Saturday, April 25, 2020

The Real Hero of Your Story - Mark 6:30-44 - April 26th, 2020

These are the Sermon Notes for April 25, 2020. Watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.

Mark 6:30-44 The Real Hero of Your Story
Good morning! We are returning to the Gospel of Mark this morning with chapter six, verses 30-44, and we are going to look at Mark’s account of one of Jesus’ most famous miracles, the feeding of the five thousand.
As I’ve said before, there is a great deal of intentionality and strategy in which accounts are included in Mark’s Gospel and this account is no different. Unfortunately, the lesson of this text is often missed. Maybe it’s only me that’s missed it, but either way, it hit me between the eyes in my study this week.
Before we read out text, let’s remember that Jesus had sent out the Twelve two by two and proclaimed that people should repent, and cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them. Here in verse 30, we see what happens when they all return from their wildly successful missions trip.
30The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 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?” 38 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.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 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. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
So here we have Jesus and His disciples, called apostles here for the first time. (The word “apostle” means “one who is sent,” like an emissary or a missionary.) 
The apostles come back with this great report of all the preaching that they did, the demons that they cast out, and the people that they healed and they were exhausted. 
Jesus was very popular at this time, there was a lot going on, a lot of people coming and going, Jesus’ name was known all over as we saw last week. There wasn’t even time to stop and eat!
Jesus offers the best suggestion, “Let’s go camping!”
This exposes an important ministry reality: it’s tiring. An equally important ministry reality is that real rest is important, but is often hard to come by. I hope that our time in lockdown is giving you ample opportunity to rest, this time is a gift!
Jesus and the Apostles get into their boat and sail along the shore to a desolate place, out of town, in the wilderness. But as they are going, as they are sailing along people on shore recognize them and take off on foot to where they assumed that they were headed so that they could get more of Jesus. 
I can hardly blame them! How many miles would you run to get some time with Jesus?
So what began as a restful camping trip turned into another ministry opportunity for Jesus. And this, I think, is the popular message from this passage: where we see problems Jesus sees potential.
And that idea is not wrong exactly, every obstacle we face in life is an opportunity for the Lord to show Himself strong, and Jesus certainly did in this instance, but I don’t think that’s the main message here in this text.
Jesus has compassion on this crowd, He saw them as sheep without a shepherd, He saw a scarcity of good teaching, He saw the hunger of their souls not just of their bodies. He also knew that He Himself was the solution for their problems.
The Apostles however, only saw the problems. They were exhausted and hungry already, this huge crowd had rudely ruined their camping trip and now it was getting late and there was nothing to eat for them and all these people. 
So they came to Jesus and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
Now, maybe I’m reading a little too far into this, but Jesus response to their suggestion has got to be one of the most humbling responses He could have given them. We often laugh it off as ridiculous but I don’t think Jesus was joking.
In verse 37 Jesus answered them, “You give them something to eat.”
Why is this statement significant?
Remember that the Apostles had just returned from their very successful missions trips where they had preached and healed a bunch of people and cast out a lot of demons, Jesus wasn’t there it was only them sent out two by two. 
We have to be very careful with how we view the Apostles at this point, they had almost no clue what they were involved in and Jesus used this opportunity in the wilderness to expose their ignorance, pride, and powerlessness. 
All that demon casting out, all that healing, the power for that did not come from them, not from their own abilities or charisma, all that power came from Jesus. 
The disciples didn’t even have the power to come up with a decent plan to feed the crowd, they didn’t even have the power to trust Jesus to provide a solution to their problem.
These people weren’t starving, this account only spans three or four hours, it wasn’t even evening yet, it was only around three o’clock in the afternoon. 
The Apostles just wanted them to go away so they could rest. 
The real obstacle here in this account is pride.
Augustine rightly said that pride is the sin that is pregnant with all the others. The Apostles were proud of their accomplishments, proud of their success, but they were wrong about the source of their success. 
Their success didn’t come from their own power, it came from Jesus. 
This was exposed when Jesus said, “You feed them,” but they couldn’t, they didn’t even have enough money to buy bread for everyone to even have a little. 
They were powerless. But Jesus is all powerful.
He asks them what they do have, how many loaves? When they had found out, they said, “five loaves, and two fish.”
39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 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. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
In verse 41 after Jesus said a blessing, he broke the loves and gave them to the disciples. There is something very important about the word “gave” that is not clear in our English translations. 
The verb, “gave,” is in the “active, imperfect” tense. 
If it were translated literally it would say that He broke the loaves and gave them and continued giving them to the disciples. The loaves were multiplied in Jesus’ hands and the disciples had to continually return to Him for more bread to serve the people.
The disciples were ministers of Jesus’ divine power by submitting to Him and serving the bread. Their problem was that they weren’t yet looking to Jesus as the divine source, they still saw themselves as the heroes of their own stories. We’ll see in next week’s passage that they still didn’t understand this lesson.
We are faced with the same problem. On Easter Sunday we talked about how the Bible is not just a collection of random stories but is one long story of God’s work of redemption with Jesus as the hero. 
Our stories are no different, they are stories of God’s redemptive work in us and in the world. But all too often, just as the disciples did, we see ourselves as the heroes of our own stories but we’re not, Jesus is!
We have two advantages that the disciples did not at this point. 
One, we can see how the story ends, at least their part in it, we have the perspective that they lacked in this moment. 
The second advantage, through faith in Jesus Christ, is that we are filled with the Holy Spirit who guides us and helps us make sense of God’s Word, at this point the disciples did not, they were not filled with the Holy Spirit until the Day of Pentecost after Jesus ascended back into heaven.
Though we have these advantages, we often have the same problem, we see ourselves as the heroes of our stories instead of Jesus, we see ourselves as the source of our successes, our talent and hard work and tenacity, when, as James put it, “every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights.”
One of my favorite verses sums up this account and this lesson perfectly. 2 Corinthians 4:7, “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.”
The disciples hadn’t figured this out yet, I hope that we all will.
Let’s pray.