Mark 6:30–56 — Trust and Obey

This sermon is from Mark chapter 6, verses 30 through 56, and is entitled "Trust and

Mark 6:30–56

Obey."

It was delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, August 24, 2025.

In the same way that we are on a journey with Jesus as we read through the Gospel of Mark,

in the last few chapters that we've looked at, he has been taking his disciples on a

a journey with him.

And he's called them on this journey.

He's been teaching them for a little less than a year

at this point in the text,

and he's even given them some opportunities

to put into practice what he has modeled for them.

And they had taken a little with them on the last trip,

and they've seen God provide for them

and for the mission that they were sent on.

And in today's passage,

which is about the same length as last week,

Jesus is going to, again, press in with his disciples to show them what he can do with

what they have.

But the disciples are going to struggle, not only with a lack of understanding that Jesus

will empower them to do the work, but also with a lack of understanding about who Jesus

actually is, even when he clearly reveals himself to them later in this passage.

In the end, this is going to be an issue of the heart, and Jesus is going after the hearts

of his disciples, just like he's going after ours.

That's what he wants.

He wants us to trust him enough to bring what we have and to step out in obedience to him,

that he chooses to work through our weakness and insufficiency to bring his kingdom.

And he also wants us to come to him and trust that he is who he says he is, that he is God

in the flesh, that he is our Savior, and that he is our sufficiency as well.

So here are the main takeaways that I want you to think about as we go through this

passage today.

First, obey Jesus with what you have, and he will do what you cannot believe.

And second, the answer to our unbelief is to trust Jesus.

So with that, let's go ahead and read the first part of our passage.

Again, this is Mark 6, beginning with verse 30.

The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught, and he

said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest for a while.

For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

And they went away in a boat to a desolate place by themselves.

Now many saw them going and recognized them.

And they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.

When they 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.

And when it grew late, his disciples came to him.

And they said, "This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late.

Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves

something to eat."

But he answered them, "You give them something to eat."

And they said to him, "Shall we go and buy 200 denari worth of bread and give it to them

to eat?"

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."

Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.

So they sat down in groups by hundreds and by fifties.

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, and they all ate and were satisfied.

And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish, and those who ate

the loaves were about five thousand men.

So in this passage, Jesus' disciples have returned from their mission, preaching repentance

to the surrounding villages.

And they are tired.

And it's been so busy where they're at with Jesus that they don't even have time to sit

down and eat together.

So Jesus takes them away in a boat and they head away from the villages to this place

that is desolate, that is empty, away from people.

But as they're traveling, this people from the villages around the lake are watching

them and assembling on the shore where they think Jesus is going to land.

So by the time the boat actually comes ashore, there's a crowd of thousands waiting for them.

Now as they go ashore and Jesus begins teaching the crowd, the first hint of an issue within

the disciples becomes apparent.

If you thought that this story was about giving food to the hungry or being better prepared

for a crowd, you might be surprised to know that this has more to do with the disciples,

at least in the Gospel of Mark.

When Jesus sees the crowd, he has compassion on them.

He moves to serve them by teaching them.

But when the disciples see the crowd,

they are moved in a different way.

They see a problem.

So in what seems like a very practical point,

they see that it's getting late.

They worry about logistics and their responses

to ask Jesus to send them away.

They say the problem is that it's getting late

and the crowd is gonna get hungry.

And here's why I don't think the disciples

were really concerned about the crowd being hungry.

The crowd came of their own accord.

And if they were to get hungry, they are able to leave.

This is at best only suggested by the earlier passage

where the disciples didn't even have time to eat,

but perhaps it's the disciples who are getting hungry.

Kind of like when I'm out with friends and I yawn

and I say, "Gosh, it's sure getting late.

You guys probably need to get home, huh?"

and I'm actually referring to myself.

Jesus' response though is not at all what they expect.

They're probably expecting him to say,

oh yeah, that's a good point.

Yo, you guys are probably getting hungry too.

But instead, he sees right through them

and he says the unthinkable, you give them something to eat.

So I guess the question is, do disciples get hangry?

I feel like they must because there's more than a touch

of sarcasm in their response.

To put their response in a modern equivalent for 2025,

they say, "What do you want us to do?

Go to the villages around and buy $25,000 of food."

Now, first, this isn't a serious suggestion

because they don't have that kind of money.

And second, the villages probably

don't even have that much to sell.

So it's not that I don't feel for the disciples.

I really do.

And it's kind of funny when you read the story in context

because if you remember the reason that they left the village

that they were in was because they were so busy,

they didn't have time to eat.

So they pack a basket of food, they get in the boat,

but when they land, there's a crowd waiting

and they still can't eat.

And after eyeing this basket of food all day,

they finally work up the courage to give Jesus just a hint

and say, "Hey, the crowd must be getting pretty hungry."

And he says, "You're right.

You feed them.

And so here's the real problem

that the disciples are facing here.

It's not actually a problem of food.

They're facing their own limitations.

And they are starting to get just a small peak

at just how great the need is going to be of these people.

They're so busy that they can't even stop to eat.

Their trip to get away becomes beleaguered by crowds

who are desperate for what Jesus offers.

And they're starting to see that what they have is limited.

Not enough energy, not enough food,

everything about them is limited.

And what they don't realize is that

it's never been about what they have to offer.

It's about the one who called them

and what he is able to do with what they bring.

When they were sent out on the last mission,

they had to trust God to provide what they didn't have.

Now, Jesus is pressing them further to trust Him with even what little they did have.

And what they had was and always would be insufficient in their hands.

But that is the place in which God so often chooses to work.

There's another connection that this passage is making that makes this theme of God working in

our insufficiency, stand out all the more.

So all the way back in the Old Testament,

a prophet had led the people of Israel

out of slavery in Egypt,

and they had ended up with a massive crowd of people

who were living in a desolate place

with very little to sustain them.

And that leader felt very insufficient.

But wow, did God provide in a mighty way.

Let me just read to you a few verses

from the book of Numbers and of Exodus

that might peek your ears to this connection.

In Numbers 27, 17, Moses is frustrated.

He says, "Who shall go out before them

and come in before them?

Who shall lead them out and bring them in

that the congregation of the Lord

may not be as sheep that have no shepherd?"

Son familiar?

That's how Moses felt about these people.

Who's gonna lead them?

In Numbers 11 verses 13 and 14,

Numbers 11:13

Moses talks about being exhausted.

He says, "Where am I to get meat to give all this people,

"for they weep before me and say,

"give us meat that we may eat.

"I am not able to carry all this people alone.

"The burden is too heavy for me."

The food problem highlighted.

And then in Exodus 16 verses 12,

Exodus 16:12

And then in 18, we see God's answer to Moses.

He says, "Say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat,

"and in the morning you shall be filled with bread.

"Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.'"

And in verse 18, it says,

"When they had measured it with an omer,"

which is a measurement,

"Whoever gathered much had nothing left over,

"and whoever gathered little had no lack.

each of them gathered as much as he could eat. They were satisfied, not by Moses, but by God.

And this gives us a foretaste of something that is to come. Jesus is not going to be what they

expected him to be, and he's not going to provide in the ways that they expected him to. Let me

qualify that a little bit. He's not going to be the military leader that some of them wanted.

He's not going to restore the temple and the nation of Israel in the ways that others of them had hoped.

He's going to be something so much better, better even than Moses, because Moses was limited.

He was frustrated and he wanted God to send someone else to shepherd these people.

He was exhausted not only by their complaints, but also by his inability to solve even basic problems like

feeding them in the desert. They needed something more than what Moses had to offer.

and the disciples are frankly in the same kind of boat.

Sometimes literally they don't have energy.

They don't have food.

They have to be coaxed by Jesus every step of the way.

But what they do have,

God uses for His glory and for the good of His people.

Jesus invites His disciples here to bring what they have,

five loaves and two fish,

and He multiplies it, but He doesn't stop there.

Then he sends them to distribute what he has provided. Do you see the picture being painted here

in light of the whole story of the gospel? He's setting this precedent for what ministry is going

to look like for them. They bring what they have to Jesus. Jesus uses what they bring to do more

than they ever could have imagined, but he invites them to continue being a part of that work.

This is, to me, perhaps the most miraculous part of the whole picture of how the kingdom of heaven

works, of how the church works. I can't understand why God would use people like you and me who are

imperfect and insufficient and not enough in so many ways, but that He would choose not only to

save us, but invite us to be a part of the work, to use what little we bring and to work in the

the middle of our insufficiency, not just to provide enough but to produce an overflow.

Probably close to 10,000 people are fed by the time you factor in the women and the children

in this crowd.

But also, there's 12 baskets left over, one for each disciple if you're counting.

The sufficiency of Jesus was enough to provide for all of these people that they were serving,

but also for each of them as well.

And here's an application for people like us.

We look around and we say things like, "Lord, I'm just not very outgoing.

I'm not very good with my words.

I'm kind of a quiet person."

By the way, that's literally what Moses said to God, if that makes you feel any better.

But we can also say what relationships I have, Lord, those people who know me best, those

few things I have in common with a small group of people.

I place those in your hands for your glory that you would help me to build relationships

in a way that honors you and introduces people to you.

How about when we say, "Lord, I have a history.

I have habits.

I have baggage, and I just don't feel like I have that much to offer.

I want you to remember that among the disciples was a tax collector.

But we can be encouraged that the disciples didn't actually feed these people.

They only gave the people what Jesus provided.

I'm just gonna repeat that.

They didn't actually feed these people.

They only gave the people what Jesus provided.

So using myself as an example,

I don't have the answers to every question

or the solution to every problem,

but here's what I do have.

I have the good news that Jesus was broken to make me whole,

that his blood was shed to bring me in.

I can point people to the word of God

that is sufficient for leading them to salvation,

but also to bring them to maturity in Christ.

So that's what I'm concerning myself with these days,

and I would encourage you to do the same,

to bring people to Jesus and to offer them what he provides.

But ultimately, we have to come to Jesus too, don't we?

I mentioned Jesus is pressing in

to the hearts of his disciples,

and what's coming out of that pressing

isn't boundless trust in his ability to provide.

And it's not compassion for people either.

In fact, there's sarcasm coming out,

and that tells me that there's a huge heart problem.

And it comes from seeing Jesus fully for who he is

and responding.

That's the key, isn't it?

Fear not, Jesus is about to deal with this issue,

And he starts by packing them all back in the boat and sending them to the next stop

without him, or so they think.

Let's read the second part of the story.

This is verse 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.

And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray.

And when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land.

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.

But 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.

But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart, it is I.

Do not be afraid."

And he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased and they were utterly astounded.

For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Jesus is about to help the disciples with their faith by showing them a little more

of who he is. They get in the boat probably with their baskets of leftover food and they get sent

ahead. And after convincing the crowds that he was not going to take up the new position as their

earthly king or as a political revolutionary, we get some of that context from the other gospels,

Jesus goes up on the mountain to pray. And we don't know what he was praying about specifically.

Maybe it was for his sarcastic grumpy disciples who he's kind of watching from the mountain,

and apparently bob along and struggle to get anywhere

because they have a headwind against them.

And he waits until the middle of the night

and then he heads out as you do when you're the Son of God

and walks on the surface of the lake.

That is literally what's happening here.

There's no way around it in the original language.

He's not walking on a sandbar.

He is walking on the surface of the water.

It's about four a.m.

and the disciples are having a terrible night

fighting against the wind and the waves.

and it says that Jesus meant to pass by them.

And every time I read this for most of my life,

I wondered, why did Jesus send them out alone

and why in the world did he plan to walk by them,

struggling and not stop?

He could see that they were struggling,

he knows the state they're in, why did he choose to do this?

Maybe that's what the disciples were thinking too,

but Jesus is doing something here.

When I hear pass by, I think of a passing car

in the left lane or ignoring somebody

and walking past them, but that's not really

what's happening here.

It wasn't until I read it in the context

of what Jesus is trying to do,

and until I saw all the places that Mark is making

those Old Testament connections to Moses

and one other place here that it started to make sense.

So here are some of the connections

that we should be making here.

with this passing by reference.

And I think it's actually gonna pull

this whole thing together for us.

So first, who is able to walk on the water?

No one that we know of, right?

No one that I've ever seen or heard of,

but there's this place in Job.

Job chapter nine, verses eight and 11, eight through 11,

it talks about someone who can walk on the water.

Let me read this to you.

Who alone stretched out the heavens

and trampled the waves of the sea?

Who made the bear and Orion, the Pleiades,

and the chambers of the South?

Who does great things beyond searching out

and marvelous things beyond number?

Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not.

He moves on, but I do not perceive him.

Here's what we know, no one can walk on the water,

but Job says, "God alone."

And Job says, "He passes by,

"and he couldn't see him at all."

So that's our starting place.

Then we go forward to Moses.

Moses is gonna see God pass by a little bit more than Job.

When Moses asked to see God in Exodus 33,

God answered him saying,

Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by,

I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.

Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen."

Okay, so when God shows Moses his glory, it was by passing by him, while Moses was hidden

in the rock, and Moses still didn't get close or see the face of God, but he got to see

his back as he passed.

So this passing by that Jesus is doing is actually not for the purpose of leaving them

behind.

It's like passing in front of them, revealing himself to them.

This was Jesus putting himself on display as God in the flesh by doing what only God

can do, walking on the waves.

But unlike with Job, he allows himself to be perceived.

Unlike with Moses, he shows them his face because unlike at any other time before, we

now see the face of God in the face of Jesus.

This is God in the flesh, God Himself who has come down to walk among us on the waves

and otherwise.

And Jesus is not done.

He's going to come closer to the boat and He's going to get in and He's going to say

something very specific.

So about 1400 years before this, Moses was sending the people on to the Promised Land

with Joshua and without Moses and his words to them were this.

He said, "It is Yahweh, the I am, who goes before you.

He will be with you.

He will not leave you or forsake you.

Do not fear or be dismayed."

And what Jesus chooses to say after passing before them, after coming close, He says,

"Take heart.

It is I.

Do not be afraid."

in this moment of walking on the water, revealing himself to them face to face, speaking these

words of comfort to them.

He is revealing himself as God in the flesh, but not as a distant God that they could not

see but a God who had come close and who was with them, a God who even beyond providing

what they needed in that moment was going to ultimately give them himself.

Now, I wish I could say that they worshiped him, that they recognized him, that they responded

to him, but I can't because that's not what happened.

They still don't get it.

They're confused.

They're not making these connections.

They don't understand what happened with the bread.

They don't understand that Jesus is God, and it says their hearts are hardened.

That's the same language, by the way, used just a few chapters ago to explain the Pharisees'

position.

Turns out that even people who seem like they're close to Jesus can struggle with unbelief.

Turns out even people who have seen miracles can struggle to put all of their faith in Jesus and His plans and the way that He's working in them.

Because faith is not an automatic thing. It's a choice.

It is a choice to say, "I am choosing to trust Jesus for who He is."

Not the version of Him that I can fully understand.

It is a choice to say, "I am choosing to trust Jesus with what I have,

and I have faith to see what he will do with my insufficiency."

And again, with a sense of irony, if you want to see what it looks like to trust Jesus like that,

we actually don't look to the disciples here, because they're not an example of that yet.

We look to the people who meet Jesus when they land further down the shoreline than planned at Geneseret.

Let me just read these last few verses of the chapter.

It says, starting with verse 53,

"When they had crossed over, they came to land at Geneseret and moored to the shore.

And when they got out of the boat, the people immediately recognized him

and ran about the whole region and began to bring the sick people on their beds or

to wherever they heard he was and wherever he came in villages, cities, or the 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.

Look at the difference we see in how these people respond. The disciples

were asking Jesus to send people away.

These people are running to bring the sick and their beds to get healing.

The disciples didn't recognize Jesus and they're actually hardening their hearts when Jesus reveals himself.

These people recognized him and came running to touch the fringe of his garment.

Why are they doing that?

Because they believe enough to reach for his garment, enough to drag the sick to him that he is the Messiah.

They may not completely understand what that means.

They might not have all of the answers, but they are driven by a belief that Jesus is the one that they have been waiting for.

They have a simple faith that even the disciples lack at this point.

Let me just encourage you that simple faith in Jesus

can cause some things to happen in you.

Simple faith in Jesus causes you to say things like,

What I have isn't much, but I have confidence in the power of Jesus to use what I have for his glory.

Simple faith in Jesus

causes you to run to him believing that he is the one that you have been waiting for and to run

headfirst into community with others doing the same.

You start doing things like giving up Thursday nights to gather in a hot house in the summer with the family of people

seeking to follow Jesus more closely.

You start giving up things that once made you comfortable

because you just want to be closer to Jesus

and be more like Him.

You start being so convinced that Jesus is the one

that you can't help but trying to bring other people to Him.

There's this relationship, see, between trusting Jesus

and obeying Him that can't really be explained.

it has to be experienced.

Because when you see Jesus clearly,

the more you trust Him,

and you will be moved to take steps of obedience,

and the more steps of obedience to Him

that you take, the more clearly you see and trust Him.

The more often you make the choice

to bring Jesus what little you have,

the more you see Him at work.

The more you see Him at work in your weakness,

the more you trust Him to do so.

Do you see how this thing just keeps going?

So if there is one thing, just one thing

that I can encourage you to do today,

it's to make the choice to trust Jesus,

to take a step of obedience,

to ask Him to work in an area that you lack,

to open up your hands on something

that you've been holding onto too tightly.

But really, it's to see Jesus for who He is and receive Him.

To see Him as not just the miracle worker

10,000 people with five loaves and two fish. But to see him as the Son of God who came to

have his body broken for us, that we might be made whole in his name.

Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Councilbluffs, Iowa and in homes

throughout the week. We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture

and making disciples of Jesus.

You can learn more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting ecclesia churches.org.