Well, we've had this month of emphasis on young people, and that's great. And tonight the message is from John chapter number six, and it's about a young lad. We've been announcing the themes of these messages each week, and the bulletin said, a young lad, five loaves and two fishes. And so we're familiar with that. I think most of our boys and girls that would be here on a Wednesday night probably are attending Sunday school regularly also, and would be pretty familiar with the story of the young man and the five loaves and two fishes. But we're gonna read it from the Bible, and that way anyone here that's not familiar will hear the account as it's been recorded. John chapter six, beginning at verse one. After these things, Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which was in the Sea of Tiberias, and a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh. When Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to prove him or test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, 200 penny worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take just a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, saith unto him, there is a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place, so the men sat down in number, about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise of the fishes, as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above, unto them that had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, this is of a truth, that prophet, that should come into the world. Let's go to the Lord for prayer. Father, I ask that each of us tonight might glean something from this passage, from this record, from these perfect words through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. through John, your apostle. And I pray that our hearts would be open and that we might rejoice that we have the Bible, that we have an opportunity to hear it, that we're wonderfully blessed with fellowship here at Central Baptist Church. And for these young folks, the youngest of the young, all the way up through those teens that are away at camp, may they live and grow to appreciate the very special gifts that we've been given. And Lord, if there's anyone here who's not yet received you personally as Savior, may they open their hearts tonight and claim the Lord Jesus as their own. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, some things, I've got four observations from the passage, and especially thinking of young people. But I think all of us, you know, it was Curtis Hudson who taught folks in preaching. He was a church planner, a great preacher in the Atlanta area. and then the editor of The Sword of the Lord for several years, he said, when you preach, put everything on the bottom shelf. Everybody gets it then. And you know, that's a good idea. So this Wednesday at least, I'm a bottom shelf type person, so it fits me perfectly. Okay, so here we go. First of all, I notice this. The scripture said, there is a lad in verse nine. There is a lad here. You know, we've had on Wednesday nights, we've had a message with some great applications from the life of Samuel as a young boy, from David at his calling to be the king, calling and anointing as king, of Josiah, the king that came to the throne as a youngster, an elementary school age person. But we know their names. Samuel, David, Josiah. But here we have, perhaps other than Jesus, the most important person in the passage, and we don't have a name. We don't have a name. Boys and girls, have you ever forgotten somebody's name? Isn't that embarrassing? I don't know about Pastor, he seems to have a great recall of names. That's one of my worst qualities, names. And probably a number of you here in the auditorium, I've called you by the wrong name at one time or another in the last 16 years. It's not unusual for me to walk up to somebody and everything goes blank. And I say, hi. If it's a kid, I say, hi buddy, how you doing? But sometimes it's an embarrassing situation where you're expected to introduce someone. And you don't know who it is you're introducing, And then you remember, oh, it's my mom, okay, I know that one. But forgetting a name, that's embarrassing. Names mean a lot to us. And we choose a name in the sense our parents give us one, but oftentimes, the name that we're called by every day may not be the name our parents chose. It may be what we say as a nickname. Or maybe it's not your first name or given name, it's your middle name that you go by. And so, you know, names are important to us. We, we, I, I do ask people, although I may forget names, I do ask them how they pronounce their names, or what name they prefer, because especially with college students, I may see the application and it has three very formal names, and then I hear them call by a name no one, it's not, it's nowhere in the paperwork. Where did this come from? But that's what, that's what that student wants to be called. Name. If you had your choice, would you want your name in the Bible? There's no evidence that this lad at any time wanted any recognition. He was just a lad. A lad. A nameless lad. Names. How many have ever heard the name Napoleon Bonaparte? Raise your hand if you did. If you're an adult, would you raise your hand if you, no, that's okay. But yeah, he was a general, a French general, who became an emperor and certainly seemed to turn into a pretty arrogant person, very forward person. But as he was becoming famous, we'll use that word famous, he was asked about fame, what he thought about his fame. And he's quoted as saying this. If a man's name is remembered by one person 100 years after his death, he is indeed famous. You know, Napoleon Bonaparte was someone who wanted his name remembered, I'm certain, from everything we know about him. And it has been, but does that mean he had good character? Does that mean that he did things of eternal importance? No. Just having a name, just knowing a name, just having other people mention our name is really not the important thing. So even in the record of this great event, this miracle, the fact that it's just a lad, unnamed, is a lesson in itself. Do you think that lad Knows today in heaven who he is? Sure. Do you think that lad that day knew his own name? Sure. Do you think, wait a minute, do you think Jesus knew his name? Oh yes. One of my favorite passages in the scripture is John chapter 10, verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and I know them. and I give unto them eternal life, they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. I know them. Boys and girls, adults, the Lord knows your name, and he knows lots more than just your name. And I say that in the kindest way. It's good that he knows our name. Our God is a loving and merciful God. Our Savior gave himself for us. He knew that lad's name. The Holy Spirit who inspired John to write this chapter and mention the lad. This event is recorded in all four Gospels, but the detail of a lad giving these foods to Andrew is not recorded in all four. And so this gospel has the detail of the lad without his name. The Holy Spirit knew his name and could have given it, but chose not to. Boys and girls, I think we could take this as a positive lesson. There are lads and lasses all over the world whose names are only known to God. We don't know them, they may live a half a world away, or just down the street or in the next neighborhood, and we drive by them on the way to church, and there's someone on a bicycle or in a front lawn, and there's a child just like you. You may not know their name, but God knows their name. And God may have a plan for them like he does for you. Certainly he has this part, he wants them to know about the Lord Jesus and receive him as Savior. That's the plan he has for every person. He'd like to have that happen. So here's this lad. Here's this lad. Perhaps you will be someday an inventor like Thomas Edison or a great explorer like Ernest Shackleton or a great humanitarian like Clara Barton or a great missionary like Adoniram Judson. But whether or not other people know you accomplished those things is really not important. What's important is that God knows that your heart was right with Him. So first we have the lad. Second, we have a need. We have a need. Second, we have a need. In verse, in verse, Number five, it says, whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? How can we feed these folks? There was a need. Now if we were to ask, if I were to ask you in a Sunday school class, if I were to ask you, what's the need? What's the need on this passage? What was the need? Most of us, including myself, would say, well, the people were hungry, and they needed to be fed. Does that sound reasonable? But I find this, if I read the scriptures carefully and reread them, sometimes I've assumed things that aren't there. No one had complained that they were hungry. In any of the passage, no one had said, boy, I'll tell you, it's afternoons getting on toward evening and I'm hungry. No one had said that. Who was it that knew the need? The Lord Jesus. He knew it ahead of time. Now I imagine that should the hours go on and should he teach on the hillside for a couple more hours, that folks might have their tummies rumbling a little. And I imagine someone would say, I wonder how we'll have dinner tonight. I wonder what's going to happen. I wonder how we can eat. I wonder what's open in town. If it was 2019, when do the restaurants close? Are they going to be busy? There's an awful lot of us, 5,000 going down to Queen Street. Are we going to get a meal? But at this point in the record, when Jesus asks, what's it going to cost? It says he asked that to prove something, to test something. He knew he would fulfill the need with a miracle. He knew that, but his disciples didn't. No one knew the need at that point except him. Boys and girls, if you're in elementary school, whether you're homeschooled or in a a school situation with teachers and classrooms, and you're in, you would be the elementary school age, from pre-kindergarten up through sixth grade. Raise your hand for me. Raise your hand. Okay, you're in, good, good, good. Have you noticed that your mom anticipates your needs quicker than you do? Have you noticed that? Have you ever been in the car, and it started raining, and you said, mommy, we should have brought an umbrella, and she said, oh, I have one in the trunk, because she knew it might rain. Or, mom, I'm getting hungry. Oh, yeah, I brought along some little snack packs. I knew we wouldn't get back until a little after our normal dinner time, so I brought those. Here, you can have one of those. Wow. Yeah, wow, moms do that. They know the needs ahead of time. Maybe you need some clothes for a special event. You play Little League Baseball, maybe your uniform needs to be washed. And you think, oh no, I slid into second base twice. It's all dirty, I forgot to ask mom to wash it. And she's already done it. Sometimes we don't see the need, but I tell you this, Jesus, the Lord God, our Father, our Creator, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they know our needs before we do. And Jesus was already planning how he would feed, whoa, 5,000 people. That's a big crowd. That's a pretty big crowd. And it says men. So it's most likely that the men were counted as the family leaders, and many of them may have had wives there, and many more may have had wives and children. Who knows how many hundreds and hundreds above 5,000 were there. So Jesus knew the need, and he knew how he was going to fulfill it. He has a plan. He has a plan for your needs, whether we know what the needs are or not. Pastor mentioned this is my first time back in the pulpit preaching or bringing a message since my surgery. He knew the last time I preached was two days before I went in the hospital. And he knew as I stood in the pulpit that night that that week I was gonna have a need. I didn't know it. I didn't know it, but he knew it. I'm blessed and we're blessed that we live in an age where there are doctors available, where they have hospitals and procedures and techniques and equipment and we're blessed but I didn't know I was gonna have a need. Someone in the auditorium here, maybe this week you're gonna get a cold. You know, that old ugly cold. Sniffles and sneezes and Do you know God already knows that? You say, well then why doesn't He stop it before? Well, that's up to Him, but I'm just saying that He knows our needs. The Lord knew exactly what was needed, and He gives us a verse in Philippians 4.19, but my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now we might think from that verse that according to his riches are, well, it's money, if I have a need for money. Well, his riches may well include health and friends and shelter and medicine. His riches may well include love from others and love for others that we can share. His riches are not limited to dollar signs. And he says, he shall supply all your need. Now the Lord knew what was needed on that particular day and hour. He knew just what was needed for those 5,000 plus folks. And according to that plan of providing for them, he knew a lad was needed to bring his sack lunch. He knew that was needed. Now, I want to ask you a question. Did it really matter whether there were five loaves in the sack or four? I mean, the record is accurate. There were two small fishes, not big fishes. Small fishes. That's why I suggested, why don't we give away sardines tonight instead of watermelon? Little fish. That didn't go over very well. That's OK. I wouldn't have eaten them either. But there were little fishes, probably dried. or smoked, salted, and five loaves. I don't think they were, I don't think it was French bread. I think it was probably five small loaves. But what if there were only four loaves? Could God still have fed all those? Sure. What if there were three fishes instead of two? Would there have been more left over? I don't know. You see, it really wasn't how many fish will it take. It really wasn't, well, let's do a survey and find out how many of you think you can eat an entire fish? How many are willing to eat only half a fish? Well, then we're only gonna need about 3,742 fish. It wasn't the amount. It wasn't how much. But on the part of the lad, the unnamed lad, I think it was how close. What? How close? What does that mean? Well, Andrew said there's a lad here. He didn't say there's a lad in the upper decks, row 72, seat 12, and I think he's got a sandwich. Yeah, the jumbotron zoomed in on him and he's got a sack lunch right up there. Yeah, stand up young man. Okay, yeah, would you bring that up? No, he wasn't in the back, he was at the front. He was used because he was close to the Lord. Unnamed, millions of unnamed young men and young women growing up now to know Jesus and serve Jesus. And the key was he was close to the Lord. It wasn't how many loaves and fishes he had. It wasn't the particular talent or the particular circumstance that you might have as a fourth grader or that you might have as a 40-year-old. It's how close you are to the Lord. He will use what you have if you're there. If you're not there, if the three young ladies that sang tonight, thank you so much for that. If any one of the three had said, I'm not gonna do that, well, those three particular young ladies wouldn't have been up at the front tonight. We wouldn't have been blessed by them, would we? Maybe someone else would have stood in, maybe not. But those three young ladies blessed us, and I hope that you get a blessing from doing that, knowing you served the Lord tonight, that you pleased him, and that he knows your name. It wasn't how much was in the sack. It was how close was the lad. The third thing is this. The third thing is this. In, let's see, in verse number nine again, the lad had five loaves and two small fishes. The third thing was that the meeting of the mealtime need required a surrendered heart. The lad had those. At that point, Andrew did not have those. At that point, Jesus did not have those. At that point, the lad had those. Do you think Andrew went over there and opened the sack and said, hey, buddy, come here? I don't know your name, so I'll call you buddy. Hey, buddy, come here. Give me your sack. No. How would you react if somebody came up to you and said, give me your wallet, I wanna look in there. Whoa, no. Give me your purse, no. I don't think Andrew did that. I think Andrew was approached by the young man who said, I've got some food here if it'll help. Looked in the sack, five loaves, two fishes. They were the lad's five loaves and two fishes and he could have kept them He could have eaten them. He could have held them to himself. Pretty big lunch for one little lad, but he could have, at least as I picture, five loaves even if they're small. That's a lot of bread for one person. But he didn't, he surrendered them. Here, can you use this? The boy had a sack and a small meal, certainly enough for himself. Maybe for a little brother or sister that was with him, we don't know, no mention of that. Do you think there are other folks in the crowd of 5,000 that also may have had, brought some snack food for themselves? Sure. But there's no record that that was used. They may have eaten it, I don't know. But what I do know is a miracle was done and five loaves and two fishes were sufficient to feed everyone there. If other people had brought a snack with them, they didn't surrender it for the miracle to be performed that Jesus would be recognized as the prophet that was promised, Messiah, Mashiach, the Savior. That was the purpose of the day for the Lord Jesus. to reveal again His power, to reveal again the fulfillment of Scripture in Him, to reveal again that His message and His life were God's message and God's life because He was God the Son Himself. That was the purpose. The meaning of the real-time, meal-time need was really by a surrendered heart. I said the lad was close, and he gave all he had. That's all that God can ever ask. Draw close to God, he'll draw close to us. Give all you have. And he'll use it and multiply it. Did the lad get to eat, too? Well, he's one of the crowd, right? He didn't lose his lunch. Instead, he could realize that because of his surrender, someone else had a need met, someone else had a heart change, someone else found salvation. That is, those are applications when we yield ourself. The Latin yielded himself and people were fed, but when we yield ourselves, spiritual, invisible, eternal things are done, which last and last. A surrendered heart is the answer to all of our needs, all of them. Do you want joy? Scripture says rejoice in the Lord always. Joy comes from the Lord. Peace, my peace I give unto thee. Guidance, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Food, I've been young, now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor is seed begging bread. Every need that we can imagine is fulfilled by yielding or surrendering to the Lord God and drawing close to him. The lad did that. And the event in his life that took place 2,000 years ago is forever recorded for us to learn, to study, to know. And at the end of that, of course, we know in verse 13, therefore they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments. The fourth thing, God's gifts are more than enough. First, there was a lad. Second, there was a need. Third, that need was met by surrendered heart and forth. God's gifts which he has given to and through us are more than enough. They overflow. Luke says this, Luke 6.38, given it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down and shaken together and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure that ye meet, or measure it out, that ye meet with all, it shall be measured to you again. Again, we often say, oh, that has to do with finances, that has to do with generosity, and I think that's appropriate, except the application can be far more than the wallet. We give what God has given to us. Boys and girls, we give back to God what he's given to us, and he multiplies it and makes our life full, makes our life joyful, makes our life peaceful, makes our life fruitful. What can we give? Let me finish with a couple things. What can we give? We can give your minutes. You can give your minutes. I didn't even say hours. You can give your minutes. Minutes to read the scriptures. Minutes to memorize the verses for your Sunday school class. Minutes to pray for a friend in need, or for your teachers, or your parents, or your cousins. Minutes to pray for your country. Just minutes. Minutes to say thank you. Minutes to send a card. minutes. You can give minutes. You can give your thankfulness. You can give your thankfulness to appreciate what God's done and to tell him, but to tell others too. To thank a teacher, to thank your mom, to thank your pastor, to thank your uncle or your aunt who included you in a special day, to thank You can give, in the name of Jesus, minutes, thankfulness, your words, to give your words. To testify, that's a fancy word, to witness, to talk about how Jesus has helped you, how God has helped you, how blessed you are to have a family that cares for you. You're here tonight, someone brought you. to give your future. I'm gonna end with that thought, to give your future. Future is what's gonna happen tomorrow and the day after, and next year, and I know especially for younger boys and girls, you can't even think of a decade, but future. Everything that's gonna happen after this. To give that to the Lord, to draw close and to say you can have it, I'll give it to you. I'll follow you one step. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. I'll take one step at a time. I'll just care about today and how it flows into tomorrow, and I'll watch how you use me like that lad. And no one may know my name, and it may never be recorded in a biography at the library, but it'll be recorded in the annals of heaven. and the Lord will know what I've done, to give him your future." Adoniram Judson, missionary to Burma, said this, the future is as bright as the promises of God. Do you think God's promises are pretty good ones? Heaven ahead, forever, strength, health, Peace, joy, fruitfulness, happiness, we could use that word, happiness, family, love, the future is as bright as the promises of God. And all those promises come to pass, boys and girls, when we draw close to God by being saved and then by trying to please the Lord every day and surrender ourselves to his plan. The future's bright. The world may think it's dim, but the future is bright.