0963 Mk.6.45-56 Hard-hearted Blindness Continues Pt.2
Mark • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsLike concrete, the human heart can set hard against the truth of who Jesus is. In this passage today, Mark shows us that we must go beyond the incredible, the impossible, to be able to see Jesus for who He really is.
Notes
Transcript
As a carpenter & builder, I have spent many an hour on a jack hammer in trying to break up concrete & even using a crow bar in the process
Concrete is really hard & under the right conditions it can set very fast
Concrete sets fastest by heating it - although, it must remain moist throughout the process or it will crack
So with bridges & the like, the practise used to be - I don’t know about now - that the newly poured concrete beams would be covered in hessian or some form of material & super-heated steam would be pumped in which would cure the concrete within a day
Usually, left to the normal temperatures, it would take a month for concrete to mostly cure
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But, although, concrete is really hard, it doesn’t start that way
I remember in 1980, I was working on the high rise apartment building called the “De Ville” in Main Beach on the Gold Coast (no, Cruella was not living there)
We were pouring one floor level of concrete every 4 days
Now we were a little concerned about that, since when you do the calculations, it meant that if concrete took about 4 weeks to cure properly & reach its full strength, & we were pouring a floor every 4 days, then it meant that we were always sitting on roughly 7 floors of uncured & not full strength concrete
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We had to start working on a newly poured concrete floor in the afternoon after it had been poured in the morning
You had to tread lightly as you’d put footprints in the newly poured concrete
Unbelievable, but it’s true
The point I’m making is that concrete doesn’t start off being hard
It starts soft & grows in hardness as it sets
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As we consider today, the words in Mark’s Gospel about the apostles’ hearts, that they were hardened, we should take stock of people in general & even of ourselves, in particular
The apostles’ hard hearts impacted their faith & what it was like
Q. What sort of faith do we have?
Q. Does it demonstrate a strong & comprehensive trust in Jesus or is it a wishy washy, a take Him or leave Him type of faith - in Him & in life?
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You say, what are you talking about - Christians can’t get a hard heart!
13 But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
That may not mention heart, specifically, but we are not far from that at all
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Pharaoh’s heart became hard - in what sense?
He was unwilling to believe God; unwilling to accept the truth & yield to that truth
Not only did he suffer for his stubbornness, but the whole nation of Egypt suffered
1. Setting the Stage for a Lesson
1. Setting the Stage for a Lesson
As we turn to this passage of Scripture, we find that Jesus has just fed 5000 men, apart from the women & children, with just a handful of food
That handful was not even enough to feed His 12 apostles, let alone 5000 men + women & children
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Originally, Jesus & the apostles were going on furlough or a retreat away from the crowds & ministry to rest
31 And He said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.)
But that was just not happening - everywhere they went, there seemed to be people in need
When the disciples said to him that the people should be sent away to get food, Jesus put it to them, that they should feed them
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Now that was just incomprehensible to the disciples, as they know that they had no where near enough money to feed that crowd
But Jesus was well aware of that fact & He was setting them up for a lesson - testing them out
“How many loaves do you have”? They had just 5 loaves & 2 fish
Now with those meagre amounts, over 5000 people were fed
They picked up afterwards, 12 full baskets of bread & fish
Q. How many did they start with? Just 5 loaves & 2 fish - & all those people were fed
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Q. What did the disciples learn from this? What was the take away from that experience?
Well, “The proof is in the pudding”, as the saying goes
Just look at their reaction when they saw Jesus walking on water
Q. What, you can’t do that - why aren’t you sinking?
Gravity & all - that’s not possible - must be a ghost/a spirit
Once again, we are back to a Jesus who, out of 1-10, is about a 5 or a 6
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I have a question: Why did Jesus separate Himself from the disciples & tell them to head off in the boat for the other side of the sea?
There has been some suggestions as to why
One suggestion is that Jesus wanted to go & pray by Himself so it was natural for Him to send His disciples away in the boat so He could go & pray alone
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Another suggestion is that these 5000 men were inclined to start an insurrection with Jesus as the new king - that’s certainly the case since we read this from John’s Gospel
13 So they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 14 Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
The thought, then, is that Jesus wanted to get His disciples away from these men who were planning to start a revolution with Jesus as their king
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Now there are a number of scenario’s that could be true, but the evangelists - as in the 4 Gospel writers - had particular points they wanted emphasised in their Gospel as they recorded the sayings & doings of Jesus
For example, if I were to ask you how you would describe me, I dare say you wouldn’t all have the same description
Some may even be unflattering - I get that 😇
The point is, that all of those descriptions may be true up to a point
The same is the case with the Gospel writers - they have chosen the content of what Jesus said & did & made it applicable to the people to whom they were writing
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It is commonly understood that Mark was writing to Roman readers
Matthew to Jewish ones
You find Matthew is prolific in his quotation of OT Scripture which the Jews were inclined to believe because it was their authority
Mark knows that power & authority is appealing to the Romans
You, therefore, have Mark selecting those events about Jesus that emphasise His power & authority
It’s not that what he wrote was untrue, he has just told those incidents of Jesus that will make the Romans sit up & take note
Remembering what John said at the end of his Gospel
25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.
So they chose their material, to include in their Gospel
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Our purpose is to discover what Mark is wanting to point out about Jesus
The word of God has come via the apostles of Christ & Mark is just the author who sourced his Gospel material from the apostle Peter himself
Q. What is Mark/Peter wanting emphasised here?
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Oh & here’s another clear example of Mark choosing the content he wants to have in his Gospel
In Matthew’s Gospel it includes the part where Peter wants to walk out to Jesus on the water & He commands Peter to do so, but Peter started looking around at the waves & started to sink, crying out, “Lord save me”
Mark did not include this, not because it is not important, not because Peter’s embarrassed because he sank, but because he was perhaps conscious of the size of his Gospel &/or it was not as important for the point he was wanting to make
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In light of this, I tend to think that the reason Jesus sends His apostles ahead, from Mark’s point of view, is to set up again, as in the feeding of the 5000, a challenge for His apostles as to who Jesus really is
This challenge has already come when they were boating over to the Gerasenes where a storm on the sea erupted while Jesus was fast asleep in the stern
The apostles panicked thinking they were all going to drown & even chided Jesus for taking such a laissez-faire (lack-sa-daisy) attitude to what they saw as a dire situation
The commentator Moffatt put their sarcasm this way
The Gospel of Mark (a) The Subduing of the Sea. Ch. 4:35–41
“Teacher, are we to drown for all you care?
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Mark is pointing out the problem with the faith of His apostles which will also end up being a message to the reader of this Gospel
That theme is still coming through here
These apostles/disciples are what we earlier called, the “Insiders” but their faith is showing that they have a long way to go
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In essence, we come back to the truth of a faith that Jesus is looking for
He’s looking for them to see Him on a scale of 1-10 as an 11, but their faith is hardly at that point - note in vs.51-52 (Rhys’ meme)
51 Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, 52 for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
I think, therefore, sending the apostles ahead of Jesus sets up the scenario of Him walking to them on the water
Q. How will they handle that one?
2. The Hardening of a Sinful World
2. The Hardening of a Sinful World
“But their heart was hardened”
Q. What has a hard heart got to do with faith?
It seems, at a causal glance here, that a hardened heart prevents one from accepting that this Jesus is, on a scale of 1-10, an 11
But why is that the case?
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Let’s have a look at the OT where we read some classic material on the hardened heart
We can do no better than to start with Pharaoh
13 Yet Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had said. 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn; he refuses to let the people go.
Even from those couple of verses, we can note that a hardened heart has to do with an unyielding heart
Pharaoh stubbornly refused to obey God through Moses & let the people of Israel go out from the land of Egypt
It was a refusal to accept the truth, that God will do as He says & destroy Egypt, if Pharaoh does not let the people go
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But even God’s people - & more concerningly so - found themselves with hard-hearts
13 Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.” 14 However, they did not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.
The word, “stiffened” there is the same Hebrew word used for Pharaoh who hardened himself against Yahweh
Here we get a closer understanding of how hardening is related to faith
They stiffened/hardened themselves & did not believe in Yahweh their God
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So hardening has to do with an unwillingness to accept the truth of what God has said or will do
That is related to faith as shown in this last passage
I guess if we apply this understanding to the apostles, we also can see how their lack of acceptance of Jesus as an 11 is a lack of acceptance of the truth that Jesus is God incarnate - God in the flesh
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But what of the heart? How is that related to hardening?
The heart is what I call the “mission control centre’ of your life
Its the real you that only you & God know
A person can hide the matters of the heart from others, but not from themself, nor from God
The heart is the deep-seated thoughts & beliefs of the things you either accept & reject
It all relates to what’s in that heart
18 “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
What you believe, immerse yourself in & treasure lies in the heart
12 “Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved.
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This is why when the disciples are confronted with Jesus walking toward & passed them on the water, they are terrified
They would not, just could not, accept that something so far out of the ordinary could be possible - even for the Son of God, as they understood Him
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Verse 50 says they all saw Him & were terrified - they were greatly troubled
This is the kind of fright they experienced
To appreciate how this was perceived, let’s look at this little clip & for those with a medical heart condition, are best not to watch
I jumped out of my skin when I first saw that - & so did Ros
Jesus calmed their fears & says to them that it is He
You could be forgiven, for accepting that some level of fear or fright would have been there, even with the faith of an 11
However, when Jesus got into the boat, with the wind immediately stopping, that you see that there was more to this astonishment than meets the eye
51 Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, 52 for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
They were utterly astonished - “what, how could all that happen”?
This Gk word for utterly astonished is existemi & we have seen this word before
- It means to displace the mind or to be beside oneself (Mounce)
In this context, you could use that phrase, “they were beside themselves” in expressing what state they were in
This same word is used of what Jesus’ family were thinking was the state of Jesus’ mind, when He was attracting so much attention
21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
Here is the sense, then, of His apostles who after seeing Jesus walk on the water, then get into the boat & the wind - like the storm they had previously experienced - just stopped in its tracks, are pretty much “out of their mind”, “they’re beside themselves”
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The sad reality is that they had not accepted the fact that this Jesus is above & beyond what they could have ever perceived
He is greater than their wildest dreams & imaginations could have ever conjured up
But this is the problem that sinful man has - he starts with all the processes of a sinful & fallen world & is tainted by the stains of sin & unbelief that it puts on his heart
I guess we could say it all started in the Garden of Eden where the woman fell for the lie of the serpent, that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good & evil, that they would be like God - they would be deity
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
I think we can understand that knowing good & evil really means determining good & evil for himself - which is really the exclusive prerogative of God, not man
How tragic for us - all the world fell into sin & corruption - & man started determining good & evil, right & wrong, for himself
I think this goes a long way in helping us understand that, in some respects, our hearts are messed up somewhat with these “delusions of granduer” that we can be like God & determine reality on our own
Our utter trust in God was severely damaged in the fall
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Q. How does one break free?
What helps me are 2 things: firstly, recognising the fallibility of man & secondly, accepting the creative mastery of God
Man is fallible & even the greatest minds are a long way off from solving problems & understanding the world
The theory of evolution is crumbling & people are starting to wake up to the fact that this theory was more about the deification of man & the removal of God from the public square, than any sort of accord with reality
To accept that by sheer time & chance - roll the dice - life in all its incredible complexity came about because - what - it just wanted to! It’s like saying a vacuum has a will & purpose
By sheer time & chance - & where does intelligent life come from if its just a product of time & chance - it’s nonsense!
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Then you have God’s revelation
God making Himself known in the history of our world - and supremely so in our Lord Jesus Christ
We cannot go past the truth of all these miraculous events with Jesus in the centre
Furthermore, there are the first hand eyewitness accounts
32 “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
As Edward Stauffer says...
“The heart that does not want to be fortified through grace, fortifies itself against God, becomes hardened and stubborn, and refuses to hear or see anything divine, but all the same in the last resort fumes against itself.”
The apostles have found themselves falling short of the reality that they see before their very eyes
3. A No-frills Touch Is All it Takes
3. A No-frills Touch Is All it Takes
If they were hoping for any kind of rest, they were again to be disappointed
Jesus is in hot demand - you would hope it would be for the purpose for which He came - reconciliation with God
But alas, Jesus is hot property, for what He is able to do for the people
This is still good & Jesus is still happy to minister God’s healing touch to people
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However, Jesus is always looking for people to go that one step further & to see Him as an 11
When people see Him as an 11, their whole heart is trusting in Him, knowing that He, & only He, is able to save them from the damning state of sin in which every human being is in
To see Him as the One who can save to the uttermost is the only way a person will gladly surrender their all to Jesus
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The boat arrives at Gennesaret, on the West side (Israelie side) of the Sea of Galilee after their “interesting” night on the water
Again, we see the crowds swarming around Jesus, like bees around a honey pot
Some have learnt - possibly from people like the woman who had the haemorrhage - that all it takes for healing is a touch on Jesus’ clothes
However, that touch must be the touch of an 11 - which is why that one woman above them all was able to find healing
But if that touch is the touch of a 5 or 6 out of 10, then such touches are to no avail
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But some are beginning to understand that this Jesus is beyond what they could ever possibly imagine
The sick are placed in the market places where Jesus might pass by & they were imploring, begging that they might touch the fringe of His cloak
It says that as many as touched Him were being cured
Whack to a Roman reader
Power & authority personified & magnified in this person Jesus
This no-frills touch is demonstrating that faith in Jesus is rising to the status of an 11 for some
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The take home from this passage today is that WE need to see Jesus in this light too
To see Him as an 11 will transform your life
However, if the heart is hard; if the heart is unyielding; if the heart is set on its own way, then Jesus will not have the impact in your life that He wants to have
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The problem for some long term Christians is that they don’t realise that they may be drifting into a hardened state with their Christianity & are resisting the essence of commitment & change that Jesus would want to see in their life
“Familiarity breeds contempt” as the saying goes & we can all get set (“concretely”) in our own ways & tend to lose that hunger “to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God”
We can avoid that by doing some self-reflection & some soul-searching
Q. Are we hardening ourselves against the work of God in our life?
Q. Are we so comfortable & set in the world that that sense of excitement about our Christian faith has become dull?
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To counter this possible trend, let’s see & accept that this Jesus whom we have trusted in is not like the world
He is not like the fallible, untrustworthy people we see out there in the world
He will not let us down - because He has the will & the ability to do anything
For our faith to mature, we will need to see this Jesus as an 11