Providing Space for the Holy Spirit to Work: What We Learn from Jesus Feeding a Large Crowd

Oct 24, 20245 min read

I haven't mentioned cooking in my blog posts yet. It is one of my creative outlets. I have written many new recipes as well as revised recipes I have found in books or online. God has given me this talent and I try to use it to show His love to other people.

My wife is heavily involved in the women's ministry at my church. In our marriage, we each take supporting roles in the other's ministry. Last year, when a large Christmas women's gathering needed 900 sausage balls, I volunteered. Since I was already making so many, I decided the other two smaller events that needed a treat would also get sausage balls, so I needed to make around 1400.

I didn't stop and pray first. I reviewed the recipe and saw an opportunity to improve it. I purchased the necessary ingredients and spent over three days mixing, rolling, and cooking the sausage balls in my ordinary, non-gourmet kitchen. It was exhausting. Even though I got some really nice feedback on how they turned out, I am not sure I ever want to be in the same room as a sausage ball ever again.

What is ridiculous is that I know from personal experience God will help me do things like that. Even if it is not multiplying one sheet pan of sausage balls into hundreds, He will supply me with comfort and energy so that the task is not so draining.

I didn't provide any space for the Holy Spirit to work.

While I only fed about 400 people and they had other food available, let's look at Jesus feeding over 5000:

Mark 6:35-44 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat." But he answered them, "You give them something to eat." And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?" And he said to them, "How many loaves do you have? Go and see." And when they had found out, they said, "Five, and two fish." Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

I am not an expert on exchange rates. From some Google outcomes, 200 denarii would be approximately 6-8 months of wages.

I have not heard that many sermons or studies that focus on Jesus feeding 5,000+ and the 4,000+. I asked my wife, and she doesn't remember many sermons about it either. We both agreed it was in Sunday School lessons but seldom on the big stage. The feeding of over 5000 appears in all 4 gospels. I believe if we look at this passage within the context of the entire Bible we can see 3 major messages.

Message One: Having faith that God wants to show up and take care of us.

God designed the planet for humans to eat and thrive. When the Israelites were wandering, God supplied them with manna. During the drought, Elijah was originally fed by ravens and then told to go to a widow who only had enough flour and oil for one last meal for her and her son. When she gave what she had to Elijah, her flour and oil miraculously never ran out for the rest of the drought.

Jesus could have gone along with the plan to send the crowds away, but He wanted to show, once again, that God loved them and cared about them. He also wanted to show that God wants to show up when we need Him. Understanding God's character is essential to effective prayers.

Message Two: We can do incredible things if we are aligned with God.

Because He was human, He had no power to multiply the fish and bread on His own. Because He was perfectly aligned with His Father, He could do miraculous things. He shows us what we can do if we are fully aligned with God.

The Holy Spirit multiplies or amplifies our godly intentions. Here, it was the love and compassion expressed for a lot of hungry people. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that compassion is significant to God. If you look at the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, the capacity and expression of compassionate love is the sorting criteria.

There are many sermons, blog posts, and chapters of books with lists of ways we can quench the Holy Spirit, but the simple answer is that the more in step we are with Jesus, the more we fan the flame of the Holy Spirit. The more out of step we are with Jesus, the more we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, it is so important to learn from Jesus, repent from the sin in our life, and cooperate with the Holy Spirit so we can become more like Him.

Message Three: We must provide space for the Holy Spirit to work

Notice that in Mark's account that when Jesus told His disciples to feed the crowds, they got out their calculators to see how much bread they needed to buy. That is what we humans do by default. They assume they need to do it themselves. That is what I did last Christmas. I put together a plan. The plan worked, but it could have worked better, and God would have gotten more glory if I had just stopped, prayed, and expect the Holy Spirit to do what He does.

I believe we are constantly cheating ourselves and minimizing the impact of our ministries by failing to remember that God wants to be a more active part of our lives. He wants us to rely on Him and not just when we feel helpless in a crisis. We should build our faith by inviting the Holy Spirit to multiply all our activities that are in alignment with God and give Him space to work. With our power, we might be able to feed 20 people a little food with five loaves and two fish and have nothing left. With the Holy Spirit, whatever time, energy, and resources we invest can be multiplied to take care of far more without leaving us empty.

Don't take my word for it. Here are the Scriptures I considered or used in the writing of: Providing Space for the Holy Spirit to Work: What We Learn from Jesus Feeding a Large Crowd by RD Montgomery:

Genesis 1

Exodus 16

1 Kings 17:1-16

2 Kings 4:1-7

Proverbs 14:31

Isaiah 58:6-7

Amos 2:6-7

Amos 5:12

Matthew 3:10

Matthew 6:10

Matthew 6:25-34

Matthew 7:15-20