The Way of Jesus

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Church. [00:00:01] Speaker B: Go ahead and be seated. Hey, let's bow our heads and let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are here with expectant hearts today. Lord, these last few days since Sunday have been filled with doubt and distraction, emotions. But we move all of that aside. [00:00:24] Speaker A: To give you our fullest attention. [00:00:28] Speaker B: We move all the worries aside today so we can hear from our shepherd, so we can hear from our savior, the living God. [00:00:41] Speaker A: And not just hear from you, but be moved by you. Lord, help us to increase in faith today. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Would you help us to increase in faith for the sake of our families, for the sake of our marriages, our children, our relationships. May the faith you want to dwell. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Within us directly impact everything around us. Help us to be people of faith today. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Help us to see Christ in a. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Much, much different but yet deeper way. [00:01:28] Speaker B: Lord, let them not hear a preacher. They don't need the wisdom of a man. They don't need the charisma of a person. [00:01:38] Speaker A: What we need is your spirit present in us, moving through us, reminding us you are God. Give us faith today. Give us the ability to trust you. [00:01:56] Speaker B: So when we walk out, we say. [00:01:58] Speaker A: Who else is worthy? [00:02:01] Speaker B: Who else is worthy other than Jesus? Of all my attention and my affection and my adoration, he is the righteous one, the living one, my Savior, my Lord, and my king. [00:02:16] Speaker A: So help us today. Bless us. Sing. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Your son's perfect name is who we pray. Amen. Amen and amen. Whoo. Yeah. Good evening, CC Midweek. That was so weak. I bet you if we were at a Browns game, you'd be like, yeah, yeah. I bet you if we were at the Morgan Wallen concert, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, let's try that again. Well, I'm Stacey Midweek. There we go. That's better. You better get. You know. [00:02:49] Speaker A: All right. [00:02:50] Speaker B: Anyway, let me just move on. Let me move on. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Javon. I get the opportunity to preach and to teach this evening. Not my first time. Some of you know who I am. Some of you may have. Has never met me before. I get the privilege of leading our old Brooklyn campus, and I'm so glad. Amen. Yeah. Give it up, Old Brooklyn. So glad for the good work the Lord is doing there, But I'm just glad for the good work the Lord is just doing in our church. I want you to know this, and I don't say this because I work here or anything else. I say this. And I mean this when I say it. We, you and I, are part of a blessed church, of a blessed church because of the amazing leaders, because of the amazing, the conviction that they have and our volunteers and our staff. Man, listen, being a part of a blessed church is, like, one of the. [00:03:44] Speaker A: Greatest gifts God can ever give us. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Can we give it up for just all the good the Lord has been doing within our church? Today I'm gonna be landing and studying in Mark chapter six. So if you have your Bibles or you have your app on your phone, go ahead and open up the device or it'll be on the screen for you. We're gonna be studying Mark chapter six. But before I jump into Mark, I want to tell you a story about a time that I thought it was a good idea to run away from home. You're already laughing. Can I give the context? Like, my gosh, I mean, what am I, a comedian? You know what I'm saying? Let me get the context. You know, it was one time. My mother's in the room today, and it was one time. Yeah, what's up, Mom? She doesn't remember this, of course, but I remember every brokenness that happened in my childhood. But there was a time where, you know, my father and my mother, they weren't doing the thing that I wanted them to do. So I started pouting. You know, I still do it today, but I started pouting, started grumbling and whatnot. And I. I got to a point where I said, you know, enough is enough. I'm running away, and I'm never coming back. And I remember specifically my dad saying, bye. And I was like, wait, you know, aren't you worried? You know, he said, you gonna come back? And when you come back, come back with some milk. Cause we need it. [00:05:12] Speaker C: Okay? [00:05:12] Speaker B: You know, and so I ran away. And, you know, I was gone for a couple hours. No one came looking for me. And I came back home, they're on the couch watching a movie, and. What's up, son? You got that milk? No, dad, but I'm still mad at you. I'm gonna go upstairs and leave me alone, right? But when I think about that moment of running away, what I was doing, I felt in that moment, because something was happening where I felt a need was unmet, right? A need of mine was unmet. They weren't doing what I wanted them to do. They weren't doing the thing that I had asked. And I thought that was so important to me. And so because of a need that was unmet or unfulfilled, I thought the. [00:06:00] Speaker A: Best thing to do was to run away. [00:06:03] Speaker B: But if you actually look behind the scenes, of that action, what was I actually doing? [00:06:09] Speaker A: I was pursuing freedom. [00:06:13] Speaker B: Because behind the curtain of need is. [00:06:17] Speaker A: A desire for freedom. [00:06:20] Speaker B: If you think about it, everybody in this room today, we all have a need, right? Everyone's got a need, right? [00:06:26] Speaker C: Right. [00:06:26] Speaker B: It may manifest itself differently, but everyone's got a need. A need for comfort, a need for stability, a need for love, a need for acceptance, you name it, right? And deep inside every single one of us is a God given desire. But it goes beyond just the need. [00:06:48] Speaker A: It's a desire and a search for freedom. It's a desire and search for freedom. Cause deep down inside, the soul wants to be free. The soul wants to be free of the deep agony of anxiety. The soul wants to be free from the deep pains of doubt. The soul wants to be free from the deep pain of chaos that has been caused often in our lives. [00:07:18] Speaker B: The need behind the curtain of need. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Is a desire for freedom. [00:07:25] Speaker B: So today, what I want to do, today, what I want to walk us into, as we study through Mark chapter six, as we walk through this particular. [00:07:34] Speaker A: Passage, that desire, that need, friends, that need ultimately points to a person. And that person is Jesus Christ. Because when you follow Christ, you step into a life of freedom. [00:07:54] Speaker B: When you, when you follow Christ, when you know Christ, when you, when you, when you pursue Christ, when you find that there is a need that is lacking in your life, you don't pursue the world, you don't pursue yet another relationship. You don't pursue to jump on social media and tell everybody how you're feeling just so you can get likes and comments and whatnot. But rather the need is meant to. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Highlight a true pursuit for freedom. And that freedom, friends, is in the person of Jesus Christ. Mark chapter six talks to us about that in deeper, deeper detail. [00:08:34] Speaker B: Now when we study this passage, I want each and every one of you to know, especially if you've been coming to church for a while, this is a very familiar passage. This is what we would call the feeding of the 5,000. The feeding of the 5,000. You've been coming to church for a while. Maybe you're like me, you grew up in church. Anybody like me, you went to church on Wednesday and then you went to church on Friday and you were at church all day Sunday, right? Yeah. I'm just venting to you right now in front of my mother who made us do that, but. Right, that's how it was growing up. But I want you to look at this story not as just a place where it just feels familiar, but God. [00:09:08] Speaker A: Can breathe something within Us something fresh. [00:09:12] Speaker B: Now, this story is not just meant for us to read it like, oh, I know what happens. The loaves and the fish and the prayer and the breaking and the Jesus. [00:09:20] Speaker A: And the everybody's fed. But God can speak something deeper into our souls. That's how rich the Bible is. [00:09:30] Speaker B: A familiar passage like this can still. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Breathe something fresh within each and every one of us. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Let's go ahead and read real quick. This is Jesus, a story with him and his disciples involved in this. And we pick up in Mark 6, beginning in verse 32. Go ahead and read it with me. Here we go. It says, so they, meaning Jesus and his disciples, went away in a boat by themselves to a solitary place. But many people saw them leaving and recognized them. They ran together on foot from all the towns and arrived before they. Before them. Verse 34, when Jesus stopped. Sorry. When Jesus stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. [00:10:20] Speaker B: Verse 35. But now the hour was late. So the disciples came to Jesus and said, this is a desolate place and the hour is already late. Dismiss the crowd so they can go to the surrounding countryside in the villages and buy themselves something to eat. But Jesus told them, you give them something to eat. And they asked them, should we go out and spend 200 denarii to give all of them bread to eat? [00:10:44] Speaker A: Go and see how many loaves you. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Have, Jesus told them. And after checking, they said, five and two fish. Then Jesus directed them to have the people sit in the groups on the green grass. And so they sat down in groups of hundreds and 50s, taking the bread, taking five loaves and two fish, and looking up to heaven. Jesus spoke a blessing and broke the loaves. And then he gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Verse 42. They all ate and were satisfied. [00:11:22] Speaker B: And the disciples picked up the 12. [00:11:24] Speaker A: Baskets, basketfuls of the broken pieces of bread and fish. And there were 5,000 men who had eaten the loaves. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Beautiful. We see this miracle right before us. Jesus yet again stepping on scene, doing the impossible. Stepping on scene, doing the impossible in this particular passage. But I think this passage is meant for us to dive deeper, not just on the miracle aspect of it, but. [00:11:58] Speaker A: The spiritual aspects of this. And how does this speak to us in a way that help us to understand? Christ is what we need, and he's the one who gives us total freedom. Well, it says it actually very early on. Bring up verse 34 for them. [00:12:19] Speaker B: Now Jesus is with his disciples, and his disciples and him are doing ministry stuff and they are moving forward. [00:12:27] Speaker A: And then they recognize this crowd. [00:12:29] Speaker B: This needy crowd. This needy crowd. There's a lot of people out there. Mark tells us there was about 5,000 men. Actually, that's not including the women and the children. So you probably can double that thing if you really want to. Right? There's more than 5,000 people there. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Right. [00:12:49] Speaker B: But I love the way verse 34. [00:12:53] Speaker A: Speaks to us about Jesus. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Look at what it says. When Jesus stepped ashore and saw the large crowd, he had. Say it with me. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Compassion. That was horrible. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Let's try that again. All right. Wake up. All right, here we go. You ready? Verse 34. Jesus stepped ashore and saw the large crowd. He had compassion on them. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Why? Because they had a need. You see that, friends? There was something within Jesus that was able to look at this large crowd. Now this is very interesting. Jesus is looking at a large crowd. And the Scriptures wants us to understand he is able to see every individual's need. Thank you, Mama. [00:13:45] Speaker B: This 10,000. Now, listen, I don't know how many people are in here. I don't know your need. [00:13:52] Speaker C: Right. [00:13:52] Speaker B: I'm not divine. [00:13:54] Speaker C: Right, right, right, right. [00:13:55] Speaker B: I could probably, you know, assume you have specific needs when it comes to your relationships, when it comes to finances. Right? There's all of this. Right. But Jesus is able to look to the soul, need. [00:14:07] Speaker A: 10,000 people, and he sees something that they're lacking. [00:14:13] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question. [00:14:15] Speaker A: You ever felt overlooked? [00:14:19] Speaker B: You ever had moments where you felt like you were overlooked and just what you needed wasn't very important to others, not much of a priority, felt less and less? Whatever it may be, this passage tells. [00:14:39] Speaker A: Us something about Christ, something that each and every one of us deeply need to hear. Jesus is never too busy for you. He's never too busy for you. Because there's sometimes. There's sometimes. We often see people in our lives. You ever see somebody get blessed and you get jealous and you say to yourself, why is this happening in their lives? I'm going to church. They don't go to church. [00:15:11] Speaker B: I wake, I do all of this, right? And here they are, happy posting on social media. And here I am. I haven't posted anything in 30 days. It's been that long. [00:15:26] Speaker C: Right? [00:15:27] Speaker B: We find ourselves in these moments. But here's what the scripture wants each. [00:15:33] Speaker A: And every one of us to realize. [00:15:34] Speaker B: That you have a God in Jesus. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Christ who is not too busy for you. It's not too Busy for you. [00:15:44] Speaker B: As a matter of fact, Mark loves to bring this word in and this word compassion. As a matter of fact, if you read this story in all the other gospels, they are all very consistent, using the very same language that you will not miss each and every gospel mentioned to each and every in each and every one of their gospels. [00:16:06] Speaker A: Jesus, compassion. His compassion. [00:16:10] Speaker B: In the Greek, it's the word splatnitzomai. [00:16:14] Speaker C: Right? [00:16:14] Speaker B: That's a mouthful right there. Just learn Greek. You're welcome. What you learned at church today, I. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Don'T know, but I know splatnitzomai. [00:16:23] Speaker B: This word, it means. It's meant to convey a deep, visceral feeling of pity, an emotional response. And their reaction or one's reaction is to give mercy and aid. Now, whenever this word is used in the Gospel of Mark, whenever splatnitzomai is. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Connected with Jesus, it is frequently used to describe Jesus response to others needs. That's beautiful. Here's the thing, friends. There's often at times in our lives where we feel like we are overlooked and God has forgotten about us. And we say to ourselves, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I'm not showing up enough. Maybe I'm not praying hard enough. Maybe I'm not studying enough. Maybe I need to do this more. But here's the one thing I want you to realize. Your savior has Bladney Somai for you. What burdens you, burdens him. [00:17:28] Speaker B: God. [00:17:30] Speaker A: What burdens him you. It burdens him. But God is not the God. See, here's the thing. Here's what I love about this word. [00:17:38] Speaker B: It's not just meant to be a. [00:17:40] Speaker A: Word meaning to convey the expression of emotion. It's also meant to express emotion that leads to an action. Because God not only feels the burden, he longs to heal the burden. You feel that. You see that? See the way that it connects? [00:18:02] Speaker B: It's not just like, man, when somebody comes up and tell me, like, pastor, somebody came up to me the other day. [00:18:07] Speaker A: They're like, pastor, can you pray for me? I said, what you need, young man? What's going on? He's like, man, I went to fantasy. [00:18:16] Speaker B: Football draft night and I didn't have a good team. [00:18:18] Speaker A: So can you pray that they have a good team? I'm like, no, I'm not doing that, bro. [00:18:22] Speaker B: I'm not praying for you and your fantasy football team and how you worship these football players you will never meet in your life. No, I'm not doing that. No. [00:18:29] Speaker C: Right, right. [00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I understand that's a great burden. But I don't think God cares about that one. But, right, I can have mercy for. [00:18:40] Speaker A: Him, but I can't really do much after that. I can have a deep compassion, but I really can't do much after that. See, Christ longs. See, here's the thing that the scripture wants to communicate. He is the one who knows your burdens and who wants to heal your burdens. And he's able to do it. He's able to do it. So when you read the 5,000 defeating or 10,000, we guess we can say, when you read the 10,000, what is that actually implying? And it's actually meant to go back to this portion of Scripture. If he's able to feed 10,000 people, he is able to heal the burden that is deep within. You see the connection? If he's able to do that, and they all were. The Bible says, satisfied, no more hunger, no more thirst. If he can do that, well, he most certainly can also heal the needs we have in our lives. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Now, how does Christ do this? Right before we land, before we go home, or before we go out, how does Christ do this? What is this with Christ? He sees this crowd and within him, God. So you gotta remember, Jesus came to demonstrate and to show us who God is. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Why? [00:20:13] Speaker B: Because he is God. When you read about Jesus, you're reading about God himself. As the great theologians love to say, Jesus demonstrates the. The fullness of God because he is the fullness of God. [00:20:25] Speaker C: Right? [00:20:26] Speaker B: Jesus isn't just some foreign person that is separate. No, there is something Jesus is doing in this passage to communicate to each and every one of us what God. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Is like and why that matters to us. But how does Christ show this compassion? Look what he says back in verse 34. We're gonna be in verse 34 for a while. Let's read it again. [00:20:52] Speaker B: When Jesus stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them. He had. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. [00:21:06] Speaker A: And he began to teach them many things. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Now, Jesus, the compassion he felt what. [00:21:15] Speaker A: Was birthed within him, the compassion he felt where people were in need. And what did they need? They needed guidance. [00:21:26] Speaker B: Now, this metaphor is used to describe Jesus quite often. [00:21:30] Speaker C: Right? [00:21:30] Speaker B: Read the Gospel of John. John, chapter 10. You can read, obviously, Psalm 23, right? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Right? We know about all of this. And when the Bible mentions the imagery of shepherd and sheep, what is that doing? It's not meant for you and I just to observe and to see. There is something deeper behind this. And what is the Thing that Jesus wants to communicate in this expression of being the people, being like sheep without a shepherd. He's trying to help us to understand. [00:22:07] Speaker A: This, that apart from him we have no direction. That apart from him we have no guidance. That apart from him, as he says, Jesus himself, your Lord, the one who died for you, apart from me, you can do nothing. [00:22:33] Speaker B: Jesus isn't trying to tell you that you are just this horrible, disgusting person. But in actuality, you are a person that was born to be dependable on something. [00:22:47] Speaker C: Right? [00:22:48] Speaker B: And without Christ, we are aimless. Without Christ, we are vulnerable. And without Christ, we are unsatisfied. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Right? We are unsatisfied. So to experience the compassion care of Christ means what, friends? As we approach him, we come to him in weakness, we come to him broken. Christ isn't asking us to come to him in perfection. Christ doesn't say, clean yourself up and then come to me. No, he says, come to me and I'll clean you up. Come to me and I'll clean you up. Because Jesus can do a lot with our weakness. He can do a lot in our vulnerability. [00:23:46] Speaker B: But see, I'm the type of person. [00:23:47] Speaker A: I don't like to admit that I'm weak. [00:23:50] Speaker B: Is anybody like me? [00:23:51] Speaker C: Right. [00:23:51] Speaker B: The other day I had a little car issue. Now, if you know anything about me, I'm a handyman. I don't know if you know that. Ushers, can we come get her? Right here. Lady in the green, she's a danko. I know who she is. [00:24:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker B: As I was saying, but in actuality, no, I can't fix a dang thing. Okay. So I was in my driveway, I was working on my car. Yes, the Honda. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Chris. [00:24:20] Speaker B: I was working on my car and I noticed there's some things that were going on. And one of the neighbors stopped by and said, you're looking at your. Looking at your. I don't even know what he said. He just said something that sounded so foreign. I said, yeah, I'm looking at that right now. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:24:37] Speaker B: He said, you need some help? I said, no, I got it. [00:24:39] Speaker A: I got it. [00:24:40] Speaker B: He said, you got it? Then he named some tool I have. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Never heard of in my life. And I'm like, I got this screwdriver. [00:24:48] Speaker B: He's like, get out the way. We don't like to admit that we're weak friends. That's just the God honest truth. We don't like to admit that, man, there's a lot we can do, but there's a whole lot we just cannot do. And the things we Cannot do is not meant for us to say, well, let me muster up enough strength and let me just try to do what I need to do and pursue and all of that. No, the areas where we know we can't control. The areas where we know, man, we just don't have enough, right. The areas where it just seems to be too chaotic, those are the areas. [00:25:29] Speaker A: We are meant to say. Jesus, be my shepherd. Jesus, be my shepherd in this moment, in this time. Because you are ultimately what I need. See, friends, the story is more than just about the feeding of the 5,000. It's about Christ wants to feed something deep within our souls. Cause there's a real hunger. And that hunger lies deep within the surface of our hearts. And we wake up hungry. Not just physically, but spiritually, emotionally. And what do we do when we're not being satisfied? We run to things that try to satisfy us. And what are we ultimately pursuing? Freedom. Freedom. This story is meant for us to realize this. There is one who has the competence to feed 10,000 people. He also has the competence to shepherd your life. Well, Jesus is the competent one. You're not. And that's okay. [00:27:00] Speaker B: And that's okay. Because when you look to Christ as. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Your competence, you find yourself just like they did in verse 42. Bring up verse 42 for them. They all ate and were satisfied because they came to Jesus in weakness. He turns weakness into joy. He turns burden into strength. He turns chaos into. Into peace. This is the great shepherd that we have. See, I don't know if you know. [00:27:37] Speaker B: And you probably have heard a thousand sermons even from this platform, about sheep and shepherds. [00:27:44] Speaker A: That sheep are dependent animals. And sheep, you've probably heard me say this before, but I'm gonna say it again. Sheep are dumb. [00:27:55] Speaker B: They are, like my daddy used to. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Say it, Ignorant, right? They got poor eyesight, right? [00:28:02] Speaker B: They. [00:28:03] Speaker A: They get hurt real easily, right? [00:28:06] Speaker C: Right? [00:28:06] Speaker B: They. They. They. When. When they're. When. When they're not properly fed, they begin to throw tantrums. They're like one of the only animals. [00:28:15] Speaker A: That throw tantrums, right? What do they need? Somebody said it. A shepherd. We need a shepherd, friends. We need a shepherd. That story that I told you, I was pursuing freedom from something that I wasn't getting. What was I doing in that moment? I was acting as my own shepherd. I was acting as my own shepherd. And I noticed this. I'm a really bad shepherd. I'm a really bad shepherd. But there is a good shepherd who not only knows the burdens, friends, but he's able to heal the burdens as well, too. The Lord is your shepherd you shall not want. He makes you lie down in green pastures. He leads you to steel waters. He restores your soul and leads you in the path of righteousness. I'm gonna do it in King James. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, some of us, our seasons feel like a shadow of death, right? I love what the psalmist says, but you are with me for your staff, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You make my cup overflow. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall dwell in the house the Lord forever. That's the shepherd we have. The psalmist says, surely goodness and mercy follow me. There's one thing, you can't expect God to be good. There's one thing, you can't expect God to be merciful. Because goodness and mercy pursue me, chase after me all the days of my life. You have a competent savior, you have a competent shepherd. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for this reminder deep within this text that, yes, you are the divine, Holy One of God, Jesus, but you also are the great burden carrier and healer. You are God above all. You demonstrated that perfectly. But also you are the one to whom we cast all of our burdens onto you because you care for us. So, Lord, I pray today that one person that is buried by their burdens, that they would see you not just as their sin bearer, but you are their burden carrier as well, too. Help them today. A lot of us are pursuing areas in our lives trying to feed our needs. But today we look to the shepherd to be our need. Bless us, I pray. Help us. I pray. It's in your Son's perfect name. Amen.