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Reading:          Jn.6:1-15

Text:                Jn.6:5-6"Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do."

I wonder the word test brings to your mind. Perhaps it brings back reminders of schooldays – had you really learnt those Latin verbs? The test on Monday morning might well reveal how you'd spent the weekend. Or maybe you've been doing some work with the electrics and it's time to test to make sure everything is OK.

In the NT the word test is employed in different ways.

Sometimes it is employed negatively – in the sense of trying to catch out or in the unwarranted seeking of more evidence before faith will be exercised when sufficient has already been granted. Jesus was often assailed in these ways by His enemies and by His detractors.

However on a number of other occasions the word "test" is used in the more positive sense of "proving the reality or validity" of something.

In this sense we are called upon in 2Cor.13:5-6 to "test ourselves":

"Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?––unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test."

Or in Thess.5:21 we read:

"but test everything; hold fast what is good."

We are also told that trials will come our way in life and that these trials will "test us" or "try us":

1Pet.4:12 "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you."

And James tells us:

Jas.1:12 "Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him."

A test then can be either good and honest or deceitful and bad.

When Jesus spoke to Philip in the passage we read earlier there is not the slightest hint that He is trying to catch Philip out. Rather the test that is referred to is designed to discern what kind of faith Philip has arrived at in this stage of his discipleship. For Philip has known Jesus for some time now. If we compare Jn.2:13 with Jn.6:4 which both contain references to the Jewish feast of the Passover it becomes clear that Philip has known Jesus now for more than a year!

During this time Philip, along with the other disciples, will have had the opportunity of watching Jesus closely. He will have heard His teaching, He will have observed just what it was that drove and motivated Jesus. He will have had ample opportunity of seeing how Jesus related to others, how He did them good, cared for them and had compassion on them.

So now the test comes: what has Philip really understood about Jesus during all that time?

We too would do well to stop from time to time and ask ourselves the same question!

Word had recently come to Jesus and His disciples that John the Baptist had been cruelly executed. When Jesus heard the news He withdrew to a quiet place to be alone with His disciples but the crowds spotted Him and realizing where He was going set off to meet Him there in the region of Bethsaida.

The events which followed there are of great importance. Such is their importance that all four gospel accounts record what took place. The miracle that occurs is the only one that is recorded in all four gospel writers.

So Jesus is sat up on a hillside outside Bethsaida and is surrounded by His disciples and a great crowd is making its way towards Him. And as Jesus watches them coming He puts Philip on the spot by His testing question:

            6:5 "Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?"

The question as it is put in our English Bibles begins with a question that directs our attention in a geographical direction: where of whence?

But Philip's answer to Jesus' question suggests that he didn't necessarily understand this to be the case and indeed the meaning of the Greek text is not to be limited quite so tightly. The word translated "where or whence" includes the idea not only of 'where from' but also from 'what source' 'who will be the provider?' The meaning is not yet exhausted by that either the question can also include the idea of 'how will this be done?'

We might be tempted to ask why Philip is singled out in the way he is for this question. The text doesn't directly tell us leading some commentators to suggest he was the one who happened to be standing next to Jesus at the time. But there is perhaps another reason. Philip was a native of Bethsaida (as were Peter and Andrew) – he may well have been singled out as being an expert, he was after all on his home turf and if anyone amongst the disciples might know of sources of food in the area it would be someone like Philip. (It is interesting to note that Andrew also from this region is actively involved in the incidents as they unfold for it is he who will speak to Jesus about the lad with his five barley bread cakes and two fish. But when Andrew spoke to Jesus he didn't think that what he had to report was in any way significant to meet the need that was evidently very great.)

John is concerned that we don't misunderstand the reason why Jesus asked Philip the question He did.

Jesus is not struggling to know what to do! He is not looking for counsel or advice as to how to proceed and neither is He seeking to gain a few minutes more thinking time for Himself. No, Jesus knew already exactly what He was going to do. The question He put was designed to test Philip. He wanted to gauge how much real understanding Philip had about who He ie. Jesus actually was. Did he trust in Christ? Did he have any clear convictions at all as to the true identity of Jesus?

There will be tests and trials that come to us in our lives and the way in which we react to them will also serve to reveal what we really do believe about the Lord Jesus. It is one thing to give expression to some fine sounding thoughts when all is calm – but what we really fundamentally believe deep down will come to expression when we our put under pressure or when we are moved out of our comfort zone.

Jesus here was challenging Philip not in an area where he knew his limitations here Jesus was challenging him home soil where he might readily see himself as being comfortable, and at ease.

When we read the three other gospel accounts of the events of that significant day we learn that Jesus did not just feed the crowds but He first spent time in teaching them and in healing the sick amongst them. He both felt and demonstrated compassion towards the people who had come out to be with Him.

As His disciples observed Him one more time we might ask another question: would they be moved with the same compassion?

As Jesus taught and healed Philip along with the rest of the disciples had plenty of time to reflect on the question that Jesus had asked them.

Their response shows itself at the end of the day as they come to Jesus and urge Him to dismiss the crowds so that the people could fend for themselves. Their way of expressing compassion was very different from what Jesus had in mind.

Philip with his knowledge of the region knew something of what the costs would be if they were to buy food for that crowd. Even if they had eight months worth of a labourer's wagers they wouldn't be able to buy just a token bite for all who were gathered together, let alone to satisfy their hunger.

Perhaps Andrew did just a little bit better – at least he spoke to Jesus of the resources they did had when he found out that lad with the bread and fish but Andrew immediately down-played the possibilities of doing anything at all with so little!

But let me remind you that Jesus from the very outset knew just what He planned to do!

How encouraging that is or at least should be for us too!

We too come, as it were, up the hill to be with Jesus and we come with our needs both known and unknown and we find that Jesus already has a plan for us, He knows exactly what He intends to do. He may ask us a question here or there but not because He needs our advice He may well want to discern just what the level of our understanding is.

Philip had witnessed the signs that the crowd had seen and probably much more too – but have these signs actually helped him to work out who Jesus really is? Has he allowed the signs to direct him to the majesty, power and glory of this man that he was following? this man who was asking him such a testing question?

Similarly has all the information we have concerning Jesus done that for us? Have we acknowledged who He is?

Let's return a moment again to the way in which Philip responded to Jesus' question.

Philip focused on the problem that confronted them – how were this crowd to be fed – and he's allowed himself to become so wrapped up in his circumstances that he hasn't focused upon Jesus at all! And don't we find this tempting ourselves? All the more so when we're confronted about matters that we think we know something about!

Andrew responds to the same question and too focuses on the problem but with a little glimpse at a possible solution though he too fails to reckon with the greatness of the person to whom He's speaking.

I find it all too easy, and I guess you do too, to focus over much upon myself and my resources all the while forgetting the majestic greatness of my Lord and Saviour!

When I was trying to prepare this sermon yesterday and the day before I was feeling listless and sorry for myself as men do when they have a cold! I was wondering whether there would be anything for you this evening that would be of help to your souls, whether you would find any nourishment. I was falling into the same error as Philip! I was repeating the same mistake as Andrew. I was focusing upon the problem of my circumstances – my cold and lethargy. I was looking at my meagre resources – my poor sermon, the insignificant bread cakes and fish, that I had to place before you!

Do you realize it's possible to prepare a sermon on testing and fail to realize that the Lord might be testing me even as I try to prepare?

We really can be so slow at times and we find it so easy to focus all our efforts in the wrong direction!

I need to realize, and so do you, that it is never my sermon that is going to help nourish you spiritually and supply the answers you are looking for to your needs it is the Lord to whom every Christian sermon should point who alone can satisfy, who alone can take the scraps of a boy's lunch box and make them satisfy an entire crowd!

Let me remind you again: Jesus knew exactly what He planned to do!

Although during His earthly ministry He had never before performed this type of feeding miracle He knew exactly what He was about. He knew that the food available was insufficient to satisfy more than one lad but He knew too that He had the power to create food for the crowd! Indeed He wasn't in the slightest fazed by the task – after all hadn't He fed the multitudes of Israelites in the Wilderness and that for 40 years?

He knew what He was going to do because He wasn't dependent upon the circumstances, He  wasn't dependent upon the resourcefulness of His followers and the astuteness or otherwise of their advice. He was the One who always did what He saw His Father doing. In His kindness He would involve His disciples in the task of feeding the crowds but at the end of the day these disciples would only ever be unprofitable servants. It would be Him and Him alone who would meet the needs of this hungry crowd. After all this was God Incarnate standing before His disciples and questioning them. This was God Incarnate who was expressing compassion for the crowds.

Had Philip got it? Did he get it after the food was all distributed and 12 large baskets full of uneaten pieces of bread, not crumbs, were left over?

But, perhaps more importantly, have I got it? Do I see what the miraculous signs of Jesus are pointing to? Do I recognize that in Jesus the Lord of Glory has entered our world and that in the preaching of His word I am confronted not by the rambling thoughts of a preacher but by this God-Man who presents Himself to me as the Saviour I need so much?

You know only too well the story how the food is distributed and none is left hungry but the point is not in the food nor even in its miraculous provision it is in the person of the Provider. Have you got the point?

As I come to an end I don't want you to go away having grasped the wrong end of the stick. It's entirely possible to do that. That is just what the crowd did.

The crowd was so impressed with having food to eat given to them by a man who sorted out the problems of their poor health too that they thought wouldn't it be great to make this man king! They even linked Him with some OT prophecies. But their thinking was all wrong. Jesus had not come to provide an endless succession of free medical care and free lunches – He had come to give His life as a ransom for many.

It might have seemed so flattering, how encouraging that all of a sudden a crowd of 5.000 men not to mention the women and children wanted Him to be King. Probably some were keen to march Him straight off down to Jerusalem so that He could lead a revolt against the hated Roman occupiers. But Jesus is not impressed at all. And so He just withdraws from the crowd.

Do you see? Following Jesus is all about doing things Jesus' way! He is the Lord of Glory – He was the One spoken of in the OT, He was the One whose coming was prophesied but He would not count as His disciples those who tried to dictate the terms of His Messiahship.

Don't try to impress Him with your flattery or with your bright ideas about how He should be presented to the world rather humbly bow before this One who has awesome creative power, wonderful power and who is majestic in His glory. This One who did not count equality something to be clung onto but who took upon Himself the form of a servant, who humbled Himself and who was obedient to such an extent that He died upon a cross as the sinner's substitute.

Don't focus upon the little you have but focus upon this Man.

Follow this Man! Love this Man! Know that this Man is now highly exalted and that one day every knee will bow before Him confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Amen.