Sermon Tone Analysis

Textual Idea – Jesus commanded His fearful disciples to be of good cheer.

Sermon Idea – Disciples of Jesus Christ have reason to be of good cheer.

Interrogative – Why should Christians be of good cheer?

Transition w/ key word – Our text reveals 3 blessings which give Christians reason to be of good cheer no matter what is against us.

The blessing of prayer – vs. 45-47 The blessing of His presence – vs. 48-50 The blessing of His power – vs. 51-52

Introduction – Tell about as a child my family relationship with Mrs. Hawkins who was a member of the church where my dad was an associate pastor.

She lived up the street from us & taught 4th grade at the local elementary school.

She taught me and Rhonda piano lessons (which I hated).

Always baked cookies for us and was kind of a surrogate grandmother even though she never had children.

She and my folks talked about how great it was going to be when I was old enough to be in her 4th grade class at school and I looked forward to it until I ended up in her class because it was miserable!

Nothing I did in her class satisfied her.

I was in non-stop trouble.

If there were kids talking while her back was turned, she would accuse me.

Apparently because I was the preacher’s kid, she thought I could walk on water.

It was my first real exposure to the reality life is not fair because Mrs. Hawkins had expectations I could never meet.

It seems society expects celebrities, sports figures, Presidents all to be able to walk on water with the expectations we have of them.

Church folk expect their pastoral leaders to walk on water in what we expect them to be able to do.

When we find out they can’t; many times we’re devastated by our disappointment.

It’s amazing to me how we humans set such high expectations of other humans like being able to walk on water and we’re shocked that they can’t; yet we don’t expect the Son of God to walk on water and we’re shocked that He can! That’s what we’ll see in God’s word today in Mark chapter 6 in one of the most amazing passages of Scripture.

In it, our Lord does something that shocked the disciples and scared them to death in the middle of difficulty.

Yet in the middle of difficulty, the Lord tells them “Be of good cheer, it is I; do not be afraid.”

We live in a time of unprecedented uncertainty and fear in the world.

The whole world has been turned upside down from the pandemic, freedom is being swept away in the name of health & safety as petty tyrants flex their puny muscles.

The stress of possibly loosing jobs for vax mandates is real.

(BTW - stand up to tyrants & the tyranny of Gov’t oppression!)

Natural disasters occurring frequently at home and abroad, vicious dictators and terrorists looking for opportunities to strike.

Prices are skyrocketing as inflation rises not to mention the fear related to economic future as the global economy that is now so intertwined across national boundaries borders on calamity.

Our southern border is not secure so who knows the troubles that will bring.

Leaders are failing or nowhere to be found and the news media is full of gloom and doom.

It would appear we don’t have much to be cheerful about.

Yet with all this against us, I believe the command God issued those disciples in Mark 6:50 “Be of good cheer, it is I; do not be afraid” is just as important and true today as it was 2000 years ago.

Why should we be of good cheer?

Transition w/ key word – Our text reveals 3 blessings which give Christians reason to be of good cheer no matter what is against us.

Read Text 6:45-52

1.

The blessing of prayer – vs. 45-47

Explanation – This event takes place immediately following the miracle of the feeding of the 5000.

John’s account of this tells us in 6:15 that in response to this miracle, the crowd was about to take him by force and make him king so he went to the mountain to be alone.

Mark supplies the details of getting the disciples out of there in their boat while Jesus went off to pray by himself.

(Show slide of area map & highlight)

It is profoundly interesting to me the priority Jesus placed on his personal prayer life throughout His ministry and in the face of a potential mob scene, Jesus withdrew to pray.

The NT repeatedly shows us that Jesus’ prayer life was vital in His relationship with His heavenly father.

Consider these aspects of Jesus prayer life:

Jesus prayed regularly – Luke records more instances of Jesus’ prayers than any other gospel writer which demonstrates it was a regular practice with Jesus.

Jesus often prayed alone – He regularly withdrew from His disciples and the crowds to spend time alone with His Heavenly Father in prayer.

This was especially evident as Jesus got nearer to the crucifixion in the garden.

Jesus prayer life showed His communion with His Father, His submission to His Father & how He gave thanks to His Heavenly Father –

NT shows Jesus prayed for children, for His disciples, for Himself, and for all believers, especially in John 17.

Jesus taught us how to pray with the model prayer (often called the Lord’s Prayer) in Matt.

6:5-13.

Why was prayer important in Jesus life?

Why did He show us how to pray?

Because it is a vital tool of blessing God has given to us to stay in constant communication with Him.

Illustrate – Show my cell phone.

This thing allows me to stay in contact with my family, through text messages, Face-time video or just a simple phone call.

It is a wonderful blessing to stay connected with our family.

Routinely our kids will use this to ask Cheryl & I questions about decisions they want to make and to get our wisdom, especially now that they are parents themselves.

Argumentation – As helpful as a cell phone is and as wonderful as it is, God has given us a more effective tool to stay connected to Him called prayer!

Think about it, you don’t need special equipment, you don’t need unlimited texting, don’t need to type on a little tiny keyboard, you don’t need a data plan and best of all there is no contract renewal and no bill at the end of the month!

God has provided the blessing of prayer so be of good cheer; no matter what you’re facing, you can talk to the Lord about it!

If Jesus, the God-man, the Messiah, the King of Kings & Lord of Lords needed to spend time in prayer and Face-time His Heavenly Father, don’t you think you & I need to also?

It is your direct line to God, your life line.

CF: John 15:5 “I am the vine and you are the branches…w/o me you can do nothing.”

CF Phil.

4:6-7 Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer.

Application – Prayer is literally your life-line to God! Talk about being able to “phone a friend!”

Note what Jesus did, he had found himself a special place where he could be alone to pray.

“His prayer closet” was a mountain.

Do you have a place that you meet the Lord regularly in prayer?

You can be of good cheer and take courage no matter what is against you because of the blessing of prayer.

Notice the 2nd blessing:

2. The blessing of His presence – vs. 48-50

Explanation – Notice verse 47-48 – Text says the disciples were in the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and he was along on land.

Where are the disciples & the boat?

Middle of the sea.

Where’s Jesus?

Alone on land.

Where are the disciples?

Middle of the sea.

Where’s Jesus?

Alone on land!

Why am making such a big deal here?

Don’t you feel sometimes you’re adrift in a boat by yourself in the middle of the sea and Jesus is nowhere to be found?

Vs.

48 says He saw them!

The word for saw can either mean to see with your physical eye or perceive by intuition.

Scholars might be concerned for the exact meaning: to me it matters not because He both saw and knew they were in trouble!

Notice the text says they were straining at rowing b/c the wind was against them.

This passage illustrates for us two theological concepts about God that are vitally important: God’s transcendence: God is completely separate from His creation, He is completely sovereign over all creation.

He is wholly other!

He is not part of the universe, He is not the sum of it’s parts, He’s not the soul of the universe.

He is the eternal, un-created, absolute, self-contained, self-sustained & self-existing Lord God Almighty by whose will & power all things exist.

We depend on God for our existence, our very breath.

He depends on no-one!

This is God’s transcendence.

When you gaze up in the night sky and see the billions of stars, you get a sense of how big God must be and how far out there He is and how small you are!

But this text reveals the flip side of God’s transcendence & that that is God’s immanence.

(Spell it).

This means that God indwells His creation & all of it’s processes.

He is simultaneously Omnipresent, everywhere in the universe & He’s Omniscient, that is He sees and knows everything going on everywhere in His universe!

In a word, He’s close by!

Jehovah God, Yahweh demonstrated this to the COI in Exodus with the pillar of cloud by day & the pillar of fire by night in leading the COI through the wilderness.