Lake Martin Presbyterian Church June 7, 2026 Podcast

Join Rev. William Skinner for this week’s message from Mark 6:45-56, "Blind Men With Hard Hearts". Explore Scripture, hear thoughtful teaching, and be encouraged in your walk with Christ. For more information and resources, visit lakemartinpca.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Lake Martin Presbyterian Church Podcast. We're glad you're listening. Lake Martin Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, located near Lake Martin, Alabama. Each week we share the preaching ministry of our church and pray it encourages you in your walk with Christ. Here's this week's message. Welcome to the Lake Martin Presbyterian Church Podcast. We're glad you're listening. Lake Martin Presbyterian Church is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, located near Lake Martin, Alabama. Each week we share the preaching ministry of our church and pray it encourages you in your walk with Christ. Here's this week's message.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Last Sunday, we turned our attention to one of Jesus' most famous miracles, the feeding of the 5,000. And the main thing we saw there was Jesus' compassion on the people, that he saw them as sheep without a shepherd. And Jesus showed himself to be the true shepherd of God's flock, the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. In the passage before us this morning, Jesus is going to send away his disciples and the crowds. And he's doing this in order to get some time by himself to commune with his heavenly Father in prayer. And while he's praying, the disciples find themselves in another storm, similar to the last storm they were in, which prompts Jesus to go to his disciples and again calm the storm. Then after rejoining the disciples, they find themselves coming ashore in Gennesareth, off course from where they were intending to go, and yet when they get there, the people flock to Jesus. They come to Jesus from every corner to be healed. And in all these diverse events that we're going to look at, you will see more of who Jesus is: the eternal Son of God, with power over nature, power over sickness. And we've already been seeing these things time and time again. That's the main question that Mark's gospel is asking: who is Jesus? But the main thing that you see in this text this morning is men missing who Jesus is. You see men missing who Jesus is. Despite witnessing one of the most famous miracles of Jesus' earthly ministry, despite hundreds of healings, despite walking on water in front of his disciples, the disciples still don't trust Jesus for who he is. And the people of Gonesera are so latched on to these healings that they superstitiously treat Jesus as the magical healing man. Through their own blindness and hardness of heart, everyone in this text misses the Messiah. So let this passage serve as a warning to you for how easy it is for men to completely miss the Savior. Through your own hardness of heart or through blind zeal and superstitious excitement, it's easy to miss the Messiah. In this passage, I want to draw your attention to three things. First, we see the Messiah watching and praying in verses 45 through the first half of verse 48. Secondly, we see the disciples, fearful and doubting, in the second half of verse 48 through verse 52. And thirdly, the crowds, blind and gullible. The crowds blind and gullible. The Messiah watching and praying. The disciples fearful and doubting. And the crowds blind and gullible. Before we read this text, let's pray and ask God's help upon the reading and preaching of his word. How a Father, holy God, as we are about to see, there were men who spent time with Jesus who witnessed so much of his power and his words, and yet were completely blind to who he truly was. Who did not trust in him. And so as we turn to your word, which is powerful, we ask that you would pour out your spirit upon us, that our blind eyes might be opened, that our hard hearts might be softened, that we might receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. It's in his name that we pray. Amen. Mark chapter 6, beginning in verse 45. Immediately he Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd, and after he had taken leave of them, and when evening came the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost, and cried out. For they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. When they had crossed over they came to the land at Ganesarit, and moored to the shore, and when they got out of the boat the people immediately recognized him, and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick, the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was, and wherever he came in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well. This is God's word. First, look with me at verses forty-five through forty-eight. The Messiah watching and praying. After Jesus had miraculously fed five thousand plus people, it's five thousand men, not including however many women and children, he first sent his disciples away ahead of him to go to Beth Seda by the boat. And then he himself dismissed the crowds. He sent them away. We're not told why Jesus decided at this time it was time to move on, but for now he had done what he needed to do, which was to show himself to be the shepherd of Israel, the shepherd of God's chosen people, the good shepherd who feeds the sheep. So Jesus sends the crowds away and he goes up on a mountain by himself to pray. And here in this moment, when you see Jesus go by himself to pray, in this moment you see the Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, eager to commune with God the Father. And I don't want you to gloss over the importance of Jesus' earthly prayer. Don't gloss over this, don't miss it. Because it's precisely in Jesus' prayer that you see his love for God the Father and His dependence on the Holy Spirit. This is not just some warm, fuzzy emotion to say Jesus loves God the Father and be happy about it. Your entire salvation, your entire salvation from your sin is dependent upon this love between God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. It was God the Father's decree to elect a people for himself to be his people. And he granted those elect people to God the Son and pledged his son as the mediator for his elect people, to be their propitiation, the ransom for their sins. And it was God the Spirit who was given the task of bringing and calling this elect people to himself. It's God the Spirit who applies the redemption wrought by God the Son to the elect of God the Father. It's the very love of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for Himself that's the basis of God's love for you and for me. So here in this moment, when Jesus goes to pray, you can see the love of God for you on display. This relationship within the Trinity, within the Godhead, is the track on which the covenant runs. So that all the benefits of your justification, sanctification, adoption, perseverance, and glorification, everything that you and I receive in Jesus Christ, we receive because of the love of the Father for the Son, and the Son for the Father, and the Father and the Son for the Spirit. So when you read that Jesus went up on the mountain to pray, don't gloss over those words. When you read that Jesus went up on the mountain to pray, you must say, What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to shed his precious blood for my soul? What love has the Father for the Son, that he gave him a people for his own possession, and what love has the Son for the Father that he shed his own blood to redeem this people. It is precisely in Jesus' earthly prayer life that you can behold the origins of your salvation, the love of God for himself. And from that love stems his love for you. It all begins within the Godhead. So that's the first thing to notice in this passage Christ's love for himself, God's love for himself. But more practically, you must ask yourself this question: if Jesus, who was very God of very God, took the time to be alone and pray in the midst of everything that was going on around him, what does that teach you about the importance of prayer? Remember that Jesus and his disciples had still not gotten the rest that they were so eager to get. It's been days now, without sleep, without eating, and it, I guess they ate at the feeding of the 5,000, but they still have not gotten this rest that they initially went out to get. So they still haven't gotten the rest. And they just sent away a crowd of over 5,000 people and were planning the next leg of their mission. But in all of this, Jesus is determined to spend time communing with his father in prayer. It was a priority for Christ. It was primacy. Everything else has to wait. He is going to spend time with his father. And if Jesus, who is God Himself, put such a high value on prayer, how much more should we put value on prayer? We who are finite, who are limited, who are weak? How much more should we devote ourselves to prayer? Train yourself to fall in love with prayer, to fall in love with communion with God the Father. Become addicted to prayer. Stoke your appetite to be alone with your Heavenly Father in prayer. We must all learn to be people devoted to prayer, not just for what God will give us, for what God can answer for us, but because of the relationship. Be devoted to prayer because you want to spend time with God. You want to commune with your Heavenly Father. In Jesus' prayer on the mountain, you see the basis of your salvation. It's the love of God. And I hope that you see the need to devote yourself to prayer. But there's something else that Jesus is doing on this mountain. Look with me at verses 47 through 48. Jesus was watching his disciples on the sea. Now, watching here denotes more than just physically watching them. Yes, he was physically watching them. But he's also spiritually watching his disciples, his trainees. He's sitting on the hills watching his disciples out in the boat, fighting a strong wind that was blowing against them, not to see their physical strength, not to ask, can they row through the storm, but to see their faith on display. What would his disciples do? We can safely assume that Jesus was not doing this as some sort of test. He's not doing this as if he's the angry baseball or football coach who's trying to cut the weak players off of his team. He was watching them as the great high priest, interceding for them, praying for them, cheering them on, praying for their weak faith to be made strong. He's the good shepherd, cheering them on, rooting for them, praying for them in their weakness, in the midst of the storm. And I want you to know that if you are in Christ, if you are his disciple, he does the same for you. Even though he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, he is watching you. He's cheering you on, interceding for you from the throne of God, asking his Father to supply your needs, to pour out the Spirit upon you, to give you the faith that you need. This is your Savior. This is the Good Shepherd who watches and prays for his sheep, and you can trust him. But while Jesus is watching and praying, the disciples are out in the sea, fighting the wind, fighting the waves. So let's now look at the disciples, fearful and doubting. Look with me at the second half of verse 38. Sorry, excuse me, verse 48. And we're told that it was about the fourth watch of the night that Jesus decided, enough was enough. I'm going to my disciples. Now, that fourth watch of the night is important here because I guess it was around sundown when Jesus dismissed the crowds. And now it's the fourth watch of the night. And the fourth watch of the night, you may have a note at the bottom of your Bible. It was between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Okay, so 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. And the disciples, Jesus' disciples, had been rowing against this wind all night. Now, it really doesn't take that long to get from where they were going to where they wanted to go on the Sea of Galilee. The Sea of Galilee is a lake. It's not a sea, it's a lake. And they had been rowing all night. This has been all night torture. Rowing against a wind so strong they couldn't cross to the other side of the lake. It was futile. So Jesus goes to his disciples, and in doing so, he breaks the laws of nature. He walks on the surface of the water. And if you look there at the end of verse 48 and 49, it reads in our English Bibles as if Jesus meant to pass by their boat undetected. When it says he meant to pass by them, it reads as if Jesus meant to go by them undetected and failed in his attempt, as if he was trying to play some game of hide and seek with them on the water. That's not the way that you should read this text. Jesus meant to go straight to his struggling disciples. That much is clearer in verse 48 when you read that in the fourth watch of the night he came to them. He was going to them. He intentionally went to them. But when his disciples saw him, when they witnessed him after rowing all night, and it's now in the early hours of the morning, he appeared to them as a ghost passing by the boat. So we're reading from the disciples' perspective. They see this figure in the dark of night by the moonlight, walking on the water, and they're terrified, crying out in fear, What could this be? And Jesus in response tells them, Take heart, do not fear. It is I. But the way he said it is very significant. He said, Ego ami in the Greek. I am. And that should be ringing bells for you. This is the name that God revealed himself with to the people of Israel, to Moses in Exodus chapter 3. When he revealed his name as Yahweh, the great I am, the God of pure being, of pure existence. When Jesus gets into the boat and tells his disciples, I am, ego a me, immediately the storm ceases. And right here he's revealing himself to be who he truly is. Who is Jesus? He is the great I am. Yahweh himself in human flesh, very God of very God, the winds must obey him, the storms must obey him, nature must obey him, demons must obey him, sickness and death, it all must obey him. And he has come to be with them in the boat, to be with his disciples in the midst of their struggle. But the disciples are utterly astounded. And Mark tells us why. He tells us they did not understand the loaves because of their hardness of heart. That must be one of the strangest explanations in all the scriptures. Why this reaction from the disciples? Why are they not rejoicing that the God who created all things is in the flesh with them in their boat? Mark says, Well, they didn't understand the bread. They didn't understand the bread. So what does that mean? What's Mark's gospel telling us? What did the disciples not understand about these loaves? They didn't understand that Jesus was the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. After all that they've experienced, they still don't know who Jesus is. In the midst of their night of rowing against the wind and making no progress at all, they should have trusted in him. They've seen him calm storms, they've seen him do all sorts of miracles, they should have turned to him. When they saw him on the water, why were they afraid? Despite all that they've been through with Jesus, they still didn't understand who Jesus was. They still didn't know his character. They still didn't trust him. They didn't look to him as the great I am, the shepherd of Israel who would deliver them from their enemies. Instead of crying out to Jesus in their need, they were fearful. They were doubting. And this ought to be a sobering lesson to us all. The disciples had seen many miracles. They had witnessed the feeding of the 5,000, and they still didn't trust Jesus. Due to the hardness of their hearts, the disciples were left fearful and doubting in the boat. So we've seen Jesus watching and praying, the disciples fearful and doubting, and let's look now at the crowds. Blind and gullible. Look with me at verses 53 through 56. As the morning dawned, the disciples were finally able, with the winds having ceased, to row the boat to shore. But they were off their mark. They had meant to go to Beth Seda, but because of the wind all night, their direction had changed, and they were derailed to Gennesaret. Now Gennesaret was a collection of little agricultural villages located just south of Capernaum. Undoubtedly, the people of Gennesaret would have been very well aware of who Jesus was because of Gennesaret's proximity to Capernaum. And they had heard all that Jesus had done in Capernaum. So when Jesus and his disciples make sure at Gennesaret, it didn't take very long for the whole region of Gennesaret to be flocking to Jesus. The main thing we're told in this text is that the people were bringing the sick to him. Everywhere that he went in Gennesaret, people were bringing the sick. The villages, the cities, the countryside, there were little stations of people waiting for him everywhere he went with sick people, waiting for Jesus to heal them. The people of Genneset were flocking to Jesus. They wanted Jesus. They knew that Jesus had the power to heal and that he was willing to heal. And this is such an important part of Jesus' ministry. That in healing the sick, he was showing himself to be the Messiah. God himself come down to earth to seek and save the loss, to seek and save the suffering, the sick. That surely he would carry our griefs and sorrows himself. This is the person whom Isaiah talked about. This is the one that would sit on David's throne forever. This is the one that all the ceremonial laws of Moses are pointing to. The Passover, the Day of Atonement, the sacrifices. This is the offspring of Abraham, the seed of the woman. Healing sickness, carrying suffering and sorrow is one of the key things that the Messiah was prophesied to do. There is so much there for the crowds of Genneseret. There's so much there to stoke their faith, to cause them to trust in Jesus. Jesus was there. They came to him and he healed them. But instead of seeing these healings and realizing that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, who came to take away the sin of the world, they were blinded. They were blinded. Look with me at verse 56. The people began asking that they might just touch the fringe of his garments. And many were simply just reaching out to touch the fringe of his clothes. Now perhaps the story of the woman with the hemorrhage that we studied a few weeks ago, perhaps that story had spread throughout the region of Galilee that someone had just touched Jesus' clothes and had been made well. And perhaps whoever circulated this story left out the detail that Jesus rebuked the woman and told her, It was your faith that made you well. It wasn't your touch, it was your faith. In any case, the good intentions of the people of Gennesaret were turned into blind superstition. In the midst of all the healings and signs of who Jesus really was, the people of Gennesareth missed it. They were taking advantage of the magical healings, and they missed the person and work of Christ. They missed the fact that the Messiah was coming to do more than take away their physical suffering. The Messiah was coming to take away their sin. And are there not many today in our own day and age who look to Jesus only for physical healing, for increase of wealth, for physical possessions? Are there not thousands of professing followers of Jesus who want no more than for Jesus to be a supernatural person who keeps their family safe, who makes them healthy, happy, and wealthy? I'm going to tell you as plainly as I possibly can that Jesus did not come from heaven to earth to make you safe, healthy, happy, or wealthy. That's not why Jesus came. So if that's what you think about Jesus, you are wrong. Jesus came to earth to pay the penalty for sin for all the elect of God. Jesus came to earth so that you can stand in the presence of God Almighty, clothed in his righteousness with a clean conscience. Jesus came to earth to make you a man or woman, renewed in his image, fully alive before God, to glorify and enjoy him all your days. He's not just a magical healer or supernatural being who exists to make you safe, healthy, happy, and wealthy. He's the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. He's the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. For all that these crowds witnessed of him, for all their running to him, they were still blind and gullible, led astray from who Jesus really was. In this passage, you've seen the Messiah watching and praying, communing with his Father and watching over his disciples. And you've seen the disciples fearful and doubting, their hearts too hard to place their trust in the good shepherd who leads his flock. And finally, you've seen the crowds, blind and gullible, running to Jesus and completely missing who he is. I hope as you read this text that you will see just how easy it is for sin to cloud the identity of Jesus. The disciples had witnessed so much of the person and work of Christ, but through the hardness of heart, they were still in fear. The crowds were running to Jesus, bringing everyone to be healed by him. And yet they were looking to him for all the wrong reasons, blinded by superstition. You can say that you love Jesus. You can say that you love Jesus. You can run to Jesus. You can talk about Jesus. You can read about Jesus. But none of that matters until you trust in Jesus. None of that matters until you trust that He and He alone can make you right with God. None of it matters until you admit that you're a sinner in need of a Savior. And the only Savior sufficient for you is this Jesus whom I'm preaching to you this morning. He's the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. He's the great high priest who intercedes for his people. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He's the suffering servant who bears our sorrows and carries our griefs. It's this Jesus and this Jesus alone who can redeem you from your sin. You may love him, you may believe that he can heal you, that he can make you happy, and that's all well and good, but you do you trust him? Do you trust in him and him alone that he can make you right with God? The first step is to acknowledge that you can't make yourself right with God, that you're a sinner and without hope, who has earned the wrath and curse of God, and then look to the one who came down and bore the curse for you and gives you his perfect righteousness in return. There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains. That's the message we must believe. That's who Jesus is. That's what he came to do. Let's pray and sing it together. Let's pray. Abba Father, holy God. This is a sobering warning from your text. Of how easy it is to be delusional in our sin. Of how easy it is to miss the person and work of Jesus Christ. Would you help us to see who he truly is, the great I am, God Himself, who came down to lay down his life for us, so that we might stand before you, not as sinners, but as righteous for what he has done. If you would, please stand and we'll respond in song. There is a fountain filled with blood.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Thank you for listening to the Lake Martin Presbyterian Church Podcast. If this message encouraged you, please consider sharing it with someone else. To learn more about our church, including worship times and upcoming events, visit LakemartinPCA.com. We'd love to have you join us. Thank you for listening to the Lake Martin Presbyterian Church Podcast. If this message encouraged you, please consider sharing it with someone else. To learn more about our church, including worship times and upcoming events, visit LakemartinPCA.com. We'd love to have you join us.