Sermon Tone Analysis

The Gospel According to Mark

Jesus the Total Servant

Jesus the Servant Leader

Jesus the Commanding Servant

Jesus the Suffering Servant

(MANUSCRIPT)

Four people- Joanna, Pastor Phil, Darrell and Delores were flying alone in Darrell's private airplane when engine trouble arose and Darrell said to his three passages this plane is going to crash so we've got to bail out, but there is only three parachutes for four people.

He grabbed one and went out the door before anybody could stop him.

Joanna a computer wiz said to the other remaining two passengers that " she had to get back to Professor's Marks class to set up PowerPoint presentations", so she grabbed one and jumped out.

And this left Pastor Phil and Delores.

Pastor Phil said to Delores: "you are a rising young female Pastor and your life is ahead of you, I'm ready to die, so take the last parachute, I'll go down with the plane.

And Delores said Reverend that's not going to be necessary, there's two parachutes left.

Pastor Phil said, "What do you mean?".

Delores said the computer wiz just jumped out with my knapsack on her back

PPT#1

Observing the right thing is very important in life and situations like that and in our spiritual growth as well."

WHAT WAS MOST IMPORTANT, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING THAT JESUS KEPT TEACHING HIS DISCIPLES".

The most important thing.

It was not to trust in Him, which might be our initial response to that question.

So as we pursue our study in Marks Gospel beginning at verse 30 this evening; ask yourself "what was the most important thing that Jesus was trying to communicate to His disciples."

Mark chapter 6, verse 30 we'll in this section of Mark's gospel our Lord Jesus is consecrating on the preparation of His disciples for His impending death.

He is training the twelve in particular, and we have seen in this chapter that he has sent the twelve out to various cities and towns around the Galilee (PPT#2) where they were teaching and performing miracles as he empowered them.

In verse thirty we find them returning to Him after they had completed this assignment.

Mark 6:30 "Then the apostles gathered to Jesus (in Galilee) and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught."

Remember that Jesus sent them out to teach and perform miracles.

We read about this commission in verse 7 of this chapter through verse 13, and they were basically duplicating what Jesus said and did.

That was their responsibility and now they were done, so they come back to Jesus to give Him their report.

This is one of only two times in which Mark calls them Apostles, 3:14 is the other.

This was a common title for them in the book of Acts, but here he uses the term in its non-technical, general sense.

The term Apostle mean a "sent one", the one who is sent out, on a mission, with a message.

And its used in a technical sense in the book of Acts also to describe the twelve Apostles, plus Paul, who was as he described it "one born out of time" or a special case.

The word occurs in both of these senses in the book of Acts, for example in Acts 14:4 and Acts 14:14 Luke uses it to describe Barnabas.

But he of course was not one of the twelve, but he was one whom Jesus had sent out.

And in this sense we to are apostles.

There is one sense in which the apostolic office ended in the first century, but in the general sense of apostleship- being sent out to serve Jesus Christ- there were more that just the twelve in the first century and all of us who seek to follow Jesus Christ can identify with this type of apostleship.

Mark didn't normally call them that because apparently they were still in the learning stage of their experience- learning from Jesus primarily.

Mark 31 "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."

One of my best friends feels that inactivity is a waste of time; she has to be constantly busy every moment.

There are some I my church who also feel this way but, they stay busy because they think it is a way to merit Christ's approval.

But that is not necessarily the case, we see here that Jesus took these disciple aside.

Jesus took His disciples to a secluded place so that they might rest after their labors and to be restored for future service.

He wanted to discuss their ministry with them and prepare them for their next mission.

From nature we learn a lesson about the importance of rest.

Built into the life of every tree are stages of dormancy.

In the northern climax the dormant phase is in the winter, in southern climates, the tropical regions it is in the hot, dry season.

And we will begin to discover in a few more weeks that dormancy is not death, as the trees and shrubbery all around us will again begin to burst out with new growth as life will again springs forth vigorously.

They may appear to be dead because there are no leaves on them at the present, but they are very much alive and at rest.

This dormant phase will be followed by active growth.

It is a time of rebuilding, a reconditioning phase.

Perhaps you are in one of those dormant stages now in your spiritual growth.

You may be troubled by the inactivity in your life.

Learn the lesson of the tree, and welcome the rest that is offered to you.

As Vance Havner has said, "If you don't come apart and rest, you will come apart."

Even God's Servant-Son needed time to rest, fellowship with His friends, and find renewal from the Father.

We all need rest and recreation.

A time to recharge our spiritual batteries, that was certainly in the process of discipleship that Jesus was conducting here with His followers.

"So they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves."

The boat of course is referring to this boat that we have come upon so often in our study of Mark - evidently a fishing boat, a large boat that transported Jesus and His twelve disciples across the sea when ever necessary.

PPT#3

In view of other geographic references and the other gospels and this passage, they were evidently moving in this direction from north-west to north-west.

Going from Capernaum to Bethsaida.

Verse 33 "But the multitudes 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."

Jesus was trying to get some rest and the people beat them to where they were going on foot.

"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."

Jesus was in many respects the Son of David, and in no less a respect was He that, than in His compassion for people as sheep.

David was of course a real shepherd of sheep.

But God used that background of David's life to develop qualities within him that made him a good compassionate leader of people and he became a shepherd of people just as he was a shepherd of sheep.

Jesus likewise, referred to Himself as the Good Shepherd, you remember in John chapter 10.

And we see him functioning this way in this verse.

He feels compassion for the multitudes who appears to Him as he approaches the shore in this boat.

They appeared as so many sheep and lambs scattered out in the foot-hills before Him; wandering about, trying to get help, but not really knowing where to go and with no one to give them lasting permanent guidance and subtenant.

Jesus' compassion of course is something that recurs frequently throughout the Gospel accounts.

Pity arouses sympathy, but it can quickly evaporate.

Compassion on the other hand triggers action; it seeks to relieve suffering.

Pity said I sympathize, compassion says I sympathize, let me help you.

A close fried of mine is hooked on crack cocaine.

My mother-in-law, my wife and myself have being trying to help him shake that demon for years.

He frequently heaves abusive language at us, especially my wife and appears to be totally uninterested in being helped.

But we haven't given up, we haven't abandon him, we keep coming back week after week; proving that compassion persist in finding a way to help.

Nowhere in the NT do we find where Jesus took pity on the needed, the outcaste, the demon-possessed, but we often read "He was moved with compassion".

What a difference.

Likewise "EVERY CHILD OF GOD CAN DEPEND ON THE SAVIOR'S LOOK OF LOVE.

NO MATTER HOW PAINFUL THE PROBLEM, HOW DEEP THE SORROW, WE KNOW THAT HIS EYE IS FIXED UPON US.

WHILE THE WORLD MAY TURN ITS EYE FROM SUFFERING, WE CAN BE ASSURED THEY'RE AWAYS UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYE GAZE OF A COMPASSIONATE SAVIOR."

Verse 35 "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.

36 Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat." 37 But He answered and said to them, "You give them something to eat." (HE STRESSED THE YOU, 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?""

A denarii was what a working man or a soldier in Palestine made for a day's wage.

So this would have been over a half of a year's income, the disciples quickly calculated to satisfy the hunger of all of these people.

Jesus' purpose of course was to get them to thing about the need and their inability to meet it.

"But He said to them, "How many loaves do you have?

(loaves at that time was like large cookies, a person could eat several loaves of bread in one meal and not be filled up) How many loaves do you have?

Go and see."

And when they found out they said, "Five, and two fish."(fish

would have been small dried salted fish, that people often ate as a garnish really with their lunch) "

See how Jesus is focusing the disciple's inability to meet the needs of these people.

This is an important thing for them to observe and to learn as His disciples, they couldn't do it.

They couldn't do what needed to be done.