Dwell in the Word Mark 6:53-56

As we dwell in Mark 6:53-56, consider these questions:

1. How does the response of the people to Jesus highlight a crucial distinction between seeking Jesus for what He can do and understanding who He truly is?

2. Pastor Mark emphasizes the powerful healing presence of Jesus, with people being healed by merely touching the fringe of His garment. How does this serve as a demonstration of faith in Jesus' ability to heal? How can we apply this concept of faith to our own lives?

3. Pastor Mark prompts us to consider whether we truly trust and cling to Jesus for our salvation, believing in the sufficiency of the gospel. How might we sometimes fall into the trap of trying to "save ourselves" through our efforts or works? How can we cultivate a deeper trust in the sufficiency of Christ's work on our behalf?

Transcript:

As we conclude, Mark 6, with these few verses here, it's not really a story that we know. It's a passing story, but it's meant to tell us something important about who Jesus is and how people are responding to him. Remember what we have seen so far? Jesus has authority. He teaches with authority. He heals, and his fame is continuing to grow. And it has to have hit a high point, right? He just fed 5,000 people. And so, they are trying to get away. We saw that on Monday. They're trying to get away. Jesus walks on water. The disciples are amazed. Even the disciples don't understand who Jesus is. So, do the people that Jesus is coming into contact with, the ones who are running to him to be healed, do they understand who he is? That's ultimately the question that we're asking here in this passage. Now, let's be honest, though. If Jesus was in our community and he was healing the sick, would we not immediately go to a friend of ours that has cancer and bring them there? If we had a friend who could not walk because they've been in an accident, wouldn't we bring them to Jesus immediately?

We wouldn't care about who he was. We wouldn't care about what he was teaching. We would just want him to be healed. So, we can't really look down on the people who don't understand here. Of course, they want their belly's filled when they're hungry. Of course, they want their loved ones to be healed. But the question that we want to ask ourselves is, when we think about Jesus, are we going to Him because we understand who He is or because we think He can do something for us? Now, let's look at this story here a little bit about what happens, and then we can answer that question. They get out of the boat, and immediately the people recognize them, we see that people are running about, they're bringing people on beds. Wherever Jesus went, there's people everywhere. And look at what we see here, that Jesus is so powerful that the people are healed just by touching the fringe of his garment. We saw that with the woman who had the flow of blood, right? That she had faith that he could heal her. Ultimately, these people, even though they probably don't understand who Jesus is, they just want the effects of his ministry, right?

But they have faith that he will heal them. Now, do we truly have faith in what Jesus is doing? Do we truly have faith in who Jesus is? Do we trust him for salvation? Do we really truly do that? Or do we somehow think that we can somehow save ourselves? Or are we willing to give everything away of our own pride and our own desire to save ourselves and fully trust in Jesus? That if we were just to that he could save us if we just had a little bit of who Jesus is, if we just touch the fringes of his garment, we believe that that is enough to save us because we don't have enough in and of ourselves. That's the question we want to ask ourselves. While we look at the people here in the Gospel of Mark, and we're going to see many people who have faith and many people who don't, we're going to see the Pharisees who doubt Jesus and work against him, and we're going to see those with simple faith. But we want to ask ourselves, do we really trust and cling to Jesus? Do we believe that the gospel is enough?

Do we believe that he has saved us from our sin? When we fall in our sin and we fail, do we try to work ourselves back up and heal ourselves? Or do we trust in the sufficiency of the gospel? Do we trust in the sufficiency of the work of Christ on our behalf? Because it is sufficient. It is all that we need. So may we trust in that truth, in that gospel that we might know assurance of salvation and have peace.