I'd suggest to you that the distinctive characteristic of Mark's gospel is that it is so action-oriented.

If you were to read Matthew by way of contrast, you'd see, of course, that they're telling the same story. They follow very much the same chronology as events unfold, but Matthew is marked by great bulks of teaching material. We're most familiar, of course, with the Sermon on the Mount, which Matthew recounts in much greater detail than anyone else. Luke, if you were to turn to his Gospel and read the first few chapters, I think you'd be immediately struck by the way in which he pays such strict attention to historical detail. He's the one who gives us all of the business about who was emperor and who was the various procurators and so on at the birth of Christ.

He's the only one who mentions the visit to the temple when Jesus was 12. If you turn to John's Gospel, what I think you'd see is a kind of a personal memoir written by Jesus' closest friend, humanly speaking. This is the one who gives us a cameo of Jesus as a man. And so while the Gospels are telling us the same story, they really do have quite distinctive emphases. and that's very helpful to us in putting the whole picture together.

As we look at Mark, what we're struck by is the way in which he tells the story so swiftly. It's one event after another. A great economy of language, very little attention to detail. He simply gets to the point. It's sort of the difference between the brothers Karamazov and James Bond.

If you want character development, read John. If you're an action person, Mark is your man. So just in these first five or five and a half chapters that we've been studying the last several weeks together, we've seen almost like a fast action slideshow. One event after another, flashing upon the screen, and then it's gone almost before you've had a chance to absorb it. It's as if Mark is giving us all these different episodes in great rapid succession and it's building a composite picture of Jesus in action.

We've already seen him healing the sick. On a number of instances, in no detail, Jesus healed the man. Jesus healed the woman. We've seen him casting out demons. We've seen him cleansing lepers. We've seen him stilling the storm, feeding the 5,000 with a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. We've seen him actually raising the dead, all in these few introductory chapters.

Now we come in the middle of chapter 6 to this morning's reading. And you might care to follow along. We were reading from verse 45 of chapter 6.

And I was struck by four phrases that leapt out of this passage.

Four phrases in this one paragraph seem to me a remarkable summary of the Gospel.

You remember the scene. This follows immediately upon the episode of feeding the 5,000. It's been a long day. Jesus has been ministering all day. The day ends with this tremendous miracle of the multiplication of the fish and the loaves. And it says after that, he sent his disciples on their way across the Sea of Galilee, and he went off into the hills to pray for a while by himself.

And then I come to verse 48.

It's now evening. He's been praying. He's somewhat refreshed in spirit. He looks out across the lake and he sees that the disciples have not gotten very far. If you have one of the older translations, it probably says they were having difficulty in rowing.

The newer translation broadens that and it says they were making headway painfully. I like that. They were making headway painfully. That covers much, much more. You can picture the scene here. I don't know if you've ever been in a great department store and you've seen some teenager I don't know why they do this but it seems like teenagers love to try to run up the down escalator and you might be able to do about one of those right?

you get to the top of one and then you try the second flight and you get up about half way and you find that the harder you run the farther behind you get they're making headway painfully they're not getting very far we had the staff down to our place in Fredericksburg at Lake of the Woods a few weeks ago and just as everybody arrived Karen was out in our little sailboat and we live in a little cove of the lake and she'd come in from the bigger part of the lake onto the little cove it's usually a place where if there's any wind at all it's very strong and it's kind of hard to get into that cove.

I was so glad that it was Karen in the boat at that particular point because with all the staff and all of their families standing around and watching she kept trying to tack her way into the cove. The harder she tried, the farther out into the main lake she went. We finally had to go out and rescue her. She was making headway painfully. I said, of course that never happened to me.

I read in one of the financial magazines

that if you had put $1,000 into a passbook account in 1965

and let it multiply and re-multiply and re-multiply in spite of compound interest the rate of inflation would have made that $1,000 of 1965 worth $840 today.

You're making headway painfully.

There's an old German proverb, you've probably heard it. The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. Seems to me to be what the disciples' plight was. Here they were, whether they were trying to sail or row, They're working like crazy to get across that lake, and they're not getting anywhere.

It strikes me that such a comment might be made as a devastating summary of human civilization.

About a hundred years ago, people were prophesying that this, the 20th century, would be the Christian century. And what they meant by that had very little to do with Jesus Himself, but it meant that we in our own human efforts would achieve a kind of a heaven here on earth. This was to be, finally, the century in which we ended poverty, in which we ended disease, and most especially in which there was no more war.

Men were finally going to come into the golden age. I think it would be fair to say that our spiritual and moral progress in that regard is somewhat lacking behind our technological advance. I wonder if you'd agree with that.

What a devastating thing it was to reach 1914 and in the midst of the Christian century find ourselves instead plunged into what the political scientists have called the century of total war.

Total war.

In September 1929,

stock markets stood at an all-time high and financiers proclaimed a financial golden age. One month later, on a certain Black Thursday, the bottom dropped out. We hear that crowds stood for hours unable to move at the corner of Broad and Wall Street in New York as millions of shares were pitched into screaming chaos on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and General Electric, just to mention one stock, lost 48 points in a single day.

One decade later, we found ourselves being sucked into a war that was supposed to end war.

It didn't. Do you know that since the official conclusion of World War II, by the most conservative reckoning, there have been at least 80 other wars,

one third of which are being fought right now.

We're making headway painfully.

I used to ask college students, what do you think is the problem?

What are we lacking that keeps us from achieving all those noble dreams? And most of them, if they were thoughtful about it, would say, education. We just need more education. And my retort to that was usually, Well, if that's true, then of all places where we would look for moral excellence, for righteousness, for the nobility of the human spirit would be here on the university campus.

How does it stack up?

And most of them would admit that maybe it was something in addition to education.

C.S. Lewis said education has not made us better men.

It simply made us cleverer devils.

May I suggest to you that what's missing

is not some new piece of information.

It is not some new moral insight.

We've had all the good advice you could ever have for at least the last 6,000 years. We don't need some new good advice. What we need is the power to live up to the advice that we've already received. For at least 3,000 years, we've had the golden rule. We know what we should do. The problem is doing it.

We're making headway painfully.

I just have a picture come to my mind of the Lord Jesus turning from prayer and looking out, not on the Sea of Galilee, but on the Sea of Humanity and see us struggling away, rowing and sailing and tacking against the wind, cranking up our little motor and getting nowhere.

And He's moved by compassion and sorrow.

I look on at the next verse.

This is about the fourth watch of the night. Jesus came to them walking on the sea.

He meant to pass by them.

They had gotten so little way out into the lake that He could walk past them, not just to them, but past them.

How is that possible?

Because the things that were giving them such trouble were no problem to Him.

Can I say that again? The things that were giving them such difficulty were no problem to the Lord Jesus. It's as if He lived in another dimension. The wind was still there blowing in his face just as hard as it was blowing in their faces. The waves were just as strongly against him. All the elements were contending against him making any headway whatsoever, and yet he not only can brace himself against the storm, he can walk on top of the water. The things which were hindering them were no problem to him. We need to see that this morning.

The things which hamper and restrict and hold us back are no problem to Jesus. He's the victor. You know, it must have been infuriating to be around Jesus most of the time. Picture how many times they'd been trying their darndest to get something done, were totally unable to do so, and He comes along and does it so easily. You remember that other scene where they'd been toiling all night, caught nothing? and he says let down your nets on the other side of the boat and they say but there's no fish there and they're not biting today no way we're going to get them he says indulge me and they pull up so many fish that the boat began to sink

what's their response? they're horrified Peter says depart from me for I'm a sinful man

he recognized the difference The limitations upon him are no limitations on Jesus.

It says in the next verse, When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. For they all saw him and were terrified.

I wonder that they weren't encouraged by Jesus.

Say, wow, look at that. How is he doing that? No, they're terrified. Because they recognize in that instant that they're dealing with somebody different from themselves.

You know, sometimes in spite of the fact that Jesus has the power to meet the problem that is so hampering us, as we begin to see Him filling our vision and looming large before us, our response, rather than being one of encouragement, is one of fear. We don't want Him to get too close. It's too threatening to us. Have you observed that?

Have you noticed how when Jesus would come into a town and heal somebody, as often as not people were afraid of Him, they wanted Him to get out of town. When He set the man free of that legion of demons, the response of the rest of the people was, depart from us, get away.

They don't want God to come too close. Even though they recognize in Him that He could meet their problem and transform it.

but immediately he spoke to them and said take heart it is I have no fear I've not come simply to exercise my power in your sight to scare you I've come to save you my purpose is to align myself with you and to solve that problem if you'll but put your trust in me. I believe Jesus would say that to each one of us this morning.

Here you are struggling with whatever it is, trying your darndest to make headway, and you're making headway painfully. And Jesus would come and demonstrate to you His ability to conquer that problem, but don't be afraid. He wants to get into the boat with you. He wants to bring His resources to bear on that problem. And His word to you as it was to them is, Have no fear.

It is I.

But the final phrase that leaps out of this passage is verse 52. They were utterly astonished for they did not understand about the loaves. And their hearts were hardened. it goes back to the previous episode Jesus is building one thing upon another he has just multiplied the loaves of bread and fed the multitude and they were eyewitnesses of that but they didn't get the point and therefore they couldn't make an application to their present situation what was the point?

the point is give to me whatever you have however hopelessly inadequate it seems, trust Me and I can bring about the solution. They didn't understand about the loaves.

When there were all those hungry people around, the response of the disciples was, we better send them away because we can't cope. And Jesus said, give Me what you have. They said, we've only got five loaves. He said, give it to Me. And he took it and he broke it and he broke it and he broke it and suddenly there was not only enough to feed the multitude but there were baskets full left over.

They didn't draw the connection.

Do you understand about the loaves?

Have you heard this word?

Jesus would say to you, I know what you're struggling with. I know what you're up against. I know that you're absolutely exhausted, you're making no headway, and you're afraid to let go of what you're struggling with because you think that if you do, the bottom is going to drop out. Stop struggling. Give it to me.

Trust me with it, however hopelessly inadequate it seems, and then, and only then, can I begin to act. I was talking with a family this week. Deeply in debt. Deeply in debt. And I said, do you know what the first principle is of getting yourself out of debt? They said, what?

I said, begin tithing.

Astonishment on their faces. Didn't you hear what I just said? We don't have enough money to pay our bills. You want us to give away 10% of what we have. How's that going to solve the problem?

He said of all places where God makes it absolutely unambiguous in the Scripture, it's regarding our finances. He says, put me to the test. Bring in the full tithe and see whether or not I'll open the windows of heaven and pour out an overflowing blessing. So there's a lot of ambiguity surrounding such things as healing. We understand that God wants to heal, and yet lots of times He doesn't, or He doesn't do so immediately. There's ambiguity about how all of that works.

But with regard to finances, no ambiguity. A promise. You want to see whether God is still alive. You want to see God moving in supernatural power. Here's an invitation. Put me to the test. Begin tithing and watch.

This really wasn't intended to be a sermon on finances, but it's an illustration. Take what you have, however hopeless it seems, entrust it to God on His principles of action and watch Him solve the problem.

At stewardship time, year by year, I've said, and I think it bears repetition, I have never yet met someone who has committed himself to tithing for at least half a year and given it up afterward. Because he's discovered just that quickly that God means what he says. God honors his promise. God keeps his word. That's the kind of God he is.

So it might not be the area of finances. It might be some other area altogether. Husband and wife relationships. Getting on with your kids. Your job. Whatever it is. You may be making headway painfully.

May I say to you this morning, whatever is hindering you is no problem to Jesus.

But don't be terrified of His getting too close for comfort. Yes, if He comes, He comes as Lord. And that means some radical changes.

There's an abandonment of ourselves to Him. There's allowing of Him to begin to make the decisions for us. If He comes, He comes as Lord. But don't be afraid. When He comes in power and might and splendor and glory, it's not to crush us, it's to save us.

Understand about the loaves. Give Him what you have. Give Him the problem. Trust Him with it. And watch Him begin to sort that situation out. to the praise of His name

and to the meeting of your need. Let's bow our heads together.