feeding more than 700 individuals a day and only God could have done that. Now we are providing breakfast, lunch and dinner at the Bread of Life soup kitchen seven days a week and other evening meals off the Salvation Army truck and at the Bread of Life and we are feeding even more than the 700 a day, which during covid-19 was a miraculous number! Now the miracle continues as we feed not only people shut-in in our community, families who need the food bank and people who eat at the soup kitchen; we also feed those who reside in our own shelter, the Friendship Centre Shelter on 8^th and the Tiny Homes and many more people in crises and more.

 

Feeding all the people the Lord fed through us during the pandemic: Think about this miracle. There is no way when Covid-19 hit that we could possibly have fed that amount of people and, honestly, the Bread of Life was broke. Jesus said to us “you feed them.” “We don’t have enough money.” The soup kitchen was close to turning out the lights forever when they approached the Army about serving the Lord and the community together before the pandemic and then the Lord produced miracle after miracle after miracle: we keep breaking bread to serve the crowds which seem to be without number and the Lord keeps producing more food with which to feed them. The Soup kitchen doors are open; and the agencies in this community: we are working together like we have never done before and we are continuing to feed people to a tune of more than 14 000 times a month which works out to more than 168 000 times a year at the soup kitchen alone, not including emergencies, the food truck and Christmas (!) and not including any of the families that the Lord uses us to feed from the food bank (!) and/or the schools – and we are still going strong. This is a miracle! And through this time more people have given their lives to the Lord here and we have faithfully put them to work. We continue to experience the miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes right here in the Valley each and every day. Praise be to God. May we continue to serve the food the He has multiplied and witness His Grace in our community.

 

Let us pray.

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Mark 8:34-38 (Luke 9:23- 9:27, Matthew 16:21-28): Savings Account

Presented to the Swift Current Corps 05 September 2010 and Alberni Valley Ministries, 08 September 2024 by Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay 

This is the 2024 Alberni Valley TSA  Version. To view the 2010 Swift Current version, click here:  https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/09/mark-834-91-luke-923-927-matthew-1621.html 

 

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it Mark 8:35

  

I’ve got a test for us today: Famous Quotes. Let’s see who can name the speaker of each of the following quotes:[1] 

1) “Hi Ho Silver, Away…” 

2) “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” 

3) “I am not a crook” 

4) “While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight, I'll fight to the very end!” 

5) “Up, up, and away!” 

6) “I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eat my spinach; I’m _________ the sailor man.” 

7) “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but for whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it.” 

  

These are all famous quotes from people and in some ways the quotes have even served to summarize the impact the individual had on history. Nixon is famous for his speeches around the time of his resignation. Another little quiz for you: only three American presidents have ever been impeached, can you name them? (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump; Nixon resigned he was never impeached)[2] 

  

William Booth’s ‘I’ll Fight’ quote still echoes down through the generations as The Salvation Army champions its Wesleyan version of the social gospel. As John Wesley said, ‘there is no holiness but social holiness’[3] And Jesus’ quote that we are looking at today – “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it” – is a very important one. Did you realize that no other saying of Jesus’ is given as much emphasis in all of scripture ?[4] Each of the Jesus’ biographers, in their gospel accounts, record Jesus as uttering this quote at least once. Matthew and Luke each record it multiple times in different contexts where Jesus says the same thing: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it.” This is thus a very important saying for us to understand. 

  

Today, we read the quote in the context of Mark 8:34-38, which is very much the same context as Luke 9:23- 9:27 and Matthew 16:21-28: 34: 

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." 

  

Jesus says “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it…”, What does it mean to SAVE your life? It means NOT to die; it means NOT to die a physical death.[5] And what does it mean to LOSE your life? It means to die. It is simple. It is not tricky – especially given the context of Jesus talking about us picking up our cross and following him: the cross – of course - being a brutal method of state execution, much like the electric chair or lethal injection in the States today only usually more painful.

  

I’ve got a couple of examples both negative and positive responses of people faced with exactly this situation that Jesus is talking about when he says “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it.” When we were in Vancouver, there was a large Salvation Army conference at Canada Place. General Gowans was the keynote speaker – we all know General Gowans, he was the one who articulated the Salvation Army mission very succinctly as to ‘save souls, grow saints, and serve suffering humanity.’ One speaker at that same conference was Baroness Cox who shared a testimony about a young boy from her time serving in Indonesia. 

  

This young boy came to know the Lord. He told everyone he found about Jesus. He didn’t have a lot of success in his evangelism, if I remember correctly, not anyone came to the Lord at that time - but he was not ashamed of the gospel. One day some people come to his village who aren’t so happy about his faith. They are seeking Christians for execution. They come to his town and they offer to spare his life if he simply renounces his faith. He refuses. They chop off a limb. He is given another chance to deny Christ. He refuses. They chop off another limb. They give this young boy every opportunity to deny Christ and save his life: he refuses and he dies by being hacked to death in front of his whole village. He is asked to deny Christ and thus save his life but instead he loses his life for the Gospel and for Christ. This boy really did pick up his cross and follow our Lord to Calvary. 

  

As did the apostles around Jesus’ time: We know that Jesus’ apostles, like this boy, loved Jesus more than their own families and even their own lives . Jesus’ apostles did not die peaceful deaths – many were crucified or beheaded. Matthias was stoned; Thomas was stabbed; James the brother of Jesus was thrown from the top of the temple in Jerusalem: he survived, so his attackers beat him to death. John would be the exception to the rule of the martyred apostles, but it was not for a lack of conviction. His accusers tried to boil him alive in a pot but much like with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace for some reason God chose to decline John’s offer of martyrdom (Daniel 3:1-30). However no one can deny that they all lived up to the Christian standard: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it” 

  

I can think of another story of some missionaries in Afghanistan way back now, even before the American invasion (2001). This one had a very different ending. The government sentenced some missionaries to death unless they recanted their faith. These missionaries, unlike the apostles, unlike the young Indonesian boy decided they would deny Christ and the Taliban government rewarded them by sparing their lives. In so doing the so-called missionaries reward for this is only in this life – the one they chose to save. Whereas others have offered up their lives for God, and others have received their martyrs’ crown, these people apparently chose to save their life for themselves rather than to die for Christ. 

  

Even though Jesus said to do otherwise: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me (and for the gospel) will save it.” 

  

I really hope that they who denied Christ when it was difficult and when it really mattered have since come to the Lord in fear and trembling and in legitimate repentance – legitimate repentance would mean, of course, that should they wind up in the same situation that they would choose a very different course of action. Just like Peter did. Remember that he denied Jesus 3 times before the cock crowed twice but later repented, led the early church, and eventually accepted his martyr’s crown (Mark 13-14).  

 

I thankfully am not in a position to judge the missionaries or anyone’s salvation and really hope that they truly repented of this sin and grab hold of eternal life like the Apostle Peter but... if they didn’t and don’t… Can you imagine if you were told that if you denied your faith you would live but if you didn’t you would die so you deny your faith and they kill you anyway? Can you imagine if the last thing you ever do before you are faced with the reality of God’s eternal kingdom, is to deny your citizenship in that kingdom? Jesus says if we deny him here and now, he’ll accept our resignation and then he will deny us in his kingdom there and then. It is scary. 

  

What about us here today? I don’t imagine that many of us will ever be faced with a literal life and death decision for Christ – but I look at the news – so maybe. Some of the younger people might live to see such a time (cf. Mark 3:20-35; 13:9-13).[6] I don’t think that anyone a generation ago would have been able to predict the persecution Christians are suffering in Quebec and other places in Canada these days.[7] But assuming that we never face that same life and death choice, how do we apply this very important saying of Jesus to our own life? “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” 

  

Theologian Fred B. Craddock says, “A cross is not sought or pursued, but it was and still is true that following Jesus in service to God, which translates into meeting human needs, is on a path which there are crosses, prices to be paid, pain and hurt to be accepted. We are not speaking about a death wish here but obedience to the will of Christ.” [8] We are not called to be suicide bombers but we are called to serve Christ and not ourselves. We are called to give Jesus all of our time, all of our life, and if he asks for us to sacrifice our physical life – as he did of his apostles, the missionaries that we spoke of and that young Indonesian boy - then we must not withhold it from him. 

  

Leon Morris says, “The follower of Jesus must deny himself (not just his sins, himself; he cannot be self-centred). There is nothing self-indulgent about being a Christian. The disciples had probably seen a man take up his cross, and they knew what it meant. When a man from one of their villages took up a cross and went off with a little band of Roman soldiers, he was on a one-way journey. He would not be back. Taking up the cross meant the utmost in self-denial.”[9] 

  

How do we do with that today? How can we in our life consistently deny ourselves and instead follow Christ? A lot of it comes down to how we spend our time. There are people in our city here who are not yet on a path of salvation. Jesus wants us by serving others and to point them to the path of Salvation that he died to make, and the apostles died pointing out. Are we willing to give our lives in service for Christ? Do we spend our time serving and telling people about Jesus and salvation or do we spend our time in self-indulgence? In our life everyday, we have to make our decision to follow Christ. Do we put ourselves first or do we put God and others first? Do we spend our time serving God and others and reading the Bible and praying or do we spend our time just watching videos, reels, clips, social media, TV, etc.? Do we spend our time helping and our conversations telling people about Christ or are we gossiping about others instead? How we spend our time is a true indication of what we believe and who we believe. I ask each of us here today if someone looked at our how we spend our time could we convince them that we have given up our lives for Christ? Are we offering our time and our lives to Christ? If we are then great things will happen for the Kingdom, I promise. 

  

Remember the story about the young boy that I told you. The young boy from Indonesia who eagerly and painfully accepted his martyrs crown? Shortly after and because he died, the rest of his village chose to live. He died for Christ and the rest of his village saw that and decided to live for Christ. His death led to the salvation of all those people even through the generations, I believe, and this is why and how we know this story today. 

  

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” 

  

It is September. We are starting a new school year. A new church season If in this whole upcoming year, every one of us focuses on service and Salvation and is able to bring just one friend to or back to the Lord and/or just bring them here to worship with us on Sundays then there would be at least double the number people serving alongside us just one year from now and then double that number again one year later. Jesus asked us to give up our lives for him and to invite others to do the same. Today I would like to encourage all of us here to do just that: if there is anything in our lives that is more important to us than Christ… If there is some way that we selfishly holding onto our time and if we are putting anything in our life before the work of Christ, I would invite us in a moment and lay that before the Lord. Let us each ask our Lord to “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.” 

  

Let us pray