Welcome And Scripture

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Morning everyone. How are we this morning? Oh, that is nothing. How are we this morning?

unknown 0:40

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you, right here at the front. So, um, like she just said, my name is Colton Silva. I am a graduating senior at Benicia High School. Yeah, and I will be reading scripture this morning. Um, this morning we will be reading Mark 6, 45 through 52. And let us begin. Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to him of Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them. Shortly before dawn, he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they all saw him and they were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, Take courage, it is I. Don't be afraid. Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. Then they were completely amazed, for had for they had not understood about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened. This is the word of the Lord.

Senior Plans After Graduation

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Thanks be to God. That's great. Hey, so Colton's a senior. This is fun to get to know our seniors a little bit. You've got how many days left of school? Like 20. He doesn't even know. I figured you'd be like on your phone counting this stuff down. That's good. All right, so what are you gonna be doing after high school?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

So um I'm doing my first year at DVC. And then I'm going to be majoring in theater arts, and I hope to become an actor, writer, and content creator.

Steps Series For Hope And Help

From Loaves To Urgent Departure

Success Turns Into A Distraction

Prayer On The Mountain

Seen While Straining In The Dark

Walking On Water Over Chaos

God Passing By Reveals Himself

I Am Here Do Not Fear

Hardened Hearts And Bigger Categories

SPEAKER_01 2:28

All right, remember it happened here. Look into that right there. Give us, you know, like this is your shot right here. Well, congratulations. Uh, this is just a good opportunity for you guys to know what Colton's up to and to be praying for him and supporting him. And uh, we're so thankful that you even just shared the word of the Lord with us and uh the value you bring to this community. So thanks, brother. Congratulations. Well done. Good morning. He's our official hype guy. That's gonna be good. Um, my name's Lawrence, uh, one of the pastors here. We're going through Mark. Um, we've only got a couple more weeks that we're gonna do, Mark, until we take a pause over the summer. Some of you might be familiar with a couple summers ago, we did a series called Hope and Help. Um, and it was a really powerful 12-week season for us. We're doing something kind of in the same vein. We feel like this is an important conversation to constantly uh just uh bring value to, uh, the stigma, and frankly, the formation of who we're becoming. If you haven't picked up that, uh, at least in 2026, it's really been focused, and Mark's been helping us focus on what we're becoming and who we're becoming. Uh, we've been learning this from Jesus. And we're gonna pause and we're gonna do a series called Steps. John Ortberg, he's a friend of Northgate here. He wrote a really powerful book called Steps on this 12 steps of recovery, but it's not just that. This is some of the most powerful formative things you can do is participate in these steps, whether you have uh some sort of mental health issues, um, anger issues, uh, recovering from anything issues, if you've got religious issues, your issues. We all have issues. How about that? So we're gonna go through some steps on how to deal with those uh issues. So this is a great opportunity for you to invite someone to participate in this that maybe is, you know, a little freaked out of like, oh my gosh, you guys are Bible nerds. You're just talking about all of this scripture and this is so archaic. What do we do? Although I think it's really great. This is a great formative opportunity for someone to discover um who we are and what we care about, where they literally can find some hope and some help. So we're kicking that off on the 31st of May. And then just an invitation to you. I know, you know, maybe summers are flex and you're kind of coming near going, but some of you might be ahead of time to make some sort of commitment of just taking the steps, uh, going through the steps with us. And we're gonna finish that on August 16th. So there's that. Uh, it's coming up in just a couple of weeks. Really excited to kick that off. Um, we uh go verse by verse. We do teach the Bible here, we don't skip anything, and then we try to grab from this archaic book what's going on in the theological context, the cultural context, uh, and learn what it we can do with it here in our own context. And so, kind of what's just happened in chapter six is um the disciples, these are Jesus' little band of brothers, they got sent out two by two to do work. They were given authority and power for the first time. And they did that. They came back, and then Jesus offered a vacation, uh, some rest. And so they went on a boat to a desolate place. And then when they landed there, everyone figured out they were there. And so suddenly there was a lot of people. And we saw last week that uh Jesus had compassion on them and really echoed this Psalm 23 of a shepherd and taking care of these lost sheep and providing for their needs. And so we've we've gone for vacation and we ended up working very hard. And at this point, where we pick this up is the meal is over. The bread and fish have been distributed. 5,000 women women, uh, excuse me, men, not even counting women and children, are full. And now what you have is the disciples holding 12 baskets of leftovers. Now, if you follow Jesus to get a highlight moment, this was it, right? This is what you're waiting for. This is where social media, they're like, we're going viral. Everyone should be celebrating right here, but watch what Jesus does next. And we get this word again right here. Immediately, he made his disciples get in the boat and go before him to the other side, to Bethesda, while he dismissed the crowd. So immediately, like this happens, and now suddenly we're getting immediately like no debrief, no celebration, no great job team, or no, like, let's go rest now and do the vacation part. Just get in the boat. And that word made right there is actually really important. This Greek word means to compel or to constrain or actually to force. So this isn't actually a polite suggestion. This wasn't just like a hey, whenever you guys kind of wrap things up and get a chance, hop in the boat. Jesus is essentially saying, get in the boat now. And the disciples who just watch bread multiply in their hands, obey. But why is there urgency? Well, it's because what looked like success was about to become a distraction. Uh, John's gospel actually fills in a detail that Mark leaves out. In John chapter 6, verse 15, he tells us that after feeding the crowd, they wanted to take Jesus by force and make him king. The miracle did what miracles do sometimes. It created misplaced expectations. The crowd saw provision and immediately projected a political agenda onto it. They weren't wrong to want a king here. They were wrong about what kind of king they needed. And this is the tension Jesus constantly lives in during his ministry. He's doing things that only God does, and people keep trying to fit him into categories that they already have: a political revolutionary, a social reformer, a miracle machine, a celebrity rabbi. And every time someone tries to put Jesus in a manageable box, he refuses. And so he sends his disciples ahead and dismisses the crowd and does something the disciples desperately need to see, even though they will not understand it until much later, he goes to pray. After he had taken leave of them, he went up on a mountain to pray. Now, this is really important. It's not a throwaway detail. Mark doesn't waste ink. We've been learning that a lot. He specifically tells us that after the most significant miracle since the Exodus, after feeding thousands with essentially nothing, after the crowd tries to seize him and install him as their king, Jesus went up onto a mountain alone to talk to his father. I mean, think about that. Think about the what that says about Jesus. That he had just done something extraordinary, and his response was not to leverage the moment. He didn't call a press conference, he didn't try to build on this momentum. He actually withdrew and then he prayed. Here's what that moment shows us. Jesus understood something many of us are still learning. The higher the output, the deeper the need for communion with the Father. He didn't pray because he was weak. He prayed because the work he was doing flowed from this relationship with the Father, not the other way around. In the cultural and theological world of first century Judaism, here, mountains were very significant. They were places of uh divine encounters. Moses received the law on Sinai. Elijah heard this still small voice, Mount Horeb. The mountain was this place between uh heaven and earth. And Jesus, fully human and fully divine, ascends to pray, not to be heard by the crowd, not to be seen by his disciples, just to be with his father. And that is countercultural in every area, but I think especially in ours. This generation is being told that your worth is measured by your output, your platform, your metrics, your hustle. And Jesus, after a miracle that would have broken the internet, withdraws from the crowd and goes to pray alone. That is a way of life, not just a religious habit. It says in verse 47, when evening came, the boat was on the sea and he was alone on the land. So now what you have happening here is two scenes happening simultaneously. Jesus on a mountain in communion with the Father, and then you have the disciples in the middle of the sea trying to get to Bethesda. And then Mark gives us the verse that changes everything. And he saw that they were making headway painfully, for the wind was against them. So just read that again. I mean, like with just some logic here. He saw them from a mountain in the dark while they were in the middle of the sea. He saw them, right? Now, some of you are moved by this detail, and some of you are like raising your hands like, wait, how? Come on, practically speaking, the sea is miles wide. It's nighttime, and he can see them, and that's exactly the point. He can see them. The one who just multiplied bread and fish, the one whose voice uh literally the wind obeyed in Mark chapter 4, the one who's walking towards them in just a few verses on top of the water sees them. All of them in the dark, in the storm. There is enormous comfort in that for those of you who feel like your struggle is invisible. Like you're in the middle of something hard and nobody knows it. And you know, God's just off somewhere doing more important things. Mark chapter six, verse 48 says no. He sees you making headway painfully. He sees the wind against you, and he's not indifferent. Painfully, here is a powerful translation. The Greek word carries this idea of being tormented or tested, even tortured. These are experienced fishermen on familiar water. They are they are now being tormented by the wind. This is not some mild inconvenience. We need to understand they left the shore uh sometime after evening, and the fourth watch of the night begins at 3 a.m. and ends at 6 a.m. That means by the time Jesus shows up, and we'll see this in just a second, they have been fighting this for somewhere between six and nine hours. So just let that sit with you for a second. Six to nine hours in the dark against the wind, going nowhere fast. Can anybody relate to that? Not literal boat, but the feeling of that like you're just doing everything you know how to do. You're not off the path. You're you're in the boat that Jesus told you to get in, you're rowing, and the wind just is against you. And not a little headwind, like push through in 20 minutes. The kind that wears you down for hours, maybe over months, over years. Some of you are in that right now. A career that feels stuck. Maybe it's a relationship that feels like a constant grind, a faith you're holding on to, but it costs you something every day. A mental health battle that nobody sees from the outside because you're just still showing up, and you're making headway painfully, and the wind is against you, and he sees you. And about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. The fourth watch, not the first or the second, or even the third. It's like he waited, it's like he let them struggle, he let the wind build, he let the night get dark and long, and that is uncomfortable truth for those of us who want God to move quickly, and most of us want God to move quickly, but the fourth watch of the night is intentional, not because Jesus is slow or uncaring, but because he's the kind of God who shows up in the darkest part of the night. And Jewish thought the night was structured in watches, and the fourth watch was the final one just before dawn. So Jesus comes in the darkest hour on the edge of morning, not to uh abandon them to darkness, but to walk through it toward them. And then walking on the sea. I mean, like that phrase should stop us completely. I think some of the times we just read this and we're like, oh yeah, you know, he walked on water. Right? Uh there's something else about the sea and water in the ancient world. Uh, the sea wasn't just water, it was chaos. Like that's what it represented disorder, like the untamable, threatening deep. And in Jewish thought, the sea represented everything that was beyond human control, everything uh that devoured, everything that was hostile to life and order. And then you see in the Old Testament, there is one figure who walks on the sea. Job uh chapter 9, verse 8 says, of God who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea. He says, Then no human has, only God. So when Jesus walks on the sea, Mark is not just recording a spectacular moment right here. He's literally making a theological statement. The one who walks on the chaos is here. And then comes the verse that's puzzled commentators for centuries. He meant to pass by them. That phrase has tripped up people because it sounds like Jesus was gonna ignore them, right? He was just gonna pass by them. You're like, what does that even mean? Right? He came all the way across the sea in the middle of the night, walking on the water, and he was just gonna walk past the boat. The answer is in the Greek word right here, uh, parenthon. Uh, it's more importantly, is where it would appear in the Old Testament. If you look in the Old Testament where this shows up, it shows up in Exodus chapter 33, 19. God tells Moses, I will make all my goodness pass before you. In Exodus 34, 6, it says, The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. In 1 Kings chapter 19, 11, says, Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord, and behold, the Lord will pass by. This is Elijah, who hears this. Every time this language appears in the Hebrew scriptures, it's describing this uh theophany, this divine declosure. God passing by is not God ignoring, it's literally God revealing himself. And so Jesus walking on water and meaning to pass them by is Mark's way of saying, this is a God moment. This is the Lord passing by. This is divine revelation in mo in motion, literally. This is him revealing himself, but they miss it. The disciples just didn't recognize it. It says, but they saw him walking on the sea and they thought it was a ghost. And they cried out, for they all saw him and they were terrified. And here's where it gets both deeply human and a little bit funny. Because if you've been rowing a boat in the dark for six to nine hours against a violent wind, and a figure appears walking towards you on top of the ways, your first instinct is not going to be like, ah, yes, theology. I'm connecting the dots, right? Your first instinct is going to be what theirs was. Like, it's a ghost, it's a phantom. Like whatever ancient Aramaic word translated to like, I'm actually losing my mind right now. They're thinking, like, I knew I should have stayed home. We were supposed to be on vacation. So they cry out. They're terrified. And in this moment, you can see every personality in the boat responding differently. Like somebody is already rowing harder the opposite direction, right? Somebody is frozen, just processing. Uh, someone is thinking about the the theology of whether or not ghosts are real, right? And someone's asking everyone, please calm down so we can assess the situation, like what is happening right now. And so then Jesus speaks and says, But immediately, Galilee, there's that word again. Immediately, he spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. So it is I is three words in English. It's two words in the Greek in which it was written. Ego emi, which is I am. That is not a casual conversation, friends. That is a name. In Exodus chapter 3, verse 14, when Moses asked God who he should say sent him, God says, I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel I am has sent me to you. In Isaiah chapter 43, verse 10, God says, That you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no God was formed, now shall there be any after me. We see in John's gospel, Jesus uses uh ego emi repeatedly, an unmistakable divine self-identification. He says, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd. Before Abraham was, I am. Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid. This is not a rabbi reassuring some nervous students. This is the great I am stepping into the chaos that they are drowning in and announcing himself. You don't have to be afraid when the one who is sovereign over the chaos is walking towards you. For those of you who run toward challenges and need a sense of control, here is something to anchor yourself to. The one who speaks into your situation is the Lord over all things. He is not improvising, he's not reacting, he is the I am walking toward your boat. For those of you who need relational connection, notice that Jesus didn't wait on the shore. He came to them across the water in the dark at 3 a.m. He came. For those who need steadiness and loyalty, his arrival is not. On their performance. They panicked. They cried out. They thought he was a ghost, and he still came. For those of you who are analytical and need to understand something before you can trust, I mean, friends, I think the evidence is overwhelming. The feeding of the 5,000, plus the walking on water, plus the storm in Mark IV, plus this moment, the data is pointing in one direction that he is who he says he is. And then he got in the boat with them. And the wind ceased. He gets in. That's the move. He doesn't demand that they come to him. He gets in with them. He enters their situation and the wind stops, not gradually, immediately. Because when Jesus enters the storm, the storm has to yield. And that is not just a nautical miracle. That's a pattern we've been seeing. Jesus constantly enters a situation rather than demanding that we clean it up first before he shows up. He entered human history through a manger. He entered death through a cross. He enters our chaos by choice. And when he is present, friends, things change. And then it says that they were utterly astounded. That word in Greek carries this idea of being like beside yourself, knocked completely out of your normal, like frame of reference, not just surprised, not just impressed, but literally like undone. And then Mark lands one of the most haunting lines in the entire gospel. For they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened. This is the sentence that connects everything. Mark tells us they should have understood. It was Jesus showing them who he was. It was bread that multiplied in their hands, 12 baskets left over, thousands satisfied, and they still didn't make the connection. Now he's walking on water. Now he's getting in the boat, and the wind stops, and they're astounded because their hearts were hardened. The word for harden here is poro, which is the same words used of people whose spiritual perception is dulled, whose ability to receive revelation has been calloused. And this isn't cruel judgment right here. This is literally a diagnostic. Mark is saying there's something happening inside of the disciples right now that is limiting their capacity to understand what they're actually seeing. And here's where this gets uncomfortable and worth sitting in. They were with Jesus, they were in obedience, they were following his instructions. They had just been actually a part of a miracle, and their hearts were still hard enough that they couldn't connect the dots. Which means proximity to Jesus and participation in ministry doesn't automatically produce a soft heart. It's a choice. I mean, you can be at church every Sunday. You can serve on a team, you can know the language, you can show up for events, and you could take notes during this message and still have a heart that is not fully open to who Jesus is and what he's actually doing. And the disciples had a category problem. They understood Jesus as a rabbi, as a healer, as a miracle worker, but they had not yet made the leap to Lord over chaos, Lord over nature, Lord over death. And because their category for Jesus was too small, every new revelation left them more confused instead of more grounded. And that's an invitation for all of us. What's your category for Jesus? Is he just a moral example? A self-help framework? A cosmic therapist? A good teacher whose sayings are inspirational? Throw it on a coffee mug or a t-shirt? Or is he the I am walking on the water towards your boat at 3 a.m.? Because the category matters. The category determines whether the storm terrifies you or whether the storm becomes the context in which you recognize him more clearly. Now, some of you have noticed Mark does something subtle here. He leaves Peter out. Like no walking on water moment. I mean, that's like the infamous story you guys all know. You're like, why? Well, friends, it's because Peter's not trying to be impressive. Remember, Mark is recounting everything from Peter. Peter is trying to be clear. He wants you to see Jesus. That's maturity. When your story becomes less about what you did and more about how who he is, come on. Whereas in Matthew, we see that he is added in the story about Peter walking on the water. See, Peter is trying to make everything in this gospel, in this gospel, point to the person of Jesus and who he is. Whereas Matthew does, but he wants the audience to literally connect. What does it look like to follow him and put yourself in the story to have those feels? So here is the through line of Mark chapter six, verse 30 through 52. So this is a bigger chunk, the passage that we've just been walking through over two weeks. Rest and replenishment, compassion over strategic thinking, bread multiplied in insufficient hands, a crowd trying to force a king, a mountain and a prayer, a boat full of exhausted disciples in the dark, and a god walking on chaotic waters, and an ancient name being spoken into that fear, the wind yielding to presence and hardened hearts missing the miracle. Mark's doing something in this chapter. He's building a portrait of Jesus that the disciples are struggling to hold. I mean, every time that they think they have categorized him, he does something that breaks the category. And that is not failure. That's an invitation to let Jesus be larger than your framework for him. For those of you figuring out what you actually believe about Jesus, not what your parents believed or your church culture assumed, this is the passage that matters. Because the disciples were in the same process. They had left everything to follow him. And they are not these, just these casual observers. They're still in the middle of figuring out who he actually was. And he was patient with them. He didn't disqualify him for being terrified. He didn't rebuke them for missing the connection between the loaves and the walking on the water. He got in the boat. He spoke to their fear before he addressed their theology and said, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And that sequence matters. Courage first, identity second, fear released, third. See, he leads with an invitation, not condemnation. He leads with presence, not instruction. He leads with, I am here, before he leads with, here's what you should understand. And that's still how he comes to us. Not demanding that we have our theology all figured out before he shows up, not waiting until we have processed all of our doubts. He walks towards us in the darkest part of the night, in the chaos we are exhausted from, fighting. And he says the same thing he said to the 12 men on the Sea of Galilee. Take heart. I am here. You don't have to be afraid. The wind will yield. The boat will still. The dark will lift. Not because the storm wasn't real, it was. Not because the night was long, it was. But because the I am stepped in. And when he steps in, things change. Not always the way that you planned, not always at the watch of night that you wanted, but the change comes. Present. Presence comes. And the invitation is to let that be enough. To soften what has been hardened, to open what fear has closed, and to recognize him when he walks towards you in ways that you did not expect. So can you. So take heart. I am here. You don't have to be afraid. And when he steps in your boat, everything changes. Everything.