A REVOLUTION OF COMPASSION
Gospel of Mark #20
Pastor Clanton
Woodland Church
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
(Mark 6:30–44, NLT) “The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.” But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed.”
1. So you want a revolution.
(John 6:15 NLT) “When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.”
2. Jesus started a different type of revolution.
(Mark 6:34 NLT) “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”
(Numbers 27:17 NLT) “Give them someone who will guide them wherever they go and will lead them into battle, so the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”
Dan Rather was on our campus a couple of years ago to interview on our national radio broadcast Open Line. Dan Rather has not been one of my favorite people. looked at him as part of the left wing media establishment with its secular, pluralistic, relativistic, God philosophy. He seemed a little cold to me and a touch arrogant, and he was never one of my favorite anchormen. And there he was on our campus.
Well, during a break he and I spent a bit of time together, and I was shocked because he was the warmest individual. He seemed interested in everything I was saying, and he seemed to care about me.
He said, “I grew up in a Baptist home. In my grandma’s house the only things she had to read were the Bible and the Sears Roebuck catalog.” He continued, “My grandmother read me the Bible every day.”
He went back to the interview, and at the close as the tapes were rolling, ready to go nationwide, one of the interviewers said to him, “Mr. Rather, excuse me, I don’t want to hurry anything. But if you were to die today and stand before God at the edge of heaven, and God were to say to you, ‘Why should I let you into my heaven?’ what would you say?”
He paused and said, “Well, I have to say it wouldn’t be for anything I have done. It would have to be totally by the grace of God.”
All of that to say this: I have no idea what his spiritual condition is. This is not a statement about his spiritual condition; it is a statement about a shame I bear in my heart. The shame is it didn’t cross my mind once to pray for Dan Rather that God would compassionately reach out and embrace his soul, cancel hell and guarantee heaven, and fill him with abundant living. I hate to tell you that; it just never crossed my mind. I was too mad about all this stuff to think about his need for a Savior. I refused to be a middleman in a compassion transaction between God and one who possibly needed him. – Joe Stowell, President of Moody Bible Institute
(Matthew 4:1-4 NLT) “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil. For forty days and forty nights he fasted and became very hungry. During that time the devil came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”
(John 6:27,31-33,35,48-51 NLT) “But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. … After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.” Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” … Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. … Yes, I am the bread of life! Your ancestors ate manna in the wilderness, but they all died. Anyone who eats the bread from heaven, however, will never die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
“That God does not exist, I cannot deny. That my whole being cries out for God cannot forget.” -Jean Paul Sartre
3. God calls us to do the impossible for which we are unqualified.
(Mark 6:37 NLT) “Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!”
(Mark 6:41 NLT) “Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share.”
If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito. —African proverb
(Mark 14:22 NLT) “As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.”
a. Jesus is my substitute.
b. Jesus is my example.
i. Giving
ii. Relationships