Matthew 15:32 Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat; and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way
All of us are fairly predictable with some degree of certainty. For instance, if you go to your in-law’s house, your grandpa’s house, or talk to a good friend, you probably know what they are going to talk about in the first ten minutes of your conversation because they always do. You know what they are going to say about what they are going to talk about in the first ten minutes of your conversation because there is a certain amount of consistency. Oddly enough, if people are paying attention, they can probably predict you as well.
One of the things I love about the gospel of Matthew is that it shows us God incarnate, God the Son, the Lord Jesus, and helps us to see the character of the Lord. I realize that God’s ways are higher and different than our ways, and I realize that sometimes we just don’t know the mind of God, what He is going to do or what He is thinking in human terms. The truth is, that so much of what we see in the gospel of Mathew helps us to know the character of the Lord. The incarnation reveals God’s character.
In Matthew 15, Jesus was confronted with a whole multitude of people and they were hungry. That presented a problem. Here is a case in which one might readily guess what Jesus is going to do, not just because of what He has the power to do but because of what He has the will to do. In verse 32 it says, “Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat.” That is consistent. We read about this earlier in Matthew where Jesus saw a multitude of people and He had compassion. That is the Lord’s nature. Then Jesus says, “And I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.” I love that! That is the Lord’s nature.
If you come back from church week after week and think, “I’m just not getting out of the service what I used to get. Preacher just isn’t meeting my needs anymore.” Now, there may be a change there that is beyond your control, but it is not God’s nature to send you away fasting. It is not His desire, His will, or His fault. Sometimes we feel like we are not getting what we need, but oftentimes it is because we are not giving what we should. In any case, the Lord’s nature is to provide.
How does He do that? Let me give you four qualifiers. First, the Lord’s nature is to provide beyond our prospects. In verse 33 the disciples reminded Jesus, as if He didn’t know, that they were in the wrong place, a wilderness, and there was a multitude of people. “Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?” In other words, “What is He going to do now?” If you’ve ever been with someone who is very familiar in a situation that came up, you may have thought, “Ah, this will be interesting. I wonder what he is going to do now.” Sometimes you don’t have to wonder because you know. In this case, the Lord provided beyond their prospects. He was not limited by where they were or how many they were.
Second, He oftentimes provides with the resources that we see. Sometimes we think, “God is limited to my ability, my money, or my time.” Don’t limit your prospects to what you can see. Don’t limit the Lord’s prospects to what you can do. The Lord provides beyond our prospects. Having said that, sometimes the Lord provides with the resources readily at hand as He did in verse 34. Jesus says to the disciples, “How many loaves have ye?” He didn’t say, “Here is everything you need.” He said, “What do you already have?” They said, “Seven and a few little fishes.” He multiplied for the multitude. So, use what you have. Give what you have and know that God can provide and expand that.
Third, the Lord’s nature is to provide by giving to the needy through givers. In verse 36, Jesus, as he had done when He fed over 5,000 people, took what they gave him, gave thanks to the Father, divided the food, and gave it back to the disciples who in turn gave it to the multitude. So, He took and He gave. God always gives through givers. A giver will always be able to give. A giver always can because the Lord will see to it. He will provide for those who are givers.
Finally, the Lord’s nature is to provide sufficiently. In verse 37 we read that what they had when they were done was more than they had to begin with. Usually, your leftovers from a meal are the fragments of what you had before. In this case, they had more leftovers than they had to begin with because Jesus had had His way in the need.
Today, I don’t know what you face, but I do know that while our nature is often frail, the Lord’s nature is to provide.