I want to ask you to turn in your Bible to Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6. We're going to start our reading in verse number 30. If you have headings in your Bible, you might see the heading at the beginning of verse 30, the feeding of the 5,000. We will be reading that story in the Scriptures. And focusing on that somewhat in a minor way, but along the way we see a few episodes in the life of Christ here. And so I want to begin in verse number 30 of Mark chapter 6. We'll finish our reading in verse number 44. Let's begin here, Mark 6, verse 30. And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus and told him all things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And he said unto them, come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. For there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all the cities, and out went them, and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he was come out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep, not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him and said, this is a desert place, and now the time is far past. Send them away, that they may go into the country round about and into the villages to buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat. He answered and said unto them, give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, shall we go and buy 200 penny worth of bread and give them to eat? And he said unto them, how many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they say, five and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by hundreds and by fifties. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven and blessed and break the loaves and gave them to his disciples to set before them. And the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat and were filled. And they took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes. and they that did eat of the loaves were about 5,000 men. Amen. We'll end our Bible reading there at the end of verse number 44, and let's seek the Lord in prayer together, and we'll come and consider these verses this morning, but let's pray now. Our Father, we do ask that as we are in this congregation now with our Bibles open before us, that we would know the help of the Holy Spirit in our own mind, in our own hearts, and that you, by your spirit, would lead us to a knowledge of the truth, that you would teach us those things that are most needful for our growth in grace and our walk with you. And so we pray that you would take up your word and use it at every heart. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. The Gospel of Mark, as you survey this whole book, what you find is that it is just full of almost like snapshots, candid photos of the life and the ministry of Christ. They are verbal pictures for us that show us who Jesus Christ really is. In these verses, this morning, we have three. individual snapshots. If you're taking notes, don't get all excited and ahead of yourself. We only have two points for the sermon. But there are three individual snapshots that I want to point your attention to, and I believe that there is one central theme that is prevalent through all three of these. I'll tell you that theme in just a moment, but I want to look at these individual brief little episodes first. The first one starts there in verse number 30, and this picture contains the image of the disciples having returned from their mission of preaching the message of repentance. The Lord had sent them out two by two. Their work had been hard, In some places they had been rejected. And what we see in verse 30 is that the Lord is gathering the disciples around and basically the disciples here told Christ all the things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And so Christ is listening to this report of his disciples, what they had done. In my mind's eye, I see here a father speaking to his child after he comes home from that first day of kindergarten. Maybe you can think that far back in your life. That first day of kindergarten, you bring home the coloring page that you did in school, and you colored all outside the lines. You colored the thing the wrong color. You tried your best to write your name at the top of the paper, but you wrote one of the letters backwards. You've got it all mixed up with capital letters and lowercase letters all jumbled in there. You moms know what it's like to get these things from your kids. And you can imagine that little kindergartner handing the paper. It's just a jumbled mess, let's be honest. but it's handed to the father or it's handed to the mother with, I love you, mom. And it goes on the refrigerator. It's no Picasso, it's no Rembrandt, but it goes on the refrigerator because it's done in love. And Christ, when he hears the report from his disciples, He says to them, come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest awhile. And what we see in that is Christ having great compassion on his disciples. The second picture, verse number 34, Christ looks out and now he sees this vast multitude of people that had gathered around him. They had heard of him, they had an idea of where he was going, and so they go all the way around on land to the other side of the sea there. And when Christ sees this great multitude of people, the Bible tells us very plainly that he was moved with compassion on them. They were like sheep that didn't have any shepherd to lead them and tell them where to go. And Christ had compassion on them. The third picture is Christ having compassion on this multitude in providing food for their temporal needs. They were in a desert place. They were far away from the cities and the villages where they could get food on their own. The disciples estimate that it would cost almost 200 pennies to be able to buy food for all this vast number of people. A penny was approximately the wages of a common day laborer. So we're looking at something on the order of 200 days of work, 3 quarters of a year of daily wages. That's a lot of money. But Christ was moved with compassion, and you know the story, you learned it in Sunday school, taking the five loaves and the two fishes and breaking it all apart, distributing, and there was even so much, the people were filled, and a whole 12 baskets were taken up. But in these three pictures that we see here, the connection with them all is the great compassion of Jesus Christ for people. the great compassion of Jesus Christ for people. Christ, more than any other person in scripture, teaches us what it means to love thy neighbor. And we see Christ here loving his neighbor. showing compassion, showing love to those that he dealt with. So that, this morning, is what I want to preach to you on. The subject, the title of the message, whatever, is this subject of the compassion of Christ for people. And two very specific points that I want to point out. First of all, the compassion of Christ for his own people. And then the second thing we'll look at this morning is the compassion of Christ for other people. But we'll begin with the compassion of Christ for his own people. And this is where I begin here in verse number 30 and outlining that first image or that first picture of Christ. And I say they're his own people because they're his disciples. These are the twelve that Christ had handpicked to be that inner circle of followers. There were many other disciples that followed Christ along the countryside, and that number of people shrunk and grew depending on the location of where Jesus was and what he was doing. But there was something of an entourage around him. But there were these twelve that he had chosen out. And you know he sent them out two by two to go and to preach. That was their primary responsibility, was preaching. They did cast out devils, they did miracles of healing, but their primary responsibility was preaching. I make this point of the great compassion that Christ has on his own people because I believe it is something that is extremely encouraging to our own hearts as we consider this truth. If you're a follower of Christ, then he has compassion upon you. He loves you. I think sometimes we as Christians lose sight, and just as we were considering in Sunday school of mercy in that story of Christiana. We are fearful. What about me? I know that Jesus died for the sins of his people. I know that he's the savior of his people. And sometimes I think we make the mistake of focusing too much on the corporate and maybe not quite enough on the individual. Jesus loves me. He loves you, singularly. He loves all of you, but he loves you, by yourself. But Christ has great compassion. And so we now, on the other side of the cross, these disciples were before the cross, but now on the other side of the cross, we see so much of an evidence of that love. We see that Christ went to the cross. He did die for sinners. We're gonna come to the communion table in just a few moments, and our heart's attention is gonna be drawn specifically to a broken body and to shed blood, which is evidence of the love of Christ for your soul. And so we on the other side of the cross, we can look back at this finished work that's been done, and we can rejoice in that. We can rejoice in the fact that we've been adopted into the family of God. We've been made heirs with Christ. Christ is now seated on the right hand of the Father, ever living to make intercession for us. That's one of the manifestations, the demonstrations of his love to you. Christ has great compassion. But I want to look more closely at this. I want you to see two things under this point. First of all, we see that Christ cared about the work of his disciples. If you go back in chapter six to verse seven, we see there, and he called unto them the 12 and began to send them forth by two and two and gave them power over unclean spirits and commanded them on and on of what they should do in their journey. This was a particular mission that the disciples had. And the Lord told them, fair warning, you're gonna go into some places and they're gonna reject you. They're not gonna listen to what you have to say, they're not gonna want to hear anything about what you're gonna say. And you wonder what the disciples thought when that actually happened. They went into whatever city, And they began to preach. And people are throwing rocks at them. Like literally, they used to stone people back then. Like literally throwing rocks at them. Like literally trying to run them out of town. And you wonder what the disciples thought. Did they in some stoic way just kind of throw up their hands and say, yep, he told us this was going to happen. Or did they have a reaction maybe more like what I would have had. kind of just angry and frustrated. I want these people to listen. Or maybe like some in our day realized, you know, they're not wanting to hear this hard message. Maybe we should change the message. Maybe what we're saying about Jesus Christ being the only way to heaven is too harsh. Maybe we should change the message in some way to make it more appealing and then maybe people would listen. Did they become discouraged? Did they just want to give up? Did they whine and complain to one another the whole time about how hard the work was? Well, I think it's reasonable for us to understand that there was probably a mixture and combination of all of those things in their hearts. It's human nature. Nobody wants rejection. But then when the disciples return, Christ called them, verse 30, to give an account, a report. How did it go? What did you do? How did the teaching go? What did you say? And they began to recount the stories of what they had taught, the miracles that they had done, and no doubt with some great excitement in some of the high points of what they experienced. And no doubt some great discouragement and frustration in the trouble that they faced along the way. But as I used that little illustration earlier, it's like Christ there listening to kindergartners give an account of what they had done. And I don't mean this in any irreverent way, but can you not see Jesus there listening to them, just shaking his head? You foolish disciples. You silly men. Because they messed up so bad. So much of what they did was all wrong. They didn't say the right thing. They stumbled over their words. They got angry. They got frustrated. They demonstrated hearts of unbelief. All of those were part of it. Be it Christ had great compassion on them. You and I are no different really, are we? We're called to give an account for how we've served Christ. As a minister of the gospel, I will be called upon to give an account of how I served Christ. but you will give an account of how you served Christ. But you know, the Lord is so compassionate. And you and I have the opportunity even now, every moment of every day, to just come before the Lord and in essence say, Lord, it didn't go so well today. I sinned this way and I sinned that way. Help me tomorrow. You could say, Lord, I have this opportunity with this coworker, and I don't know what to say. Will you please help me? Will you please teach me what to say? You can say, Lord, this field of service that you've called me to is so hard, and I'm facing so many obstacles. Lord, will you please help along the way? Lord, I've got this decision I have to make, and I don't know what to do. Lord, will you help me understand? Lord, will you give me wisdom and foresight and knowledge of the situation to navigate through this complex thing? I have problems with my children, and I don't know how to guide them. I don't know what to say to them. I don't know how to help them. Will you please help me? And we have that as we come before the Lord and, as it were, give an account of the day, give an account of our journey. And we can plead with the Lord and the Lord has such great compassion because the Lord has compassion on the work of his disciples. He cares about what you're up to. Yet he also cares about your welfare. He cares about the welfare of his disciples. Because we see in verse number 31, he realizes the tiredness, he realizes the hardship that they've faced, and he tells them, come ye yourselves apart into a desert place and rest a while. And Mark gives us something of a commentary as to what's going on. They were so busy. There were so many people and there was so much going on. They didn't even have time to come apart and eat. So much was going on. And the Lord says, you know, we just need to come away from this. We just need to distance ourselves from this crowd and take a break. And take a break. Christ knows the needs of your body. Does the Bible not tell us that he considers our frame and he knows that we are but dust? We learn in the scriptures that the Lord does not put on his servants more than he knows that they're able to bear. And we understand that it is Christ who gives us the power to bear up under it anyway. You know, sometimes we as believing people have a great danger of turning into something that Christ never intended for us to be. The Lord never intended us to be permanent sponges that just constantly soak in. We were in a conversation last night talking about some of these things. You come to the Lord's house and You, in a way of a sponge, are soaking in the truth of Scripture. You read your Bible, you have your devotions, whatever, you read Christian books, on and on, and you're soaking in truth. You're soaking in truth. But a sponge, at some point, becomes useless. Unless you squeeze it out. and you squeeze that out so that now it can be useful again. A sponge that is full is not very helpful. You squeeze it out and then you can use it. And the Lord intends for us in our service for him to be squeezed out. We fill up and he squeezes us out. And he uses us for his glory and his kingdom. And for these disciples, they had been with Christ for a time, and they had been filled up. In the beginning of chapter six, he squeezes them out. And now they've come back to the Lord, and they're tired. And the Lord brings them apart to fill them back up, if you will. Christ manifested his compassion by calling them apart to rest a while. I'm reminded of a story that I read from Spurgeon. He was making an application of the need for a Christian to have even physical rest. And the story was of this man, I guess in his church, I don't know, but a man came to Spurgeon and he was complaining about the fact that he wasn't getting much encouragement from the scriptures. And Spurgeon asked him some more question and the man said, I'm just, I'm not getting encouragement from the scriptures. I'm even reading the Bible on my knees. And Spurgeon's response to the man was, you'd be much better off reading the Bible in your easy chair. It would be far more comfortable for you. But just the application of the need that we as believers have, even for that physical aspect of rest, and the Lord's compassion on that, the Lord realizes that we need that. So there is a physical rest we need, but obviously the application here in this passage is much more to the spiritual. We must avail ourselves of the means of grace, the preaching of the Word of God, the attendance at the Lord's house, the fellowshipping of ourselves together, assembling ourselves together Iron sharpening iron being with one another the fellowship of the Lord's people the singing of Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and in the doing of that teaching and admonishing one another in those things The praying together the reading the scriptures together all of those things are so necessary for the believer and it is the true believers means of rest and There's an interesting study you can do in the Old Testament. Study in the Old Testament the theme of rest. And you'll find that rest, as the Lord describes it in the Old Testament, is really never described as inactivity. And you'll also find that rest in the Old Testament, as the Lord describes it, always involves the presence of God with his people. That's the believer's rest. That's true rest. But if we kind of all could collectively get off our high horses for a moment, I don't think any of us are in any great danger of exhausting ourselves spiritually. The context of what we were talking about yesterday was the pathetic nature of American Christianity. How many of you can honestly say that you are exhausted from serving the Lord since last Sunday? I don't think any of us are there, are we? Exhausted from pouring out your soul to the spiritual needs of those around you. We're not there. J.C. Ryle, I can read you a quotation from him. J.C. Ryle says, there are but few in danger of overworking themselves and injuring their own bodies and souls by excessive attention to others. The vast majority of Christians are indolent and slothful and do nothing for the world around them. There are few, comparatively, who need the bridle nearly so much as the sperm." Well, he wrote that 150 years ago. You wonder what in the world he would say about the Chick-fil-A-eaten, hobby-lobby shopping Christianity of our day, right? That's American Christianity. You eat at Chick-fil-A and you shop at Hobby Lobby. What in the world more could the Lord want from anybody? Right, is that not enough? And you play travel ball, right? So you're good, right? What more could the Lord want? But unfortunately, that's American Christianity. But having taken J.C. Ryle's admonition to heart, I think the truth is still before us that the Lord does make it clear that he prefers the ministry of Mary to the ministry of Martha. that we would come apart. And be at the Lord's feet. And learn of Christ. He does have compassion for us. He knows our physical, but he knows our spiritual needs and he knows that there is that one thing needful. Even from what JC Ryle says here, JC Ryle is not meaning that we run around like spiritual chickens with our heads cut off. He's not advocating for a Martha-type mentality. But do you really serve the Lord? Are you really exhausted from serving Jesus? Or if you're honest with yourself, do you really have to say in your own heart, you know, I really don't do much for the Lord at all. I mean, I show up at church. It's not much more than that. It's about all I do. Well, may the Lord convict us to truly serve him. But in that service for him, the Lord has compassion on us, and the Lord helps us, the Lord leads us along. But a second thing here, not only does the Lord have compassion on his own people, but he also has compassion on others. If I can quote from J.C. Ryle again, he says, it is poor theology which teaches that Christ cares for none except believers. There is more in scripture for telling the chief of sinners that Jesus pities them and cares for their souls. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. The others that I'm talking about here. Verse 33 really begins to flesh out who these people are. It says in the people saw them departing so so they saw Jesus and his his 12 disciples departing and many knew Jesus and they ran afoot. Then they're out of all the cities and outwit them and came together unto him. And Jesus, when he came out, he saw this much people was moved with compassion toward them. You can go in the back of your Bible and you can look at a map and you'll see that from where Jesus was to where Jesus went would have been about a 10 mile journey. And so most of these people would have been on foot, some of them with donkeys or whatever they rode. But for the vast majority of them, they would have been on foot for those 10 miles to go around to see Christ. We learn at the end of the passage that we read that there were 5,000 men. Some make a very distinct point on that. Other passage tells us besides women and children, and so people have tried to figure the math, and you get numbers anywhere from 10 to 13,000 people that are gathered there where Christ is, and these are these others that Jesus has compassion on. It seems from what Mark records that this is a zealous bunch, a believing bunch, it seems on the surface from what Mark tells us, but we have the fortunate circumstance that the feeding of the 5,000 is recorded in all four of the Gospels. And it's John chapter 6 that gives us perhaps the most information. And we learn in John chapter 6 that really this crowd, there were believers among them for sure, but the vast majority of this crowd were really just curious onlookers. There was not a depth of faith among them that caused them to stick it out. They came, Christ says, verse number, I'm sorry, in John 6, verse 26, after they had been fed. He says, you seek me not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves and were filled. And in John 6, we read of Jesus beginning to preach to them. And he preached some hard things to the point that you get to John 6 and verse 60, and it says, many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? Who can understand what you're telling us? These were the 12. but you go to the end of John chapter six, it says, from that time, many of his disciples, that not being the 12, but disciples used in that more generic way, followers went back and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the 12, will ye also go away? And so John colors our understanding of what we have here in Mark that of these 5,000, 10,000, 13,000 people, these are not faithful, devoted followers of Jesus. But yet Jesus still has great compassion on them. He has compassion on their souls. He sees this mass of people. And he's moved with compassion toward them because they were a sheep not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. What he was teaching them was very different, we have to understand, from what they had been learning from the scribes and the Pharisees. What Christ was teaching them there was different than the superstition that they had been taught by the elders. the scribes and the Pharisees were more concerned with forms and protocol than they were really the salvation of men's souls. They focused on circumcisions and washings and all this matter of ritualism, all the rigmarole of what they deemed so important to be right with God. And they were so wrong. And yet Jesus was giving them the gospel. Christ knew that the leaders of these people were those that were leading them astray, away from the truth of Christ, away from the truth of what Jesus was presenting to them. And as a result, the average person in that crowd had very strange ideas about religion. if you take somebody that's listening to the Sadducees, and then listening to the Pharisees, and then listening to the Scribes, and then gets a piece of information from the Zealots, and this man is, yeah, yeah, that's good, and yeah, that's good, and this is good, and you end up with this man that's an amalgamation of orthodox, heterodox nonsense. Nothing he believes makes any sense. because he doesn't believe truth. Maybe there's a little bit in there, but he's so confused because there's so many voices coming at him that are all saying so many different things. But the Lord has compassion on these people, and he teaches them truth. But again, do we not see the same kind of thing in our day? I kind of tongue-in-cheek talk about the Chick-fil-A eating, Hobby Lobby shopping Christianity of our day. Another has termed it entrepreneurial Christianity or buffet Christianity. I know those words don't necessarily go in the same context, but people that just pick and choose. They have no grounding. They have no spiritual maturity. They're just like aimless ships just floating on this sea of religious theological soup. And this doctrine wafts over into the ship, and later this other doctrine does, and these two doctrines don't even make any sense together, but yet they say they believe them both, and they're just so confused. And then you try to preach to them, and you try to counsel to them, and they ask you a question, and you're like, what in the world are you even talking? Where did you get that? How does that even make sense in your brain? And there's Christians all over the place that are in that confused state, and it's so sad to see. They would claim to be ruled by Christ alone, but yet they're really just spiritual mavericks. They've rejected the authority of the local church, they cast off the creeds of Christendom, and their theology is a hodgepodge of confusion. How do you weed through that? Well, Christ has compassion on those I say Christ has compassion on those because I used to be that guy that had conflicting understanding of Scripture. Didn't necessarily realize and understand it in the moment. Until you come really to the Lord and say, Lord, I humble and submit myself to You. Teach me. And the Lord gives you that heart of humility To submit to. The authority of a faithful Bible believing church that will that will preach truth. And you submit yourself to the truth of the Word of God. The Lord is the Good Shepherd that has great compassion, even on unbelievers. To bring them to himself and to teach them of himself. Christ cared for their souls in such a way that he left the rest that were seeking him at the time and began to preach to these and to lead them to the truth and an understanding that was faithful. And as we referenced John six, many did leave. Many were greatly offended at that truth. And they walked away. never to return as far as we understand in the Gospels. But yet many believed. Many believed. The Holy Spirit opened the heart of so many. And so what Christ was doing is He was unraveling in their hearts the lies of the Pharisees. He was calling them to repent of their sins. He was declaring to them the kingdom of God and revealing Himself as the only Savior of His people. He was showing them love and grace and mercy in His dealings. And so He had compassion on their souls But he even didn't stop there. He also shows a great compassion for their needs. And this is where we come to this famous story of the feeding of the 5,000. The Lord cared about their temporal needs too and met them. The liberal comes to this passage, I'm sure you've heard some version of this, but the liberal comes to this and says really what Jesus was preaching about was sharing. And these people were just so stingy, they all kind of had their own little bag lunch, but they wouldn't share. And so Jesus, he brings this little boy, and he uses this little boy as an example of sharing, and the other's so guilty, well, they start to share their lunch too, and well, turns out there's twelve baskets of food extra from what people needed. Well, you know that's not true. This is a miracle of the first order, a miracle such that all four of the Gospel writers tell us of this great miracle. I had a Greek professor in college who counted off on one of my tests for a translation. it was the book of Mark we were translating from the Greek, and you remember Earl Newts? Dr. Earl Newts at Bob Jones, he's not there anymore. But he counted off on a test because I translated the passage really the way it is here in Mark 6, and his understanding and interpretation of the passage, the Lord bless him, and if it's that big of a miracle, fine, He argued that it was 12 fillings of baskets. He argued that each of the 12 disciples each took up 12 baskets full. So you have 12 times 12 is 144 baskets. Okay. Can the Lord do that? Fine. I don't think that's what the Greek says. I think it's just 12 baskets. But a miracle of such a magnitude that there was so much left over. And it doesn't say that they ate and were satisfied. It says in verse 42, they ate and were filled. But is this not something of an application for us of what we pray in the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread? And as a Christian, do you not know the experience of the Lord giving you way more than your daily bread? The Lord giving you way more than what you need? The Lord being so compassionate that he not only meets our needs, but if we're really honest with ourself, he fills so many of our wants as well. We serve a compassionate Christ, a compassion to those that are his, a compassion to those that are yet to be his. The Lord's compassionate, he's merciful. The greatest thing that we've ever been given by Christ is Christ himself. He gives us himself. He laid down his life for us. He is long-suffering, the Bible tells us. Not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If you've never been saved, if you've never come to Christ, if you've never Trusted him if you in your own heart know that you you've been holding on to surely I can do something surely I have to to obey to such a level or I have to I have to be good enough before I can even pray to ask for the Lord to save me. I'm here to tell you the Lord has compassion on you even in your sinful state and come to him. And as we come to the Lord's table this morning, what are we remembering? but the Lord's great compassion on his people, that he laid down his life. When you hold that piece of bread, we are to remember a broken body, a visage that was marred more than any man's, a body mutilated on your behalf. That punishment, that wrath that was poured out was wrath that should have been poured out on you. Wrath that you should have faced. And you should have for all of eternity paid the penalty of your sins. But instead Jesus took that for you. And he shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins. And may the Lord help us as we consider these words and as we come to the Lord's table. that our hearts will be filled to overflowing with thanksgiving for what we have in Christ. So may the Lord help us each one this morning.