Mark 6:30-56
Date: January 8th 2023
Speaker: Samuel M. Crites
Scripture: Mark 6:30-56
Exegetical Outline
Main Idea of the Text: Jesus continues his teaching ministry, but the disciples fail the test and the crowds only want Jesus for what he can give them.
30-34: On the way to lead his disciples to rest, a great crowd meets Jesus on the shore, and he has compassion on them and teaches them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
35-44: Jesus tests the hardness of his disciples’ hearts by feeding more than five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.
45-51: Jesus tests the hardness of his disciples’ hearts by walking on the Sea of Galilee to meet them in a windstorm and the disciples do not understand.
53-56: The crowd recognizes Jesus and bring him many people to heal.
Homiletical Outline
Main Idea of the Sermon: Hard heartedness blinds your eyes and your desires.
Hard heartedness blinds your eyes.
Hard heartedness distorts your desires.
All great teachers test their students. I have been a student most of my life. Lord willing, I only have a couple more years to go. I hate tests. I am a serial procrastinator. You can ask Molly; I do my best work in the middle of the night the day before the project is due. I hate tests. The worsts ones require you to cram a bunch of information that you are just going to regurgitate and forget. These are the tests that are passed by caffeine and prayers, and they are not helpful.
However, the longer I have been a student, the more I have realized that tests are an essential part of the learning process. A good test allows the student to hone their understanding of the topic. Also, if the student fails, it allows them to rehearse material again, hopefully gaining a deeper understanding of the topic being tested.
Over the last couple months, we have been observing Jesus teach his disciples about the kingdom of God and his own personal identity. He has taught them through their ears using parables, he has taught them through their eyes by demonstrating his identity through miracles, and he has taught them through their hands by giving them his own authority so that they experience his power when he sent them out to heal, cast out demons, and preach the Gospel. The disciples have been receiving a comprehensive education in the person and power of Christ. It is only natural that a test would come.
Over the next several weeks, we are going to see the disciples be tested by Christ and this week, we are going to see them fail. Let’s read Mark 6:30-56:
Mark 6:30-56
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 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. 35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. 47 And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. 48 And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 51 And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. 54 And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him 55 and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
The disciples received a comprehensive education from Christ on his power and his identity, but they have not truly understood in their hearts the lessons that Christ was attempting to teach them. Mark tells us the problem in verse 52:
Mark 6:52
for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
The hardness of their hearts prevented them from understanding the true lesson that Christ was attempting to teach them. When they were tested by their teacher, they failed. The main point of today’s sermon is this: Hard heartedness blinds your eyes and distorts your desires. Our sermon will have two main points. First, hard heartedness blinds your eyes. The disciples did not understand because they could not see clearly. When they got out of the boat, Christ saw a crowd of sheep without a shepherd. He had compassion on them. The disciples saw another ministry task to be tackled. They were exhausted and were ready to send the crowd away as soon as Jesus was done teaching them. Hard heartedness prevents the disciples from seeing. Second, hard heartedness distorts your desires. Our sermon text this week begins and ends with the crowd. Initially, it seems the crowd is seeking Jesus to hear him teach, but by the end of the story, they are chasing him around the Sea of Galilee. They want Christ because Christ feeds their bellies and heals their sicknesses. We can see their hardness of heart because they want Christ for all the wrong reasons. Hard heartedness is the subject of our sermon today, and we are going to see how it blinds our eyes and distorts our desires.
Hard heartedness blinds your eyes.
First, hard heartedness blinds your eyes. In our sermon text, today, there are four sections. The first and fourth are Jesus’s interactions with the crowd, the second and the third are Jesus’s interactions with his disciples. Sometimes, narratives make for difficult sermon structures. There is a natural connection between section one and section four that sandwiches the natural connection between two and three. It didn’t flow in a nice order this week, so I just had to choose. First, we are going to focus on Jesus and his disciples in verses 35-52, then we are going to go back to the top and look at verses 30-34, and 53-56.
This first point is all about the disciples. Why don’t they understand what Christ is teaching them? Sometimes I feel frustrated with the disciples like I feel frustrated with Israel in the Old Testament. Neither of them seem to get it. Think of all the amazing things that they have seen Christ do. He literally raised a little girl from the dead along with a whole host of other miracles. How in the world do they not understand that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah that they have been waiting for? Mark answers this question.
Let’s read Mark 6:35-52, again.
Mark 6:35-52
35 And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. 36 Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” 37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?” 38 And he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” 39 Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. 41 And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And they all ate and were satisfied. 43 And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. 44 And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.
45 Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46 And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray. 47 And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. 48 And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. And about the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them, 49 but when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost, and cried out, 50 for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” 51 And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, 52 for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
Hardness of heart prevents the disciples from understanding Jesus because hard heartedness is a spiritual problem that blinds them to what is truly taking place. Christ is teaching them spiritual truths that are seen with spiritual eyes.
The disciples have just returned from being sent out by Christ to do hands on ministry. Last week, we saw Christ delegate his authority to his disciples so that they could get hands on experience with his power. He commissioned the twelve and sent them out to heal the sick, cast out demons, and preach the Gospel. This week, as soon as they come back and tell Christ all they experienced, Christ leads them to retreat from ministry for a period of rest. As they are traveling across the Sea to a desolate stretch of coastline, their popularity is so great that the crowd on the shore guesses where they are going to land and is waiting for them when they arrive.
We will discuss Christ’s reaction to the crowd in our second point. Right now, I want to observe the disciples’ reaction. As soon as the teaching is done, the disciples approach Jesus and want to send the crowd away. They are worried about their ability to provide the crowd something to eat. Here comes the test. Instead of agreeing with the pragmatism of the disciples, Christ tells the disciples to feed the crowd. Remember, the disciples might be exhausted, but they did just come back from a ministry trip where they healed the sick, cast out demons, and preached the Gospel. They spread the fame of Christ throughout the countryside, and to the highest tiers of Jewish society. These people, in the crowd, are likely the ones that the disciples met while they were on their journey. After doing such spiritually powerful miracles the day before, wouldn’t the ordinary feeding of people with bread be a small task, regardless of how many there are?
We can see the spiritual blindness of the disciples because they don’t see the problem within the problem. They see the massive crowd that has no food as an earthly problem. There are ten to twenty thousand people here and they need food. That means we need money to go into the surrounding towns and buy food. We don’t have that much money, so we have to send the crowd away so they can fend for themselves. Earthly solutions for earthly problems.
Christ’s test is designed to get them to see that the real problem is much bigger and more complicated than they understand. They look at this crowd as a massive problem that has no solution, but Christ sees a much bigger problem that the disciples do not understand. Now, if I was in your seat, I would be thinking to myself, “Ok, Sam, prove it. All I see in this text is that the disciples can’t feed the crowd, so Christ performs a miracle to feed them. What is the bigger thing going one?” Before, we put words to the real problem, let’s gather a little more information that points to the fact that the real problem is not feeding people, but something far greater.
First, immediately following the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus sends the disciples back across the Sea of Galilee, and he retreats into the wilderness to pray. After he is done, he sees the disciples in the middle of the Sea making slow progress, because they are facing into a strong wind. So Jesus walks across the Sea on top of the water in order to beat the disciples to the other side. On his way, the disciples see him and think that Christ is a ghost. Pretty reasonable considering it is the middle of the night and they see someone walking on the water. Christ calls out to them and tells them to not be afraid. He is not a ghost, he is Jesus. When he gets into the boat, the wind ceases, and the disciples are utterly astounded. This is where it gets interesting and we start to see that more is going on than merely that the disciples could not feed the crowd. Mark says this in Mark 6:52:
Mark 6:52
for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
What did the disciples not understand? Well, if I were one of them, there are a lot of things that I would not understand. How did Jesus keep pulling bread out of the basket? Or how did he make all those fish? When everyone had eaten, why were there so many baskets left over? Why were there twelve baskets? Why did Christ send us away? Weren’t we all supposed to go pray in the wilderness? How come we always have bad weather on the Sea of Galilee? How was Jesus walking on the water? Why did the wind stop blowing when he got into our boat?
All these questions are things that I would not have understood if I was a disciple. But I think Mark gives us the clue to their misunderstanding in what Jesus says to them. In response to their fear, he says, “Take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.” They still do not understand who Christ is. They are still amazed that he does things that no one else can do. They are still looking at him with the eyes in their heads and not the eyes in their hearts. Mark tells us why this is; he says their hearts are hard. So, one of the reasons that the disciples fail to see the real problem at the feeding of the five thousand is that their hard hearts are still preventing them from understanding Christ’s identity.
The second reason that the disciples fail the test of the feeding of the five thousand comes much later in Chapter 8. Turn a couple pages to the right and let’s look at Mark 8:14-21 briefly.
To set this passage up, Christ has just had multiple interactions with the Pharisees that do not go well. They have attempted to test him and are asking him to perform signs to prove he is who he says he is. Christ and his disciples leave the Pharisees and travel by boat to Bethsaida. This is what happens while they are on the boat.
Mark 8:14-21
14 Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15 And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” 20 “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 21 And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
Not only does the disciples’ hard heartedness prevent them from understanding Christ’s identity, it also prevents them from seeing beyond the physical reality to the spiritual reality, preventing them from remembering all that Christ has taught them. The lessons Christ is teaching them cannot be understood by the natural man; they are lessons for the spiritual man. When Jesus says to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, there is a spiritual meaning behind that. He means to beware of how their sin corrupts everything around them. It distorts their teaching and corrupts their followers. All the disciples hear is beware of the yeast in physical bread. Their hard heartedness makes them blind to spiritual reality.
So, I go back to my earlier question. Now that we can see that the disciples’ hard heartedness prevents them from understanding who Christ is and it prevents them from seeing the spiritual significance of what is going on, what have the disciples failed to understand about the feeding of the five thousand? How has the hardness of their heart prevented them from seeing clearly? The disciples have failed to see that the crowd does not need physical bread that will sustain their physical bodies; the crowd needs spiritual bread that will sustain their souls. The crowd’s physical hunger is not the problem. That can easily be satisfied. The crowd’s problem is that they have a spiritual hunger that only Christ can satisfy.
It is the same for us. In the same way that the disciples kept returning to Jesus Christ to receive the physical bread necessary to feed the crowd, we must continue to return to Jesus Christ to receive the spiritual sustenance necessary for everyday life. Your daily relationship with Christ is the source of your life. He sustains us with his Word.
Many of us struggle to make our daily relationship with Christ a priority, myself included. We get busy. We get distracted with the day. We get lazy. We need our brothers and sisters in the Church to help us to be disciplined. In our Church Covenant, we have promised to “walk together in brotherly love, exercising an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other. We will faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.” One of the ways that we can fulfill our Covenant is by encouraging each other in our personal relationship with Christ. To help us with this, we have decided to read through the Bible this year as a Church. We want to invite all of our members and anyone else that wants to participate to join us in our Bible reading plan. We will be using the YouVersion Bible app to read the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan. Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Scottish pastor in Scotland in the late 19th Century. Each day, we will read two chapters from the Old Testament, one chapter from either the Psalms or the Gospels, and one chapter from the rest of the New Testament. In one year, we will read the Old Testament once and the Psalms and the New Testament twice. It is a great way for our Church to apply our sermon text today. We can learn the lesson the disciples missed together by helping each other to cultivate a daily habit of feasting on the true bread of life.
Hard heartedness blinds our eyes and distorts our desires. We have just seen how the hard heartedness of the disciples prevented them from seeing clearly. They looked at the crowd as a physical problem and missed the spiritual point. They could not see Christ clearly, so they could not see reality clearly. If they would have understood who Christ is, they would not have been distracted with giving the crowd physical bread; they would have given the crowd the true spiritual bread of Christ himself. But the disciples were not the only ones with hard hearts, the crowd also had hard hearts.
Hard heartedness distorts our desires.
Our second point is that hard heartedness distorts our desires. Let’s go back to the beginning of our sermon text today. We are going to read Mark 6:30-34, then we are going to jump down and read 6:53-56. Let’s read, beginning in verse 30, paying special attention to the desire of the crowd following Jesus.
Mark 6:30-34; 53-56
30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. 32 And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. 33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 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.
Jump down to verse 53:
53 When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored to the shore. 54 And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him 55 and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds to wherever they heard he was. 56 And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or countryside, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and implored him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well.
The crowd has been following Jesus all throughout the Gospel of Mark. When Christ and his disciples arrive on the shore, Christ has great compassion on the crowd, because they are “like sheep without a shepherd.” What does this mean: “Sheep without a shepherd?” Shepherds care for sheep. Ezekiel 34 tells us that shepherds are supposed to feed the sheep, strengthen those that are weak, heal those that are sick, bind the injuries of those that have been injured, bring back those that have strayed, seek those that are lost, and rule over the sheep gently, because the sheep ultimately belong to God. Sheep must be cared for this way because they cannot care for themselves. So here is Christ, the great Shepherd of God’s people, and he sees his sheep in need and it moves his heart with compassion. So what does a good shepherd do? He feeds them. He cares for them. Regardless of how tired he is, he puts their needs above his own.
Christ is the model for the Church. We need shepherds like Christ. Shepherds that are moved with compassion for people; shepherds that are moved with love for God’s people, because God loves his people. Pray for your Church, that God would raise up Christ like shepherds in this Church that love God’s people like Christ loved this crowd.
But the point here is not how Christ loved the crowd, but how the crowd loved Christ. The crowd loves Christ, but not because of who Christ is. They love Christ because of what Christ can do for them. Christ’s love for them is God centered. He loves them because God loves them. The crowd’s love for Christ is self-centered. They love Christ because what Christ does for them.
There are three reasons in the text that we know the hard heartedness of the crowd. The first reason comes from this particular text, the second reason comes from all of the Gospel of Mark, and the third reason comes from Paul’s teaching in the New Testament about the hard heartedness of Israel.
First, the crowd is chasing Jesus around the Sea of Galilee because they want Jesus to heal their sick. We see this clearly toward the end of our sermon text. Wherever Jesus goes, people go ahead of him to bring out their sick people so that Jesus can go among them and heal them. As soon as Christ crosses the Sea of Galilee and lands in Gennesaret in verse 54, people begin to recognize him. As soon as they recognize him, they go to all the towns in the region gathering their sick. There are definitely people in the crowd that want to hear Jesus’s teaching, but for the most part, people are following Jesus because Jesus heals the sick and performs miracles. To these people, Jesus is a novelty and a physician, he is not the Son of God.
The second way that we can see the hardness of the crowd’s heart is that all throughout the Gospel of Mark, we know that Christ has purposefully been teaching the crowd to obscure the kingdom of God so that people would not repent. At this stage of Jesus’s ministry, Jesus does not want people to truly understand the Gospel. He teaches in parables so that in hearing they may not hear and in seeing they may not see. As we have discussed in previous weeks, there are many reasons that Christ does this, the most obvious being that there needs to be opposition to is ministry so that he can be crucified. In a way, Jesus’s ministry is meant to be a catalyst to bring about his crucifixion. So, we should expect the crowd to be seeking him for the wrong reasons and to have hard hearts, because they have not understood Christ’s parables.
Finally, Paul tells us that, in general, all Israel has been subjected to a hardness of heart. In 2 Corinthians 3:12-16, Paul says this:
2 Corinthians 3:12-16
12 Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, 13 not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. 14 But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. 15 Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. 16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
Israel has been blind since the day of Moses because they lack the key to unlock the true understanding of the Old Testament: Jesus Christ. A veil hangs over their face so that they read, hear, and see wrongly. They misunderstand because only Christ can lift the veil, and we have seen over and over again in Mark that he has not lifted their veil. The veiling of Israel continues even to today for one purpose. Listen to what Paul says in Romans 11:25-32:
Romans 11:25-32
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,
“The Deliverer will come from Zion,
he will banish ungodliness from Jacob”;
27 “and this will be my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”
28 As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. 29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. 30 For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
Israel is hard to the Gospel for the sake of the Gentiles. It was God’s sovereign purpose that the hardness of Israel’s heart would create the opportunity for the Gospel to go to the Gentiles. The hardening is partial, because there are Jews that have accepted Jesus as the Messiah. But on the whole, Israel has rejected her Messiah, and he was found by a people that were not looking for him, just like the Scriptures promised would happen. However, Paul also tells us that this will ultimately lead to the salvation of Israel. I do believe that there is a future, mass conversion of Israel that will take place, because Gentile believers take the Gospel of the Jewish Messiah to his own people.
Now, let me do a quick side bar to say that this has nothing to do with geopolitics. There are many pastors out there that wrongly assign Israel an unhealthy place of honor in the Church. The nation of Israel today is only special in so far as the Jewish people gave the world the Messiah. There election is an ethnic election based on who their forefathers were, but that is not the election that leads to salvation. If any Jew is saved, it will be because they turned to Jesus Christ, the only way of salvation. But our God is faithful to his promises, and it seems that Paul is telling us that one day, a whole generation of Jews, as a nation, will be won by the Gospel. We should pray for that day.
As it relates to our sermon text, Israel is veiled and hardened against the Gospel, so, again, we should assume that the crowd is hard hearted against the ministry of Jesus. They are chasing him all around the Sea of Galilee because the hardness of their hearts has distorted their desires. They want Christ with the wrong motives. They are interested in what they can get for themselves, because they do not know who he truly is. Said differently, they love Jesus because they love themselves, not because they truly love him. They love having full bellies and healthy bodies, but they do not love Jesus.
To love someone, you have to truly know them, and this is the connection between our first point, hard heartedness blinds our eyes, and our second point, hard heartedness disotrts our desires. You cannot love what you do not know. They do not love him because they do not know him, they do not know him because they cannot see him, and they cannot see him because their hearts are stone cold. There is not life there. The bread of life is not appealing to them, because they do not even know that it exists. It is a heavenly food that is designed for a different breed of humanity. It is a food that is designed for those that are born again. It is designed for us in the Church. Christ is the true manna from heaven that God sends to his true people to meet their daily spiritual needs.
So, what if someone does not have an appetite for Christ? What if someone says they are one of God’s people, but they have no desire for Christ? Brothers and sisters, we should have a great concern for that person. A physical man needs bread like a spiritual man needs Christ. Bread, both physical and spiritual, sustains the life in the individual. If there is no desire for food, it is because there is no life in the body. If the natural man is starved of food, his hunger will begin to rule him. It will compel him to find food. The same is true for the supernatural man. A life that habitually demonstrates a lack of an appetite for Christ is not a spiritual life that is starving, it is a spiritual life that is dead. So, pray for that person. Preach the Gospel to them, and hope in the goodness of God to save them.
What if the appetite exists, but it is weak? Our appetites can be cultivated. One of the things that I have learned from having kids is that their appetites can be cultivated. If all you feed your children is McDonald’s, then all they will want is McDonald’s. Humans shape their appetites by their habits. If we cultivate a behavior, we will eventually develop an appetite for the thing that we do. So, the church needs to cultivate habits toward the appetites that they want to see grow in their lives. We want our children to love hymns, so we listen to hymns in the car, we sing them in family worship, we use them as lullabies at bedtime.
This is true in our personal lives, and it is true in our corporate lives. The liturgy that we use as a Church is designed to teach you to love good prayer, good hymns, and good sermons. Max and I spend a lot of time thinking about the themes in the sermon text, reading the lyrics to the songs, picking Scripture readings, and writing the prayers to shape your heart to love God’s word. Everything we do in our corporate worship service is purposeful to shape the hearts of our people towards the love of God.
Conclusion
Hard heartedness blinds our eyes and distorts our desires. In the first point, we saw how the hard hearts of the disciples prevented them from understanding Christ’s identity and seeing the spiritual reality around them. They failed the test of Christ because their hard hearts prevented them from seeing. Now we have seen how the crowds suffered from the same problem. Their hearts are just as hard as the disciples, and it caused them to seek Christ for all the wrong reasons. Hard heartedness blinds our eyes and distorts our desires.
We are not those that have hard hearts. Hard heartedness means that you are not saved. We are those that have had heart surgery. But even our heart of flesh can develop calluses. As we sin, our hearts become callused. They become insensitive to the conviction of the Spirit. Those callouses can create massive blind spots for Christians, and it can leave them open to attack from the Enemy. The more we sin, the easier it is to sin, and the more that sin makes us desensitized. Like the hard heartedness we have seen in our sermon text this week, heart callouses can blind our eyes, and distort our desires.
So, as we close, let the Word of God exhort you away from hard heartedness toward tender heartedness. In Ephesians 4:25-32, Paul helps us see how to cut away the callouses on our hearts. Listen carefully to what Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:25-32:
Ephesians 4:25-32
25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Let’s pray.