sermon on five loaves and two fishes

Sermon Notes on Mark 6:35-44

Mark 6:35-44

The prequel

Read Mark 6:7, 6:12-13

Prequel- (7) called, equipped and sent

• Proclaimed to repent and believe
• Casted out demons and healed the sick

*full of evidence of Jesus’ divine power and likely full of confidence and faith in Jesus since Jesus has made them partakers of His divine annointing and power.

 

Movement 1, The miracle

• They get back
• Jesus says lets get some r and r, take a boat to a quiet place so you can rest
• Crowd spots Jesus
• They flood in, well over 5k people
• Pickup at  34-44

 34When 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. 

• He had compassion on them

• • • Talk about Jesus
    • Not about an obligation
    • Not about being Messiah (which He is)
    • Jesus served out of love and compassion for His people!
    • Jesus isn’t your reluctant savior
    • Jesus is your advocator because He loves you
      • He’s at the right hand of the Father pleading your case
      • Ready to help
      • Ready to forgive
      • Ready to grant grace!
      • What a savior

• Sheep without a shepherd

• • He is our shepherd
  • He cares for us, He holds us, He guides us, He binds us, He feeds us, He protects us
  • John 10:11 11I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
•  And he began to teach them many things. 
  • Talk about too many voices
    • Tv, books, youtube, twitter, facebook, social media, phone calls, texts, emails
      • Lots of voices in this age, but Jesus wants to be the voice we hear
      • For them, it was through His preaching ministry “he began to teach them many things”
        • For us it is through His preached word, by His undershepherds
        • It is through personal study of His word

35And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 

36Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 

37But 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?”

38And 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.” 

39Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 

40So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties.

 41And 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. 

42And they all ate and were satisfied. 

43And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 

44And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.

Lets look at the miracle

• • Up to 20k people
    • About what the United center holds
  • Jesus asks them what resources they have to feed the people
    • 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread
  • Jesus takes what they have, looks to the Father, and says a blessing

• Said a blessing in the greek is eulogeó

• • He eulogeoed the food
    • It means to bless and give thanks for it
• Fed 20k and had 12 baskets full (never ran out)
  • Like the water into wine
  • Like the jar of oil and elisha
  • Like the flour and oil of elijah
• Only the creator can control creation in such a way, praise God, what a miracle
• What can encouragement can we get from this account of Jesus?
  • 1) we serve a God who can take what we have a multiply it for His glory and our good
    • Whatever you have, bless the Lord, thank Him for it and ask Him to do what He will with it
      • Whether it is our service to the Lord
      • Whether it is our giving to the Lord
      • Whether it is our sharing of the gospel
      • Ephesians 3:20 captures this perfectly, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
        • As Jesus did far more abundantly than what the disciples expected with the two fish and 5 loaves, Jesus can do the same in our lives!
        • Trust Jesus with your life, trust Jesus with your resources, trust Jesus with your efforts, trust Jesus to have all of you and all that you have for His glory and His kingdom and watch what He does with it!
        • He can do beyond our wildest dreams!

 

Movement two, Hard Hearts and Unbelief

• Sends disciples on a boat to the other side, tells them he’ll take an uber 🙂
• He dismisses the crowd and goes to pray
• Says forget the uber, I am going to use a cheatcode to walk on the water, I made it afterall

48-52

 48And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night (wee hours, 3-6am) he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them,

 49but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 

50for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 

51And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased.

 

Now Here is where we will park 

 And they were utterly astounded,

 52for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Read it again

And they were utterly astounded,

 52for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

• They were utterly astounded

• • Exi-stemi-out of, to stand
    • Falling out, threw, at a loss
    • This is verb
    • The text adds an additional adverb
    • It say they were exceedingly or utterly astounded
  • They were astounded by Jesus walking on the water, but it says, they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, and their hearts were hardened
• Where did this hardening of the heart come from?  Why does Mark say that their hearts were hard?
• The clue we get here is that it is connected with the loaves and their astonishment

And they were utterly astounded,

for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

• So they were utterly astonished about Jesus walking on water, because they didn’t understand about the miracle of the loaves, and their hearts were hardened.
• I believe what Mark is getting at here is that even after experiencing what Jesus did with the loaves, 
  • even after experiencing Jesus calm storms with a word,
  •  even after seeing Jesus raise the little girl from the dead, 
  • even after seeing Jesus heal all types of diseases and disorders, even after giving sight to the blind 
  • Even after seeing demons being cast out,
  •  even after themselves being empowered to do these same things, 
  • they still didn’t recognize and believe fully that Jesus was God (there is the hardened heart), and since they still didn’t believe Jesus was God, because their heart was hardened, they weren’t able to compute that Jesus could be walking on water.
• A hardened heart in scripture is used to describe a heart that doesn’t believe or is rejecting God
  • Usually it describes sinners and those in rebellion against God, but believers, even the disciples could have hard hearts, and yes, we too can have hard hearts
    • For the disciples, it seems that they believed in Jesus, remember they followed Him because they believed He was the promised Messiah, the Christ of God.  However, in this moment they weren’t fully convinced.
      • Similarly for us, we are Christians, we believe, but at times we may not be fully convinced
  • For the disciples, the root of their hardened heart was unbelief, but they are hardly outliers 
    • Psalms 78:32b despite His wonders, they did not believe
      • This is in the context of the children of Israel in the wilderness
      • Despite God’s wonders: walking on dry land in the midst of a parted sea, a cloud to lead them by day and a pillar of fire by night, water to drink out of random rocks, manna, bread of heaven raining on them, quail, birds to eat served to them, all this and more and they still didn’t believe
    • John 12:37-40  37Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
• I am convinced that we too are guilty of this hardened heart of unbelief, not fully believing God.  Like the disciples, we too have experienced miracles
  • Salvation
  • Childbirth
  • Love
  • Natural revelation
• We too have experienced unbelief
  • Choosing sin over God at times
    • This is us not believing that Jesus is better
  • Anxiety (we talked about this last week)
  • Doubt about our resources
  • Prayerlessness (not believing that God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do)
  • Whatever other areas of unbelief we have in our lives
  • I would say that any area that we are not walking or thinking according to scripture, it is an area unbelief 

 

• The scriptures here tell us that the disciples hearts were hard, did Jesus kick them out the boat?  Did He dismiss them and get new disciples once they got to the other side?  Does He kick us out the faith when we have hard hearts of unbelief?  Does He say, you know what, this being my disciple, this being a christian isn’t working out, I’m leaving you?
  • Jesus is long suffering, He’s faithful, He says, what shall separate you from the love of God, nothing!  He says, I am with you always to the end!
  • If Jesus treats us like that with our hard hearts, how does that inform us on how we are to treat others that are hard headed?

 

*Why is it important for us as believers to not have hard hearts of unbelief?*

• 1) faith is the foundation of our belief!  We must believe God fully!
  • 2 Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith, not by sight
    • That means we trust God because of our faith in Him, despite what may be going on
• 2) it pleases our Father when we have faith
  • Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
• 3) it is by faith, by our belief in Jesus and His promises found in His word, that we obtain the promises and grace in our life
  • Hebews 11:32-34 32And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 

 

How are we to respond to this word today about our hard hearts?

• First we must repent for not believing God fully
• What are those areas of your life that you aren’t believing God fully?  That you aren’t trusting God with? We must repent saints.
• Secondly, faith is a spiritual matter, brought by spritual means.  We must also go to God in prayer like the apostles did in Luke 17:5, The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
  • We too must cry out to God and say God, would you increase my faith, would you help my unbelief, will you help me to trust you as the perfect, promise keeping, working for my good savior that you are.
• Along with prayer, we must read our word
  • Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
• Lastly, I think we need to arouse our faith by training our eyes to recognize God’s miracles and God’s works
  • Lets not be like the disciples who saw the miracle of the multiplied bread and didn’t fully comprehend the miracle
  • Lets gaze at God and His works and look for reasons to worship Him for the soveriegn, majestic, uncomparable God that He is.