For now, I'm going to share my sermon notes as my reflection.
Trusting while alone
Mark 6
Last week we traveled with the disciples to the Gennesaret (Gadarenes). In the rest of the chapter, we see Jesus healing the woman who had an issue of blood for 12 years and the 12-year-old girl who Jesus raised. Interesting parallel there that we won’t get into today.
Then in Chapter 6, we see Jesus being rejected by his hometown. This is the one place they don’t bring the sick to Jesus.
Then Jesus sends forth the 12 to do short-term ministry to preach and to do miracles. (Even Judas) He is teaching them to trust God to provide as he tells them not to prepare for the work.
9-11 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”
Herod hears of Jesus and “knows” it’s John the Baptist raised. (but does nothing?)
Apostles return (verse 30-32) The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.
The Apostles were tired, and hungry. Jesus sought to give them rest.
Jesus isn’t against his people finding rest. Actually, that was one of the reasons for the Sabbath.
But they weren’t going to get it because others wanted Jesus. Very probably because people who were supposed to be quiet talked.
There is often a lot of extra work that has to be done because people don’t know when to keep quiet.
Yet- Jesus has compassion.
(33-34) But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
How did Jesus show compassion? He taught! Why?
Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu is credited with saying “You can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”
Jesus was trying to give them what they really needed truth.
What we all really need from Jesus isn’t a miracle it is the truth that can change our hearts and lives.
By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him.
(35-38)“This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? ”How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
The Disciples saw the need and maybe even their own. Their solution was to send them away.
Jesus however wasn’t just concerned with their spiritual lives. He was concerned with their physical lives.
Often in the church we tend to lean one way or the other or to get the priority out of line. But Jesus is concerned with you physical wellbeing. He just isn’t willing to make life easy at the expense of your soul.
Jesus is the guy who will say in Mark 9:42-48 “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where ‘their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.’”
So don’t ever think Jesus is just here to make life on earth easy. He would love to make life everything it can be and yes one day it will be, but for now there are bigger if you don’t mind my saying, “There are bigger fish to fry” and maybe more loaves to make.
Jesus looks at his disciples and say feed them.
They don’t look to see what they have they begin by seeing the impossible.
Jesus has to tell them to look to see what they have.
By the way, Jesus knew they didn’t have enough.
Jesus didn’t need the fish and loaves to feed the people but he wanted the disciples to give what they had.
This is what God does. He allows us to participate in his work.
What is a little? Jesus said the
What do you have?
Not much? Moses had a staff, Joseph had a dream, Gideon had 300 men to take on 135,000, David had a sling. The widow had enough oil and floor for one loaf and a few sticks, Elisha had a hand-me-down cloak, Mary didn’t have a husband (no man at all), yet they all had something that made the difference they were following God.
Now if you take your little and strike out on your own, you’ll fail. However, with God?
Mark 10:27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.”
5 loaves and 2 Fish? (ourselves?)
Whether this analogy is true or not the disciples gave what they had.
They feed 5000.
If God sends you, he will provide! (unless you live into sin, Sampson)
Jesus didn’t just provide he provided for the next part of the ministry.
Consider the disciples are tired. They have been fed now but it’s been a long day. It was supposed to have been a day off yet, it became a working day.
Now Jesus sends them over to the other side (does this sound familiar?) and Jesus deals with the crowd. Then Jesus goes up into a mountain to pray.
O.T, a lot of people went up into a mountain to hear from God.
The disciples (note that they are being called disciples again) are in the middle of the lake struggling. Jesus saw them but it wasn’t until early in the morning maybe around 4 AM does Jesus come to them.
Yet Jesus does come, walking out across the lake to them whether it’s to join them or as I heard one bible scholar say Jesus was there to lead the way.
But whichever it was, that’s not what happened. They didn’t call out to him at first nor were they inspired by this miracle. They became afraid.
The Greek word carries the idea of cowering in fear. When your cowering you’re not rowing.
They quit doing what they should have been doing, trying to get to the other side.
They looked at the circumstances and saw only one possibility.
GHOST!
They couldn’t even after all they had seen, imagine that Jesus out on the water was Jesus.
What does Jesus do?
He enters the boat and calms the winds.
What went wrong?
Mark explains they hadn’t learned the lesson of the loaves. They hadn’t learned to trust God, because their hearts were hardened.
There are people out there that say if God performed a miracle they would believe. It’s not true. If your heart is hardened, you won’t submit to God no matter how many miracles you may see.
The proof? Pharoah (these words are the same one to describe Pharoah)
God did that!? Consider this the same sun that melts butter hardens clay. It’s not the sun which caused the hardening, it was something in the heart.
Lesson:
1. Don’t harden your heart, learn.
2. Give God all that you have.
3. Don’t quit because of fear.
4. Trust God to provide the rest.
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