The World’s Greatest Teacher. (Mark 6: 30-44)
Christians believe that Jesus as well as being the Messiah the Son of God, Jesus was also the greatest teacher who has ever lived. Part of his unique gift to us was that he had a way of saying things that would never be forgotten even after 2000 years. But of course, it was not just the way he taught it was what he taught. The greatest spiritual lessons humankind has ever known came from lips of Jesus Christ, reflecting the mind of his heavenly father to us. He taught us to Love God with all our hearts and all our minds, and to love each other as ourselves. These were radical ideas in the 1st century world in which he lived. He also taught us a way we could live life trusting in God for eternal life. The lessons he taught in what people today call, ‘The sermon of the mount”, have become the standards underpinning all caring and compassionate societies ever since. To put it simply, Jesus taught us foundational spiritual truths.
What I would like us to do today, is look at three spiritual truths he taught us. They may not be the most well-known of the many great spiritual lessons he taught but I think these are hugely important concepts from which we can learn a lot and by learning and applying these lessons in our lives we will further know the blessings of God.
You may recall that prior to this passage, Jesus had sent out his disciples. So, they had been out on their first mission, so to speak. This passage begins by telling us that they had come back and tell Jesus what they had been up to.
Then the apostles gathered to Jesus and told Him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught.
(Mark 6: 30)
Notice, they are now called Apostles, prior to this they were called disciples. The word disciple means student, one who is taught and follows a teacher, but the word Apostle means one who is sent. So, in sense they had graduated and now they are out there, out in the world, applying what they had learnt. They have been commissioned and sent out for a period of time, but now they are back, and they regather together again. We can safely assume this was a time of re-telling some of the amazing things they had experienced and encouraging one another. Jesus’ response to this is contained in verse 31, and is rather surprising.
. 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.
(Mark 6: 31)
They have come together telling Jesus and each other what they have done, and his response is, “you’ve been busy, busy in your ministry, but now it is time to take a break and reflect”. They had been so busy in fact it says they had not even had time to eat”.
I recently read of what they used to do in High Wycombe in the Middle Ages at the annual re-appointing of the town Mayor. You see they had the extraordinary tradition of weighing the town Mayor at the anniversary of each year of his term of office. Too see if he had put any weight on and had been living it up at the ratepayer’s expense. The weigh-in was done in public and the town crier announced his weight by shouting it out. If he had put too much weight on, they would take him round the back beat him up and throw him out of office. So, it’s good to pause and reflect on how things are doing, but maybe not in that way.
But they had been massively busy with their ministry and now they come to Jesus all excited and he says, “take a break”. What I want you to do he says, is go to a quiet place and rest and reflect ad the next verse tells us they that’s exactly what they do.
So, they departed to a deserted place in the boat by themselves.
(Mark 6: 32)
The spiritual lesson for those in the ministry is very clear, come aside, and take a break now and then reflect. To never take an break, and reflect is wrong. Jesus here reminds us to take time out from ministry whatever it is we do and reflect; else we might fall apart or burn out.
I would like to suggest we all need a break, so we can do a better job, physically and spiritually. Christians should take a break and we should take a break in order to be Christlike.If the Son of God, needed to set himself apart and rest, then we need to do so as well.
So, Lesson 1, Take time out.
So, if you want to be Christ like, Lesson 1, simply take a break from time to time. But just to spoil that for you let me add the caveat you only qualify to do lesson 1, if you have first been active in doing what is revealed in lessons 2, and 3.
So, what’s the second lesson.
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.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.
(Mark 6: 33-34)
This is rather interesting, Jesus and the disciples get in a boat and the crowd see them do this and the word spread, and they think they know where he is going. They didn’t have boats, so they run there around the edge of the lake. If the commentators and experts I read about this passage are correct, the place where Jesus and his disciples went to is just over 4 nautical miles by boat, but nearly 10 miles by land. There are probably a few of you who are runners out there who thing I could probably do that in under 90 minutes, but apart from those guys the rest of us it would probably take over 3 hours. So the people had followed overland for 10 miles and it tells us that when Jesus got there Jesus was “moved with compassion, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”. And His response was to teach them.
Previously on other occasions Jesus has come to a place and he has looked upon a crowd and he had seen their physical needs and he healed them, but on this occasion, he focuses on the people’s spiritual needs, and he responds by teaching them. It says, he sees them as sheep without a shepherd. What a vivid picture of people in spiritual need that is. What are people like, what do they need when they are sheep without a shepherd?
Well for one thing they need protection, and they need nourishment.
And they need guidance. I worked on farms as a young man, and I can assure you sheep without a shepherd cannot find their way anywhere. Jesus here is reminding us here that we all need direction, we all need guidance. Sheep without a shepherd cannot find pasture.
Sheep without a shepherd cannot find direction too pasture and sheep without a shepherd cannot find nourishment. We need nourishment to grow strong and we need strength for the journey to reach our destination and the Lord meets our needs and by teaching us enables us to do both these things.
But also, sheep without a shepherd have no defence against the dangers that threaten them. Jesus looks at the crowd and he saw their spiritual need. Their need for direction, and their need for protection and their need for nourishment and when he saw those needs, he was moved with compassion.
Let me ask you a question, have you ever seen somebody, who appears to be a bit of a lost soul. How should you respond to that situation? Jesus’ response was to show compassion. But what did Jesus’ compassion lead him to do, it led him to teach them?
I would like to suggest that this is the second important message, the second spiritual truth that Jesus taught. The first is we should take time out to pray and reflect. The second is loss sheep need, above all things, they need to be taught.
If you know the Lord, then you already know enough to help a whole lot of people who don’t know the Lord. Much of what we should teach people is just common sense but more importantly you will always know more than they do about spiritual things.In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul said in Chapter 15:14
I’ve been completely satisfied with who you are and what you are doing. You seem to me to be well-motivated and well-instructed, quite capable of guiding and advising one another.
(The Message)
I would submit to you that just by accepting Christ you are immediately competent to help both one another and any lost sheep you might come across, but to be motivated to do that you must be moved by compassion. So, two great lessons we need to learn is that we not only need to
A. Take a break.
B. We need to minister to other people. (Teach the sheep)
Teach others what the word of God advises us to do in any given situation. We need to teach the lost sheep. There is third lesson in the passage, lets pick up at 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. Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”
(Mark 6: 35-36)
Translated into modern lingo the disciples said to the Lord, “look, we all need a break, let the crowd go off and get themselves something to eat”.
Now, here is Jesus’ response to this, now, this is quite startling.
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”.
(Mark 6: 37)
He says to them, “You give them something to eat.” Why would he say that? Is he just testing them again, “you feed them”, He says.
And here’s their response, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat”. This figure of 200 denarii, is a lot of money the commentators I read came out with a figure of about a year’s wage. In other words, they are saying, we haven’t got the money to do that. We are told there are 5,000 men + the woman and children here, so we should not be surprised to see them say, “we can’t afford to do that”.
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, in hundreds and in fifties.Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
(Mark 6: 38-44)
So, Jesus prays and then he distributes the food. In that order.
The miracle occurs between his hands and theirs. It just keeps coming. The text tells us he feeds 5000+ people, and everybody is filled. He started with just 5 loaves and 2 fish and ending up with 12 baskets full of crumbs left over at the end. Many have pointed out that this was one basket for each apostle. That’s true, but the big point here is he ended up with more than they started with. He started with 5 loaves and ended up with 12 baskets. An amazing picture of a Lord who always abundantly supplies highlighting also that this is also a miracle.
It is worth pointing out that this story is repeated in all four gospel accounts. In several of the accounts end the story by suggesting Jesus’ purpose was to teach the apostles to ‘trust in him’. Jesus is seen here as the shepherd who meets all the needs of the sheep and at the same time did this for the disciples to teach them to trust in him.OK, so what I have done is mentioned 3 great lessons.
Nos 1 - Take a break.
I give you permission to take a break from your life of ministry and service once in a while to reflect. But you also have Jesus’ permission and that’s a whole lot more important.
No 2 - Teach the sheep.
We are all called upon to council and help by teaching unbelievers.
And No 3rd is - Trust the Lord.
Let’s reverse these for a moment and summarise them again, back to front. By doing this we might notice something important.
We need to trust the Lord. We love other people best by teaching others important spiritual truths and if you’re so busy doing the first two things, then, and only then, do you qualify to take a break. Have you noticed these three things involve our relationship with the Lord? Our relationship with each other, and our relationship with ourselves.
These three spiritual lessons cover all aspects of our Christian life. I want to close by just emphasising a couple of things. First, I want to say, if you are involved in any type of Christian ministry, you need rest and reflect from time to time and if you don’t there can be dire consequences. We ignore our need for rest and spiritual renewal at the peril of others as well as ourselves. We all need to take a break. We also need compassion, and we need use that compassion to motivate us to teach any lost sheep we come across and finally, we need to trust, to trust the Lord, in all that we do.
One final thing.
There are some people who never stop and are too busy to listen to God and therefore too busy to be blessed, and they never learn.Sometimes we really need to stop in order to see what God wants us to do.
Let me close by telling you a true story.
A ministry based in Dallas Texas tells a story of a student Pastor who came to. The young man had come from a successful sales background. I remember the story particularly because the guy in the story was, unusually for an American at that time had a luxury British Jaguar car called a Jaguar. However, he also noted is had a large dent in the door just under the passenger door window. The dent had rusted a little so he knew it had been there for some time. So, he asked the young preacher, why had he not got it repaired? He said a couple fo years ago whilst working as a sales executive was travelling through a rough neighbourhood, driving in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting from between the parked cars, so slowed down because he though he saw something, a sort of commotion up ahead.
As his car passed a set of parked cars no child appeared, but a brick smashed into the door just below the passenger window. He slammed on the breaks, jumped out of the car shouted at a kid who was standing near buy and shouted at him, what do you think you are doing.
The young boy said I am sorry; I did not know what else to do. I threw the brick because no one else would stop. He pointed to a spot just between the parked car, it’s my brother he said, he had a fit and fell out of his wheelchair and banged his head and I can’t lift him back in his chair and take him home to my mum to see if he is alright. I just wanted somebody to help me put him back in his wheelchair so I ca get him home. Please can you help me.
Too shaken for words, he just stood for a minute then he did just that. He helped the brother who he things had cerebral palsy back into his hair cleaned up his cuts and bruises and took him home. The damage was noticeable he said, but I never bothered to get it repaired. I left the dent there he said, because it reminded him of that you shouldn’t go through life so fast that God needs to throw a brick at you to get your attention.