The Shepherd and His Compasion
Notes
Transcript
The Compassionate Shepherd
Mark 6:30-56
May 2, 2021 at Central City Baptist Church
Introduction
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care,” said Theodore Roosevelt. This quote has been used in a variety of areas through the years. I have heard it said for teachers in the school system. I have heard it used for coaches as they try to invest in young men and women in their proper sport. I have heard it in leadership training when working in college athletics. And I have heard it said for pastors, especially those in my case of being new. Trust and patience build over time as care is seen by the people. And yet, when it comes to Jesus, that care, that compassion is made abundantly clear throughout his life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus shows his compassion continually to those around him. And that is no different from what we see in our text this morning.
Recap
It is becoming our habit here each Sunday to open up the Bible and work our way through books of the Bible. The reason for this, we cannot rightly understand the fullness of what is going on in the text if we isolate it from its context. But as we study whole books of the Bible, we can understand how the book of the Bible fits together within itself, and also with the rest of the Bible. Hopefully over time, it will also help us to become better Bible readers in seeing that the Bible is one grand story of redemption that is fulfilled in Jesus. And so, this morning, we continue our series in the gospel of Mark. Picking back up following the return of the twelve disciples from having gone out in pairs to share the message of the kingdom throughout the region. And this is where we will begin in Mark 6:30 this morning. Here we will continue to see how Jesus reveals himself to the world as its Redeemer. So if you have a Bible, I invite you to open up there and follow along as I read.
Main Point
Jesus is the great shepherd who has come to tend his flock with compassion and patience. Therefore, Christian, let us know his voice and follow it.
Points
Point #1: The compassion of the Shepherd
Point #2: The identity of the Shepherd
Point #3: The fame of the Shepherd
Point #1: The compassion of the Shepherd
Following the disciples return from being sent out in pairs, they are regathered together as a whole. Why the ESV uses the apostles returned here I am not sure. But if you are using a NIV or a CSB you see that it translates along the lines of gathered together or around Jesus. The underlying Greek word συναυονται here in its context is implying a coming together as a whole, being brought together. What was separated previously is returned to its fullness. This is important in that here the disciples are now with their teacher as a body and are heading to find rest as they are united back with Jesus.
A quick application here, when we leave here we are split up through the week, but when we gather again each Sunday, we are gathering as the whole of the church, we are collected together as one whole body to come to Jesus together. This is the beauty of our corporate worship together. And it is to this point of why our gatherings on Sunday morning are essential to our Christian lives. The church body comes together as one. Sunday morning isn’t about the individual parts or the building itself, but the assembling of the body of Christ together to worship Christ together.
Now, back to the twelve reassembling themselves, Jesus knows that the disciples are tired and have had no chance to find quietness to even eat, he invites them to come away by themselves with him to rest a while. This is doubly emphasized in verse 32 in saying, “they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.” James Edwards in his commentary says, “The gathering of the disciples to Jesus means that in the midst of business and busyness they are accountable to him alone. And the greater the demands on them, the greater their need to be alone with Jesus.”
Oh how true Christian it is for us in the midst of business and busyness to find time to be alone with Jesus in moments of greater demand. Often when things get busier, we are quicker to neglect time alone with our Savior. And yet, in these moments we should not push these aside, but draw all the more near to Jesus. We should spend more time with him in the Word in these busy moments. For it is in those moments of busyness and business that we need to come sit at the feet of Jesus and take the good portion. For it is in these moments of business and busyness where we need to be allowing God’s word to fill us and guide us. Being with Jesus isn’t just something that is meant to happen when we have time, it is to be the driving force of our lives.
The disciples were to the point of desperately needing that time alone with Jesus. And my friends, my guess is most of us could make time with Jesus more of a priority. Spending more time reading his given word and meditating on those truths. By meditating, I simply mean we need to take time to contemplate what we have read about what the text revealed to us about who God is and what truth it has revealed to us about ourselves as mankind. And then how in light of these truths that we are being called to live in our daily lives.
It is this time in the word that Jesus shepherds his people, that he trains us to know and hear his voice. How as sheep are we to know the voice of the shepherd if we are never actually in his word? Friends, even if you do devotional books everyday, while these can be helpful, you are not hearing the voice of the shepherd, but primarily that of other influences. We need to hear the voice of the shepherd and know that we need time with him.
Jesus is a compassionate shepherd who invites us to be near him and hear him. And as we do so, we are nourished and cared for. And this compassion is what we find here in verse 34, it says: When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.
Despite the intent and purpose of their travels to get away and have time alone with the disciples, Jesus is not bothered by this interruption. For instead of frustration and annoyance with the crowds swarming to them, Jesus has compassion on them. Mark grounds the purpose of this compassion in saying that it was because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
The language of sheep without a shepherd feels the Old Testament. Genesis 48:15 says, And he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day,. Then Numbers 27:16-18 says, Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the LORD may not be as sheep that have no shepherd.” So the LORD said to Moses, “Take Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him. Psalm 28:9 adds, Oh, save your people and bless your heritage! Be their shepherd and carry them forever. Even in that of our Call to Worship this morning from Isaiah 40:11 we read, He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. And the last example we will give is if you will look back to the Scripture reading from Ezekiel 34:11-24 that Kenda read earlier. We learned that it is the Lord who will search for his sheep and seek them out. That it is he who will rescue them.
Again, there are many more pictures of this from Psalm 23 and other places within the Old Testament. The picture though that this paints is two-fold. One, the leaders of Israel are not shepherding the sheep, the people of Israel. They are wandering without leaders that are caring and nurturing them. Two, it is identifying that it is Jesus, the Second Person of our Triune God who has come to shepherd the sheep, he has come as the God Man to seek and care for the sheep.
God has not left us without a shepherd, he has not left us to fend for ourselves. The Son of God has come to rescue us from where we have been scattered. He has come to gather us together as his sheep, to feed us, to bring us to a place to lie down where Jesus is our refuge. It is Jesus who has come to bind the injured and strengthen the weak. And those of injustice who are fat and strong, those who have done injustice to the weak, Jesus will hand them over to justice in which they will face his wrath. They will be those who have muddied the water and trodden down the other sheep. These will have no part in the good shepherd and will be those who are cast into condemnation of hell for all eternity.
Oh what a gift the people of God have in the good shepherd of Jesus, finding our rest in him. He cares for us and watches over us. He is the good shepherd of our weary souls. The shepherd who’s rod and staff comfort us still.
But how does Jesus show this compassion? Just as he did for those sheep without a shepherd, by teaching us. Jesus in seeing the sheep without a shepherd in his compassion doesn’t leave them without truth, but he teaches them for hours. He taught them many things to speak truth into their troubled souls. Mark’s gospel has already shown us that it is the word of God that is to be sewn back in chapter 4. And this is exactly what Jesus does. While we do not know exactly what he was teaching in this event from Mark’s gospel account. We know that from both Matthew and Luke’s accounts, Jesus also healed the sick there. But in Luke’s account we also learn that Jesus taught in particular about the kingdom of God with them.
Over and over again in the ministry of Jesus, we see that he continues to teach. He equips them to grasp who he is, what is necessary to enter the Kingdom of God, and how to live in light of the Kingdom. And it is these same teachings that then must be the priority of our ministry as a church. For it it must be these teachings that are the very center of our time together. Some confuse what our gatherings of worship are for. Our gatherings as we all come together are not then for us to have individual quiet times, individual experiences of worship. As we come together, we are to center completely on the Word of God and the teaching of the Kingdom of God. We do this by everything from the Call to Worship, the Scripture Readings, and the Songs we sing pointing us to the feeding of the sheep through the preaching of God’s word. For it is as we do this, that we too are shepherded into God’s Kingdom. For the word feeds and nourishes our souls to know more of the height and depth, the width and the breadth of who Jesus is as we see in Ephesians 3:18.
Yet, not only does Jesus show compassion by feeding our souls with his word, he also provides for our physical needs as well. For as it gets late, the disciples think what seems like a good idea, that it's time to send the crowds away to get food. For the reality is it's late and they are in a desolate place as stated there in Mark 6:35 and 36. But instead, Jesus calls the twelve to give them something to eat. Of course practically, they ask are we to go and buy this much food? Knowing that they don’t have enough. But notice what follows again there in verses 38-42.
The miracle of feeding the 5,000 continues to show that Jesus is the better and greater Moses. For the way the people are broken down in groups is exactly what we learn of how the people were divided back in Exodus 18 when Moses’s father-in-law counseled him to break the people apart. It is also similar to that of the people of Israel grumbling in the wilderness about no food, and the Lord speaking to Moses of bread falling from heaven to provide for them. But here, it is the disciples who are grumbling, not the crowd. The disciples are still struggling to grasp who Jesus is at this point.
But, even as the disciples still are struggling to grasp this, the 5,000 are not merely just held over until they can get more food, they are completely satisfied. From five loaves and two fish, 5,000 men, plus women and children as made clear from the other gospel accounts, were full and completely satisfied, as twelve baskets of leftovers were taken up. Their bellies were filled as Jesus provided for their physical needs as well.
Jesus continues to reveal to both his disciples and the world that he acts as only God the Father acts. That he is fully who he says he is as the Compassionate Shepherd who cares for his people. In fact, the banquet here shows the opposite of that of Herod’s banquet from last week. Herod’s banquet was to boast in his position, where Jesus bringing this banquet is to serve the people and meet their needs.
In seeing the compassion of the shepherd this needs to drive our dependence upon the shepherd though. Just as sheep learn the voice of the shepherd, so do we need to learn the voice of Jesus. Just as sheep find their comfort and protection in the shepherd, so must we find ours in Jesus. Just as sheep rely on the shepherd to feed them, so too we must rely on our shepherd to feed and nourish us with his word.
Point #2: The identity of the Shepherd
Not only though is Jesus a shepherd who has compassion, but he is also one of patience. And this is where we turn in our second point this morning, the patience of the shepherd. Jesus sends his disciples off into the boat while he dismisses the crowds. And following both the disciples and the crowds being dismissed, Jesus goes off alone to pray to his Father. Following his time of prayer though, he makes his way towards his disciples who were painfully making their way across the sea.
Once more, the disciples are on the sea, this time apart from Jesus and the winds are raging against them. It’s late as verse 48 tells us it was the fourth watch of the night, this being between 3 and 6 AM. And here Jesus comes walking on the water heading towards the other side. Now, some have tried to dismiss this spectacular event by saying it was an allusion. Some say that Jesus was walking on a sandbar or something like that instead of actually on the water. However, that is far from the case. For one, if you have ever made it out to a sandbar, you know that you have to swim through a deep spot in the ocean to get to that sandbar. So if it was an allusion, the disciples would have noticed Jesus being soaked from swimming. Second, the fishermen of the group would have been able to have noticed this as well in having learned how to navigate the sea. Third, the fact that Jesus has already calmed a raging storm, why is it so hard to believe he walked on water too?
It says there at the end of verse 48, “He meant to pass by them.” This phrasing is coming from Peter and the other disciples' recollection of the events of that night. We are not made aware that this was Jesus’s intent or not. For in passing by them and them seeing his back, it was to set up Jesus like the Father in passing by Moses as he saw the back of the Father in Exodus 33. And yet, here Jesus is going to fully reveal himself to the disciples. And yet, possibly in their hardened hearts or for some other known reason, this fails. For the disciples see him sooner and they think it is a ghost and cry out. And yet, even as they do this, Jesus still reveals himself in fullness to them as he states there in verse 50, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”
In this statement Jesus reveals himself to be none other than I AM. While our English translations muddy this up, the original of the Greek makes it super clear. For it says εγω ειμι, which is I am. This same phrase is what is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament when God the Father reveals himself to Moses at the burning bush. Jesus is making it now fully known to his disciples that he and the Father are one with this I am statement. It is this understanding that is essential to both the disciples and us today of rightly understanding who Jesus is. We cannot know Jesus without realizing that he is both fully God and fully man. Jesus is the Son of God revealed to the world. And he is preparing his disciples to grasp this truth.
And even in the moment, Jesus is calling for them to not be afraid, to trust him in the midst of their fear. And yet their hearts are hardened to both Jesus’s miracle in providing food for the 5,000 and in his I Am statement.
The disciples allowed hard heartedness and fear to stand against their faith and trust in Jesus. Friends, if we too are not careful we will miss who Jesus is and fail to place our trust firmly on him. It is not merely enough for us to lean with hesitancy on him. We are to lean wholly on him! (GO LEAN ON PIANO OR WALL)
Faith and trust doesn’t doubt the object of that faith and trust, it completely rests on it, trusting it to be secure. If we rightly understand Jesus as the God Man who came to call the shepherdless to himself, the one who would lay down his own life to rescue and save his sheep, then we must rest that he alone can save us. All our hope and trust then must be in Jesus.
The shepherd has come, he is standing at the door inviting all to come. John 10:9 says, I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The way to eternal life is found in Jesus alone. The promise of salvation is in him as the God Man. For it is Jesus as the God Man who humbled himself to the point of death on a cross to save us. It is he who has made the way possible. And it is this that we must ground our faith and trust in. We must rest in this truth that I AM has come to save us
Friends if you are here today and you have not come to Jesus, see that the door is open, Jesus is inviting you to enter into the kingdom of heaven. But you must see your need in him. Therefore, confess your sin, turn from it, and come to Jesus. See that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
Brothers and sisters, for us, we must ask ourselves if we are being tempted to lean on other things more firmly for hope and joy than Jesus? Where do we find our refuge and rest? Is it wholly Jesus or is it Jesus tacked onto worldly treasures and possessions? Are we being tempted to doubt Jesus is enough for our salvation that we must help him in our salvation by doing enough good works? Are we tempted to allow fear to creep in and think that the church could crumble and fall apart if we don’t do something? Christian, rest in knowing that our salvation relies on Jesus. Know that the church will prevail, for even the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. For I AM is our savior, our rescuer. And he is our refuge and king. Lean wholly on Jesus' name.
Point #3: The fame of the Shepherd
Our final point this morning is as the disciples once more reach land, and further see how the fame of Jesus has spread. The aim of their landing was to be Bethsaida, but because of the wind, they ended up in Gennesaret, and many there recognized Jesus and all began flocking to him. The fame of Jesus has continued to spread throughout all the land of Israel. People continue bringing the sick, the hurting, the vulnerable to him. And Jesus in his compassion continues to show them mercy and bring them healing and relief.
And yet, even as the fame of the Shepherd continues to spread through his ministry. Jesus continues to be about his ministry in entering into the villages, cities, and countrysides showing mercy and compassion to the weak and needy. Jesus continues to teach of the kingdom of God and invite other sheep to himself. The answer continues to be for all, will they trust in Jesus for salvation? Will they trust in Jesus as the long awaited Messiah?
Even as we come this morning to pray for the healing of three men within our church, we want to recognize that healing is a gracious, merciful, and powerful act of the Lord. Jesus continues to be the one who heals his people in miraculous ways. This is our hope and prayer this morning for these men. And we ask that even in this, that this would point each of us more to find our hope, rest, and faith in Jesus, the great Shepherd.
Conclusion
Jesus’ fame continues to spread around the region. And at the same time, Jesus each step of the way reveals more and more who he is. Namely that he as the God-Man is a compassionate shepherd. Therefore, Christian we are not left without a shepherd wandering about on our own. We have one who is tending to us, nurturing us, caring for us, providing for us in himself. May we continue to hear his voice and trust it. Let his rod and his staff comfort us, having no fear in knowing Jesus as our shepherd will bring us to lie down in green pastures.
Let’s pray…