Christ is Sufficient

Transcript

GR 697
11/20/1985
Christ is Sufficient
Matthew 14:13-36
Gil Rugh

Matthew has clearly unfolded the people’s rejection of Jesus Christ and the kingdom He has been offering. Their rejection was made evident again in Matthew 13 with the attitude of people in His hometown toward Him and His ministry. Christ had returned to Nazareth and had taught the people and performed some miracles, but their attitude toward Him was one of hostility. They recognized His great wisdom and acknowledged His supernatural power, but they were offended by the fact that He was from their hometown. They knew His family so they could not explain how He could have such wisdom and power. Instead of pursuing their questions for logical answers, the Scripture says they were offended at Him. As a result Jesus did not do many miracles there. “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household” (Matt. 13:57). This happens today when those who know you well, who have grown up with you and have been with you for a period of time, look at the common, human side of you and are offended when they see the power of God at work in you.
Perhaps the most striking event showing the irrevocable commitment the people had made to reject Jesus Christ was the execution of John the Baptist. John was sent as a prophet to the nation Israel to prepare them for the Messiah, but he was executed by a leader of the nation. This was an indication that Israel and its leaders were totally committed to rejecting the Messiah.
The report of the execution of John the Baptist is concluded in Matthew 14:12: “His disciples came and took away the body and buried it; and they went and reported to Jesus.” John’s execution is an awesome indication of the attitude of the nation and its leaders. From that point on, Christ’s ministry would be directed primarily to preparing His disciples for His coming execution.
The events of Matthew 14:13-33 are also recorded in John 6. The Apostle John says that these things occurred about the time of the Passover, an indication that these events occurred one year prior to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. When the next Passover comes, Jesus Christ will be betrayed and executed in Jerusalem.
These events include two miracles having the same emphasis. The two miracles will demonstrate the total sufficiency of Jesus Christ. The prime focus of the miracles is directed to the disciples to show them that Jesus Christ is indeed adequate to meet their every need.
Jesus Christ performed many miracles during His short ministry including casting out demons, healing the sick and raising people from the dead. If you were to select the miracle you feel is most important, which one would you choose? My first reaction would probably be to choose the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. He had died and been buried four days, then he was called back to life by Christ. But the only miracle Christ performed during His earthly ministry which is recorded by all four gospel writers-Matthew, Mark, Luke and John-is the feeding of the five thousand. Whether that makes it the most important miracle is unclear, but it definitely indicates something of the importance of this miracle as the Holy Spirit directed all four of the gospel writers to record these events.

Matthew immediately moves into a description in Matthew 14:13 of the events surrounding Jesus’ miracle of feeding of the five thousand: “Now when Jesus heard about John, He withdrew from there in a boat to a secluded place by Himself; and when the people heard of this, they followed Him on foot from the cities.” When Jesus received word of the execution of John the Baptist, He decided to leave the region of Herod Antipas, also known as Herod the tetrarch, because Herod had heard of the ministry of Christ. He thought Christ might be John the Baptist resurrected from the dead. It was not Christ’s purpose at that point to have a confrontation with Herod, so He left the realm of Herod the tetrarch and moved into the realm of Herod Philip. He crossed the northern part of the Sea of Galilee from the city of Tiberias on the western shore and went to the northeastern part of the sea to a little town called Bethsaida. This was a remote region where there would not be as many people, because He wanted to retire from the crowds.
The other gospel writers relate that during this time the disciples returned to Him after conducting a preaching tour. To avoid the hostility of Herod and the religious leaders of Israel and to get some time to rest and to gain personal strength, Jesus and His disciples decided to retire to this rather quiet region. But Matthew 14:13 says that when the people heard this they followed Him to the other side of the sea. Jesus and His disciples crossed by boat from Tiberias to Bethsaida, but the multitudes traversed on land around the northern edge of the sea. This would be about a ten-mile trip, and for a large portion of it they could probably keep in sight of the boat Jesus and His disciples were using. Thus they would have a good idea where Christ and His disciples were going. By this time in His ministry, the multitudes were following Him. When Christ and His disciples arrived at the other side, there was a large group of people looking for Him to continue His ministry.
Matthew 14:14 continues the narrative: “When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.” Christ is weary from the draining ministry He has been carrying on and from the opposition He has faced. Now He is confronted by thousands of people and His response is one of compassion, a word used only in the gospels and mainly of Christ. He consistently sees the multitudes from God’s perspective in light of their need. He does not consider them to be a bother or a burden, nor does He look at the opposition He is facing. Rather, He looks at the pitiful condition of their need. Matthew used this word earlier in his Gospel: “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). Jesus saw these people with their tremendous needs and equated them to sheep without a shepherd. He was not just sorry for them, but He had an inner identification with their needs so that He was moved to meet their needs. He healed their sick.
In Mark and Luke the writers indicate that along with healing them, He taught them. Mark indicates He taught them concerning the kingdom of God. In this situation with such great multitudes of people, it is remarkable that Jesus both instructs and heals them.
There were probably about fifteen thousand people present on this occasion. Matthew 14:21 indicates that there were about five thousand men plus women and children. Estimates of the total number run from ten thousand to twenty thousand people when you add the women and children to the five thousand men. So labeling this the feeding of the five thousand is actually a misnomer. It is really the feeding of the fifteen thousand!
Matthew 14:15 indicates that the time of day was evening. There were two evenings in the Jewish day. One evening began at 3 p.m. and the other at 6 p.m. It is important to keep these two times in mind, because at the end of Matthew 14:23, Matthew refers to a second evening. The Israelites were told in Exodus 12:6 to kill the lamb for Passover “at twilight” (literally, between the evenings). This indicates the sacrifice was to be made between 3 and 6 p.m. Early evening was considered to begin at 3 p.m. with the late evening beginning at 6 p.m. because the Jewish day began at 6 o’clock in the evening.
The evening referred to in Matthew 14:15 was the early evening, about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. “When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” The disciples were aware that it would take quite a while for the thousands of people there to go into the villages around the area and get enough food for themselves. They wanted to allow the people time to secure food, so they suggested to Jesus that they should send the people on their way.
The attitude of the disciples was correct as they evaluated the need. They realized that the people were going to have to eat. They did not want a catastrophe on their hands when all of a sudden thousands of people, including women and children, became famished in the wilderness. They knew they did not have enough food among them to feed the people. They also knew that everyone would have to walk several miles before they could get enough food. Keep in mind that the people had already walked close to ten miles to where Jesus and the disciples were. They would have already worked up an appetite by that time, so the disciples’ solution to the problem was to send the people away so they could buy food for themselves and meet their own needs.
According to Matthew 14:16, Jesus’ solution was different: “But Jesus said to them, ‘They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!’” The disciples have recognized the problem and have evaluated the need. In fact, John 6:7 indicates that Philip had evaluated the situation to the point of saying that two hundred denarii would not be enough to give everyone just a little bit of food. A denarius was a day’s wage for a working man. Philip said that two hundred days’ pay would not buy enough food for those people. The disciples obviously did not have anywhere near that amount of money in their treasury anyway.
The disciples have evaluated the need and know how overwhelming it is. Their solution is to send the people away. But that is not Christ’s solution. He indicates that they do not need to send them away and tells the disciples that they are to feed them. Notice that Jesus does not say, “We will feed them.” He says, “You feed them!” Stop and think about that command for a moment. Imagine yourself being one of those twelve disciples looking at fifteen thousand people standing around and Jesus says, “You feed them!” Those disciples did not have enough money to buy food for those people even if they could have found enough food in the area.
As John records in John 6:8-9, Andrew found a little boy who had brought five little barley loaves and two fish. Matthew gives the abbreviated account in Matthew 14:17: “They said to Him, ‘We have here only five loaves and two fish.’” The barley loaves were small, round, flat barley cakes and looked something like pancakes. With those five loaves the little boy also had two little fish to spruce up his rather dry lunch. The disciples have done their homework, and that boy’s lunch is all the resources they have available. As they evaluate this situation, they see an overwhelming need. They have some idea of what the minimum cost will be to provide food. They have also checked out their resources. In light of all of these things, they conclude that they should send the people away.
But Jesus tells them to feed the people. Now what do they do? They only have five barley loaves and two fish.
Jesus instructs them in Matthew 14:18, “And He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’” They have failed to consider the greatest resource available to them. Their greatest resource is not the amount of money they have or the amount of physical food that is available. The greatest resource is the fact that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, is present. They have overlooked that overwhelmingly significant fact. Jesus’ solution is for them to bring to Him what they have. That is an important aspect.
The process of the steps they have gone through is interesting. They have identified the need and have seen it is overwhelming. They have looked at their resources and have seen they are inadequate. Now they are commanded to bring what they do have, as little as it is, to Jesus Christ. The solution to the problem will be in their bringing what they have to Him.
The multitude was ordered to recline on the grass according to Matthew 14:19. The other gospel accounts tell that they were arranged in groups of fifty because there must be some order to this mass of people. Otherwise, how would they be sure that everyone got something? To avoid mass confusion, the people were arranged in groups of fifty for a picnic.

Matthew continues in Matthew 14:19, “Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food.” Don’t you wonder what was going on in the disciples’ minds as Jesus was going through these procedures? They probably thought this was a lot of fanfare to divide five little round cakes and two little fish among fifteen thousand people. But after Jesus got all the people settled down, He offered thanks and praise to God for His provision, “and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds” (v. 19). This miracle is for the purpose of developing and maturing the disciples and causing them to recognize that Christ is sufficient to meet every need.
Christ could have told the people to sit down in groups of fifty, then send a representative from each group to Him and He would give them the food. That would have gotten the job done and all the people would have been fed, but that process would not have included the disciples.
Do you see what Christ has done? He has had the disciples evaluate the need. He has had the disciples check the resources. He has had the disciples bring what they had to Him. Now the disciples are going to receive back from Christ the food they need to distribute to the multitudes. The disciples are a crucial part of what Christ is doing.
He works the same way today. He could go around us and get His job done. Sometimes it seems like it would be a lot more effective if He did, but He is in the process of maturing His followers. So He uses us in the process so that we can learn to trust Him and draw from Him for what we need. We must learn that He is adequate in every situation.
The provisions were adequate. “And they all ate and were satisfied” (Matt. 14:20). John 6:12 says they were filled. This was not a matter of simply giving everyone a little bit. You have probably been to a buffet or covered-dish supper where everyone was asked to take small servings so there was some for everyone. At such a meal we often tell our kids not to go back and load up their plates with seconds until everybody has been through once. But there are no instructions like that in this passage. Everybody stuffed their faces until they were full: men, women and children. There would have been teenagers there who also ate until they were full, if you can imagine such a thing! Everybody was filled. You can almost hear someone saying, “That was the best fish and bread dinner I have ever had. I am stuffed! ”
Matthew 14:20 adds, “They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets.” There are sometimes pictures of this miracle where the disciples are walking away with bushel baskets of food on their shoulders. That is not the picture described here. These were small baskets that were carried on the person for individual provisions. These were the provisions that were for the disciples themselves to meet their needs. It is interesting that there were twelve full baskets left over. Jesus Christ has provided everything that was needed for these people including His twelve disciples. But that does not mean that they walked away and left piles of food scattered around. He did not provide in wasteful abundance.
Sometimes I think it would be great in this ministry if the Lord would give us ten million dollars. But do we need that? No, but it would be nice! However, Christ does provide for every need along the way.
This is an example of the principle of how God operates with abundance. He could have just distributed food so that people climbed into the piles and stuffed themselves and then walked away from the leftovers. But that is not the way He operated. He provided adequately, but no more.
The emphasis of this event is that the disciples will learn that Jesus Christ is sufficient. They must learn that they are never to stop at simply evaluating the need and their resources. Those are important steps, but they must learn to take the third step and bring what little they have and submit it to Jesus Christ and allow Him to do what needs to be done. In this incident the disciples fail to get the point. The next miracle will demonstrate that.
Jesus continued to teach His disciples with another event. After they picked up the pieces, Matthew records in Matthew 14:22, “Immediately He made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away.” While relating this incident in John 6, John tells that the people were so excited about being fed that they wanted to take Jesus Christ by force and make Him king right then. That is one reason for His coming, but John indicates that this was not the right time. If the people truly recognized that He was the Messiah and King, their response should have been one of submission to Him, but that was not their response. They still had not perceived who He was and submitted themselves to Him. They enjoyed being fed and concluded that anyone who could feed them so well should be their king so He could keep on feeding them. That was all they could see. So in order to forgo any kind of problem in this regard, Christ dispersed the multitude and put His disciples in a boat and sent them on their way.
Matthew continues to describe the events: “After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone” (Matt. 14:23). It was about 6 o’clock in the evening of the same day in which Jesus had fed the multitude. He was praying alone.
A new problem is introduced in Matthew 14:24: “But the boat was already a long distance from the land, battered by the waves; for the wind was contrary.” John 6:19 says that they had rowed about three or four miles out into the Sea of Galilee, but they were not making any progress. This sea is subject to strong, violent storms that come up very unexpectedly. The disciples had been caught in one of those storms.
The time is identified in Matthew 14:25: “And in the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea.” The fourth watch of the night is between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. The disciples were sent out about 6 o’clock the preceding evening and now it is already early morning. They have been rowing this boat for about nine to twelve hours.
Many people today are conscious of their need for physical exercise. Some have rowing machines, of all things! But I doubt there are too many people who have rowed for nine to twelve hours nonstop with their rowing machines.
The disciples are caught in a storm with violent wind and waves. They have been constantly rowing to keep the boat going into the waves so it is not swamped. They are probably wondering that if Jesus is the Messiah, why did He send them out in that storm by themselves? Where is He when they need Him? They have been struggling against the storm for several hours but are making no progress.
In the midst of their futile efforts, Christ “came to them, walking on the sea” (v. 25). When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they said with one voice, “Praise God! The Lord is here, we are saved! ” No, that is not what they said. “When the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out in fear” (v. 26).
They are in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and many boats have gone down before them. Suddenly the ghost of Davy Jones’ locker comes to get them! They are afraid. Their minds are concentrating on rowing through the storm, and they are not expecting someone to come walking by. Looking back on the situation, it is easy to wonder why they did not expect the Lord to be there with them. After all, didn’t they have any concept of His power?
The disciples cried out for fear when they saw Jesus. “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid’” (v. 27). There are three parts to Jesus’ command to them. The first statement is, “Take courage,” the second, “It is I,” and the third, “Do not be afraid.”
At this point in Matthew’s Gospel an individual comes to the fore in a prominent way for the first time who will be the prominent disciple in the rest of Matthew’s account. This person is that well-known disciple Peter who speaks right up. “Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water’” (Matt. 14:28). This indicates that Peter has no doubt that it is Christ, because he does not have any question about His being a ghost. He recognizes that this is the Lord.
When you read this, you have to admire Peter’s courage. Whatever you may say about Peter, I will never believe he was not a man of great faith. Peter is in the midst of a storm on the Sea of Galilee with the waves crashing around him and the Lord says, “Get out of the boat and come over here, Peter,” and Peter gets out of the boat.
I do not know what was going through the minds of the other disciples as he climbed over the side of that boat and put his foot down on the water, but I have to say that Peter was a man of great faith! Notice that none of the other disciples are jumping overboard to go with him. The only one to go was Peter. As brash and presumptuous as he was, you have to give him credit for getting out of the boat onto the water. If I had been there, I would have been in the boat saying to Andrew, “Can you believe that crazy Peter? ” But Peter got out of that boat at the command of Christ. And you know, there are only two people in all of history who have walked on water: Jesus Christ and Peter! He got out and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. Can you believe that?
Can you also believe there are some people, who claim to have half a mind, who try to describe what the “real” situation was here? They say the disciples were hung up close to shore and Jesus was walking along the rocks under the surf, so Peter got out to go to Him and had no problem. That explanation is so ridiculous it hardly bears mentioning, but it shows the lengths some people will go to as they try to do away with the miraculous in the Word of God. It seems ridiculous that these seasoned fishermen who had spent their lives on the Sea of Galilee would not even know if they were beached on the shore and if Jesus were walking on the rocks! Can you see these men struggling for nine to twelve hours without realizing they were beached? It takes a lot more to believe that than it does to believe the miracle that is recorded here.
Peter is doing fine as He gets out of the boat and starts to walk toward Jesus. This is not a placid sea. The storm is still going on as the waves crash around him. The boat may sink due to the storm, but Peter is walking across the sea. All of a sudden the circumstances dawned on him. “What in the world am I doing here? Look at these waves and at this storm!” Matthew 14:30 says, “But seeing the wind, he became frightened.” The point here is the fierceness of the storm. Peter became afraid and began to sink. He did all right when he saw it was the Lord, and he trusted God to enable him to walk on the water toward his Savior. But he lost it! All of a sudden the circumstances dawned on him. The violence of the storm became a reality as he realized that people do not walk on water. Perhaps he heard the other disciples talking behind him in the boat, “This next wave will get him for sure. He will never make it. Anybody can make it three steps on water, but just watch! ”
Peter’s faith failed as he became more conscious of the storm than of Christ and His ability to keep him. Immediately he started to sink. But the amazing thing to me is that Peter does not just resign himself and say, “Here I go! ” “and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matt. 14:30). This shows how ridiculous a lack of faith is. Peter trusted Christ to get him out of the boat. He trusted Him to walk on the water. All of a sudden he ceased to trust Him and started to sink. Right away he cried to the Lord to save him.
Sometimes we do the same dumb thing. We tell the Lord we are going to trust Him because we know He will see us through whatever the situation may be. We charge into that situation saying, “Boy, this is exciting. It is just the Lord and me, and He is sustaining me each moment.” All of a sudden the seriousness of the situation dawns on us. We see how bad things really are. Maybe we hear some of our friends starting to share with us how serious the situation is. They tell us that they have never seen the Lord bring anyone through this kind of situation. That is all we needed to hear! Then we begin to doubt that He will see us through, and we feel ourselves being swamped, we begin going under. Then we cry out to the Lord for help. Isn’t it amazing that the Lord who was seeing us through, the one we decided we could not trust to keep us, is now the one we are sure can save us if He wants to? This shows how inconsistent we are at times and how irrational we become when we cease to trust Him. He is the One to save us.
Matthew 14:31 continues, “Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’” Even though Peter had little faith, he had more than the others did. Keep in mind that eleven men are still in the boat. We must give Peter credit for the faith he had. He was the only one of the twelve who got out and started across the water.
Surely Jesus’ question, “Why did you doubt?” was a perceptive question addressed to Peter. Was there any doubt that Christ could keep him? The point Jesus is making to Peter is to help him see that Christ is sufficient. He is able to keep Peter in any circumstances. That is why He said to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Jesus rescued Peter and took him back to the boat. “When they got into the boat, the wind stopped” (v. 32). Matthew 14:33 gives another clear indication of the deity of Jesus Christ as He accepts their worship: “And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, ‘You are certainly God’s Son!’” The disciples were awed because not only have they seen what happened with the feeding of the five thousand but also Jesus came walking by on the water. Then Peter walked on the water and was rescued by Christ. On top of all of this, Christ got into the boat and the storm was calmed. This was not a gradual subsiding of the storm, but the storm ended immediately. They recognized His supernatural power over the elements and over creation, and they worshiped Him as God’s Son.
The other gospel writers indicate that the problem in the storm is that the disciples had not learned the lesson of the loaves. “Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:51,52). They were not prepared to trust Christ in the storm because they had not learned the lesson of the loaves which was to teach them that no matter how overwhelming the circumstances or how inadequate they were personally, Christ is sufficient.
Can you believe that these disciples got in the boat the same day Jesus had fed fifteen thousand people, a miracle of which they had been a part, and immediately forgot the lessons Jesus was teaching them? When they got in the storm, it did not dawn on them at all that Christ was sufficient in their circumstances. That is the basic point in both of the miracles that are brought together here: Jesus Christ is sufficient to provide for every need in every situation.
This reminds me of Psalm 23:2: “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” That is what Christ did with the multitude in Matthew 14. He told them to lie down in the green pastures and He nourished and fed them. Psalm 23 goes on to say, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for You are with me” (v. 4). While going through that storm, the disciples were going through the valley of the shadow of death. Death was a reality, but Christ was there to shepherd them and to keep them. He was able to meet their needs and sufficient to provide in spite of their inadequacy.
The tragedy of this is that we can read the accounts of these miracles and conclude that it is almost comical to see the disciples going through their fears while Christ is able to meet their needs. All they needed to do was trust the Lord and know that He could care for them in every situation. But what happens when we get into tough situations? We look at our needs and see them as overwhelming; we evaluate our resources and conclude there is no way the two can come together, but we stop there. We have a God who will supply all our needs “according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). He is adequate and has promised to meet all our needs. He wants us to bring those needs to Him so that we recognize His sufficiency and learn to trust Him more.
The point is the same with the message of the boat. We sometimes get into storms with pressures and trials building all around us. How easily we forget how God has met our needs in the past and provided for us up to this point. When the storms press in and the trials come, we say it has never been this bad before. Does that mean these circumstances are too bad for Him to handle now? We need to remember that He is adequate and wants us to turn to Him.
In his account of the incident, Mark says that Jesus went on as if He were going to walk by them on the water until they cried out to Him. It was important for them to recognize they needed to turn to Him. We too must be learning to turn to Him and to trust Him in every situation. Peter was walking on the water in the midst of the storm. Even if it was the biggest wave he ever saw, so what? Christ was sufficient to see him through. Even though dozens of sailors and fishermen had drowned in storms on the Sea of Galilee, that had nothing to do with Christ’s ability to keep Peter through the storm.
When the storms come to your life, it does not matter whether you know people who have not made it through those circumstances or not. Do you know that the Savior you have is sufficient? Do you know He can meet every need and can care for you in every circumstance? It does not matter that hundreds of thousands of people have gone under. Christ is sufficient to see you through and to keep you in the midst of the storm.
What a privilege we have to trust Him! Two lessons stand out from these miracles. One lesson is seen in the passage just surveyed in Matthew 14. It is the message of Christ’s sufficiency to meet every need and protect in every situation. But the other lesson is not found in Matthew’s record of these events. It is recorded in John 6. “Jesus said to them, „I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35). “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (v. 47). “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh” (v. 51). Jesus is saying that those who have not yet believed in Him must recognize that He is the sufficient Savior. He is the One God has provided to be adequate to provide cleansing and forgiveness from sin and to give you an eternal relationship with God. He is the bread of life that satisfies the inner hunger and thirst for God.
The tragedy is seen in John 6:36 as Jesus addresses the Jews: “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” These people were exposed to the One who was adequate to cleanse and forgive them from sin and give them eternal life. They could partake of Him and enter into a personal relationship with Him by appropriating for themselves the benefit of His life and death on their behalf. Yet they would not believe in Him. They had not seen His sufficiency. It is important that you see He is sufficient as the bread of life to provide eternal life for you if you will believe in Him.
Have you understood the message of the feeding of the thousands? There is something more important than your physical appetite. Your spiritual needs take precedence over your physical needs. Those spiritual needs can only be satisfied in Jesus Christ. He is the only One who is totally sufficient to meet all of your spiritual needs.
When you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior, as the One who loved you and died for you, you ought to recognize that He is also adequate to meet your every need as you walk with Him. He is able to keep you in every situation. It is His intention to care for you until He brings you into the glory of His presence in heaven.