A Loving King

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. You may be seated.

Will you please open with me to the book of Mark, Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter six, I know the bulletin says, and I just updated this week, but we are short on time. So we are going to begin at verse 30. Mark chapter six, beginning at verse 30. And we'll read through verse 44. Mark chapter six, beginning at verse 30. Look around page 888 if you're using your Pew Bibles. Mark chapter 6, beginning at verse 13. Hear now God's word. Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

And He said to them, Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves. But the multitude saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before Him and came together to Him. And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things. When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late.

Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. But He answered and said to 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 them something to eat? But he said to them, how many loaves do you have? Go and see.

And when they found out, they said five and two fish. Then he commanded them to make them all sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in ranks and hundreds and in fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them. And the two fish he divided among them all. So they all ate and were filled. And they took up twelve basketful of fragments and of the fish. Now those who had eaten the loaves were about five thousand men."

Prayer for Illumination

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God will stand forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank You so much for the historical account that you have given us to look at this morning. Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit might teach us this morning, and that you might apply these truths to our lives, that you would open our eyes and soften our hearts, that we might know you, love you, and walk in your ways. We need you, Lord, this morning. Please be with us. In Jesus's name, amen.

Sermon

From 1959 to 1961, 30 million Chinese people died. When the Cultural Revolution in China happened, 30 million Chinese people starved to death. There was a famine and great hunger, but Mao Zedong was dead set on his philosophy, hellbent on making sure that he was going to depopulate the rural areas, bring the cities together, make communes, take personal property, even cooking utensils from the people, and make them starve to death.

Not a story often told in the West. And yet you talk to Christians who are ripped from their homes, their Bibles burned in front of them. That's quite a telling story. Is all power like this? Is this how leaders are supposed to act? When you hear that 60% of the North Korean population lives on the edge of starvation, does it make us wonder if that's what God is like? Is He a despot? Is He a dictator? Is he like the Alatollah in Iran right now who is executing people every single day who are protesting against his power? Is that what King Jesus is like? Does he even care about us?

Well, the truth is that Jesus Christ is no despotic despot, but he is a compassionate King of Kings. And so as we come to this passage today, we will see King Jesus shining in his love for his people. And so first notice with me that Jesus shows his care for first his disciples, verses 30 and 32. Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.

And he said to them, come aside for yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat. So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves." Jesus is no slave driver. Notice he had sent them out, he had commissioned them to go and to share this good news, and they went out, and when they come back, they're continually ministering to people. They didn't have time to eat, even, because so many people were coming and going, and Jesus doesn't say, suck it up, buttercup, we're going to keep on going all night long. No, he says, hey, you know what, guys? Let's get in the boat. We need to go take a siesta. We need to go get away, and we need to rest a little while. Jesus plans for them a retreat, a rest, a recovery.

God does not want His disciples to be like a candle shining brightly only to have a jar put on top of it to slowly snuff out the oxygen or the light. No, He wants His disciples to sit at His feet. To be filled with the Holy Spirit. To serve from a heart of love, not out of a place of utter exhaustion Many of you Sunday school teachers, VBS volunteers, deacons, elders, servants in the church have served for decades and decades and decades. It is vital for you that yes, the Martha work needs to be done, but you must learn to also come and sit at the feet of Jesus Christ and take heed what he says, come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, because he gives rest for our souls. And so yes, work, work for the glory of God, work for his kingdom and care for him, but know that he is no slave driver, always demanding of you more, more, more.

Time and time again, he tells his disciples, let's go to a deserted place. Let's go pray. Let's just go be together. So we see Jesus' compassion first for his disciples in verses 30 through 32. But also notice that Jesus has compassion on the leaderless. I don't know if that's a word, but I'm going to make it. Leaderless. Sounds kind of fun. Jesus has compassion on those who do not have a leader.

Verses 33 through 34. But the multitude saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

Have you ever planned on going on vacation before? everything is all set you're ready to go relax and then the car breaks down or someone gets sick or maybe you've come home from a hard day of work and you you have it built up in your mind i'm gonna go home and i'm just gonna i'm gonna plop on the couch and i'm just gonna rest a little while and then your wife lovingly hands you a child and says i was never this bad growing up or maybe you're just dog tired you've been working all day caring for children You're about ready to go to sleep and your spouse rolls over and says, hey love, we need to talk. And you know you ain't getting any sleep that night. You might be tempted to frustration. Right? When we're tired, we could be tempted to just, no, why won't you just let me relax?

But notice what Jesus does. Jesus has compassion. When he came out, He saw a great multitude, verse 34, and he was moved with compassion for them. This word here, compassion, if you've listened to me for any period of time, you know that this is my favorite Greek word in all the Bible, splagnizomai, or splagnon is the noun version of it.

This is from deep down in your guts, compassion. This is not just like, oh yeah, he kind of liked them a little bit. This is... The same type of thing as when my grandfather died and we were at his funeral and my grandmother held it together pretty well until she walked up to his casket and she started to weep uncontrollably and she was convulsing, not able to control herself because she loved him so much. That is the compassion that Jesus has on the crowd. That is the love that he shows to them.

He sees them and He sees them as sheep without a shepherd and He knows that Ezekiel 34 was speaking of Him. That as these people literally ran to go see Him, He knew that the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the leaders of that day, had led the people astray and were not being good leaders, not being good elders of the people. Just teaching them precept upon precept, command upon command, but not actually leading them to the fount of living water. And Jesus is a messianic shepherd.

Now this is one of the beautiful pictures that we have in the Scriptures time and time again. We sang of it when we opened up worship this morning with Psalm 100. We are the sheep of His pasture. I can't tell you how many nursing homes I've been in and dying rooms I've been in where one of the sweetest Psalms and how many funerals, one of the sweetest Psalms to sing is Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. As the Lord who is our shepherd, And as Jesus has compassion upon the people there, as He sees the crowd as sheep without a shepherd, He knows that He is the one who is to lead them. He is the one who is to care for them. He is the one, as He says in John chapter 10, He is the good shepherd. And His sheep hear His voice, and so He sees them helpless, defenseless, leaderless, and needing compassion and protection. And He shepherds them.

I don't know about you, but this is a great comfort to me. Our God is not so far removed, so transcendent, so other, that He doesn't know your name. But He counts every hair upon your head. The Lord counts your steps, the Lord feeds you, guides you, corrects you, trains you, loves you, has woven you together in your mother's womb and has appointed a day for you to be with him forever.

Because he is our shepherd all of life and into eternity. But as Jesus is preaching, As he's teaching them, notice what he does. Verse 34, he has compassion on them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So he began to teach them many things. He teaches them and he teaches them and he teaches them.

And I know, I've heard about this in some churches. It would never happen in this church. But as a pastor keeps going on and on, as a shepherd keeps going on and on, I'm sure people were looking at the sundial on their wrists and thinking, man, we haven't eaten nothing all day. It never happened in this church. But this is what the disciples' practical concern is. And so notice that Jesus' compassion in verses 35 through 34 is not just feelings. Jesus' compassion is not just feelings. Look with me at verses 35 through 44.

When the day was now far spent, the disciples came to him and said, this is a deserted place, and already the hour is late. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. But he answered and said to them, you give them something to eat. And they said to him, shall we go and buy 200 denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat? But he said to them, how many loaves do you have?

Go and see. And they found out, and they said, five and two fish. And then we know the rest of the story. He has them sit down in groups of hundreds and fifties. He distributes the bread. And what we see here is the disciples have a legitimate concern. How are we going to feed this many people?

Right? It's late. We need to disperse them. We need to send them away. They need to go into the towns to be able to buy some food. And John tells us that Jesus wants to test their faith. He knows that it's late, and the disciples are almost here wanting to wash their hands, right? Just send them out into the towns.

The issue is there's 5,000 people here. Most towns around this area are the size of between Mediapolis and Morning Sun's population. Do you know what it's like when a crowd of 5,000 people descends on a town like that? Go to the 4th of July in morning sun and you'll see what it's like.

There's not enough food in town to feed all those people without months and months and months and months of planning. I remember when Olivia and I, just this past year, we went to a conference in Louisville and they knew, everybody knew that this conference was going to go on and one morning I made the mistake of sleeping in and I woke up at about 6.37 and I went down to Dunkin Donuts and lo and behold there was a line an hour and a half long. They get coffee and a breakfast sandwich.

Could you imagine the chaos that would have ensued if they had just been sent out into the surrounding towns? The markets were closed. The hour was late. They had run there to listen to Jesus. And so he asked them, you feed them. And they say, well, Jesus, really? It's impractical.

How can we do that? A denarii is a little silver coin that's about a day's wages. It's about seven months worth of work. One, do the disciples even have that type of cash on hand? I doubt it. Two, where are they going to go? I would ask you sometime, go down into Burlington, drive into McDonald's and tell them, I would like to order 5,000 hamburgers. See how long A, it takes them to make it, or B, if they'll even do it. How are they going to pull this off? How is it going to happen?

With God, all things are possible. And so Jesus says, let them sit down. Go ahead, let everybody sit down. God is not a God of chaos, but a God of order. And so He has them sit in groups of 100 and in groups of 50. And as He has them sit in these groups, He takes these two fish and these five loaves, and He takes one of the loaves and He does something remarkably familiar. What a head of almost any Jewish family home would do at that time.

He lifts up his eyes to heaven. Now that's a little bit odd. Normally when a Jewish person would pray, they would look down. But Jesus looks up to heaven. He holds the bread and he gives thanks. A normal prayer by a Jewish person, a father in the home at this time, would say something like, praise unto you, oh Lord, our God, King, who makes bread to come from earth. We don't know exactly what Jesus' prayer was. It might have been something like that. Maybe he was asking his father for the power to actually do this miracle.

Maybe he was praying that the people's eyes would see that he was giving them manna from heaven. That he was the bread of life himself, but either way he gives thanks and then he breaks apart the bread and he gives it to the disciples. And the disciples then go and they distribute it.

We're not told exactly how this miracle happens because we don't need to know exactly how it happens because that's how miracles work. God does it. We don't need to explain it. Do you know this is one of the few miracles that's listed in every single gospel? It's in Matthew, it's here in Mark, it's in Luke, and it's in John. And not a single one of them tries to explain it, because every single one of them understood this was God doing a miracle. So what does this mean for our lives?

Okay, this is great that Jesus is compassionate. And His compassion isn't just feelings. He actually sees the people's needs, and He gives them real bread. He knows that the disciples haven't eaten, and so He provides them with food. Jesus' compassion has hands and feet.

So how does this apply to our life? Well, Jesus tells us that in the Sermon on the Mount. We ought not to be people who worry about what we will eat or what we will drink or what we will wear. But rather we are to trust in our Heavenly Father who knows that we need all these things. He cares for the sparrows. Aren't you more valuable than they? So we need not be worried and overrun with anxiety. We can trust in our Heavenly Father. But what does God require of us in this passage?

Well, that word splognon or splognizomai is used three other times in the New Testament. Specifically in how we are to respond to each other. See, we are to have this type of a compassion to one another. 1 John chapter 3 verse 17 is a verse that tells them if anyone, if anyone has the things of this life, hey guys, have you got stuff? And you see your brother having need, and you close up your heart, you shut your splognon against them, How does the love of God abide in you? Philippians chapter two tells us that Jesus Christ emptied himself, putting on tender mercies, and we ought also to have those same tender mercies, that same compassion. How will the world know that we are Jesus' disciples? If we have love for one another. So how can you do this? Where can you show this type of compassion?

Well, there's nursing homes filled with people who are lonely. They need people to come and visit. There are shut-ins in our congregation. Can you give them a call? Can you write them a letter? Can you encourage those who are not able to leave their own homes?

Do you see members in the congregation, people who are struggling financially, can you help out? Do you have parents? Do you have older parents who need care? Or do you see parents in our congregation who need help and can use your wisdom? Do you see the sick and are you willing to care for them?

Where can you show this type of compassion? There are a slew of new people in the church. Will they find a friend in your hospitality, in your conversations, in your love for them? Will we show compassion to the widows, to the hungry, to those who thirst, and to those who are strangers?

This is what comes from the lips of Jesus Christ. Right, when he judges, he says that they're blessed when they saw him hungry and they gave him something to eat. They saw him thirsty, they gave him something to drink. They saw him naked and they clothed him. They say, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked or a stranger and bring you in? And he said, as many as you did unto the least of these you did to me.

The opportunities for Christian compassion abound, but our eyes must be open to the needs of those around us. So why ought we to do this? Did this sermon just take a major turn from, you know, relishing in the compassion of Jesus Christ, the type of Christian legalism? No. No, this is saying we are to be the embodiment of Christ's love. That as Christ has loved us, so ought we to love one another. Right? This is the fulfillment of the second greatest commandment. To love others as we would love ourselves. This is not legalism, but this is an acknowledging that God is the one who has made us stewards of our time, our talents, and our resources.

God has entrusted to you, Christian, a certain amount of time. Will you use it for his glory? God has given you certain material provisions, resources in your life, knowledge that He has given you, wisdom that He has imparted to you. Will you use it selfishly or for His kingdom? We are stewards of the good things He's given us, but we love. We love others because He first loved us. And He set this pattern before us in this passage. So how do we do this?

Well, I'm going to encourage you, don't worry about how many loaves or fish other people have. The people there could have said, you know, the disciples of the Pharisees, they always have enough bread to feed their parties. You know, the Sadducees, they always have enough money, so they're able to go into town and buy all the food. But Jesus, these people around here, don't worry about it.

Worry about what you have, the resources you have, and the opportunities that God presents to you. We're not going to solve all the world's problems. Little Sharon RP Church does not have all the resources to solve all the problems of the world. But maybe we have the opportunities to help others today.

That God providentially brings in front of our faces to look at and to show love today or this week. Jesus's compassion has hands and feet. It is not just in words or feelings because Jesus is our miraculous Messiah. Jesus is our miraculous Messiah. Look with me at verses 34 and 42. And Jesus, when he came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So he began to teach them Many things. And then verse 42. So they all ate and were filled. After all the food was distributed, after everything was handed out from Jesus' compassion for the people, He feeds this group of 5,000.

By the way, that's just men. Kids, you weren't included in that census. Ladies, you were there, but you weren't part of the numbering. That means it was probably a much bigger crowd. Jesus loves them. And He feeds them. He gives them a full meal. Each one of them walks away satisfied. Now I want you to think about this banquet. This meal that Jesus gives. Remember what we had looked at last week with Herod's banquet. We remember last week with Herod's banquet how he had this drunken party of his own. Right? He has his own birthday, and so he wants to invite all the chief officials, all the rulers of the land, all the military guys, and he wants to impress them with his wealth and his fortress and all his good wine, and he even does despicable things there.

Now compare that to the beautiful scene on the green grass in the deserted place next to the sea, where instead of loving himself, Jesus loves others. Instead of celebrating himself, Jesus cares for those who came to him. Instead of being only for those who are the elite and powerful, Jesus cares even for the women, the children, and those who had no other way to get to him, but to run by their feet.

And Jesus, the bread of life, gives them the manna from heaven. Jesus, the one who came down from his father, He uses this meal in the book of John and tells them, I am the bread of life. He tells them, I'm the manna from heaven. You need to come and feed upon me.

Because see, Jesus is our miraculous Messiah King. Jesus is the one who can make bread come out of nothing. Out of nothing but his compassion, his love for the people. He can make things come out of nothing. He truly is the Son of David. He is the Good Shepherd, and He is the King of Kings, who numbers your days, knows your names, and will love you for all eternity. For He has promised, lo, I am with you even unto the ends of the age.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Oh Father, we thank you for the love of Jesus Christ, and we pray pleading with you that your Holy Spirit might work in our heart in such a way that we would be a people of love, a people quick to show compassion, a people quick to give our time, a people to sacrifice with resources. Lord, would you please let us be a living testimony to the love that you have poured out into our hearts, that we would love you and love others. In Jesus' name.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.