Thank you, Pastor David. Well, friends, there's a story I'd like to share with you this morning. And this story took place on January 12, 2007. It was during morning rush hour, and a violinist set up against a wall near a trash can in a Plaza Metro station in Washington, DC. Now, this violinist wasn't just, you know, your average street busker. This man's name was Joshua Bell, and he had been a child prodigy on violin and become a renowned professional. But he wasn't dressed the way he would be for a concert. He was dressed in a way to blend in. Except for the violin he was holding, he was using his actual violin, which is a Stradivarius violin valued at around three and a half million dollars. And for 43 minutes, as the morning commute came through, he played six classical pieces. And he opened and closed with one of the hardest pieces ever on a violin. Just three days before January 12, he had played in Boston's Symphony Hall. It was sold out. And a decent seat to see him was $100. But on this day, 1100 people passed by as hidden cameras recorded. Of those 1100 people, seven people stopped to listen for a minute or more. 27 give some amount of money. And the grand total of money raised during this 43 minutes was $32. Now, it's a bit of a false number because one of the women who passed by actually recognized him, had seen him in concert recently and had a oh, my goodness, you're Joshua Bell moment. She gave him $20. So really, he made 12 over the course of his hour. And in the article written about this, Gene Weirgarden of the Washington Post says, and this was interesting to me, every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time the parents scooted the kid away. When the last note ended, there was no applause. There was no gathered crowd. It was just another train of people walking through. So one of the world's great musicians performing truly beautiful music goes mostly unseen. And I can't pretend I would have done anything different, right? I probably would have rushed along. I've had to do a Metro station once in recent memory. It was when I had jury duty in Philadelphia. And I'm just really glad nobody else was in there. As I stood and looked at the machine for probably 20 minutes, it was just, like, staring at it, hoping that I got the right thing. I'm still not sure I did. I was Googling, you know, I'm just like. And, you know, and my kid would definitely be one that would stop and I would definitely shoo that child along, you know. And beyond that, I don't carry cash. So I don't know if I would have even given anything or thrown anything in the thing, you know, And I would have been afraid then to stop and watch because, you know, I don't want to incur a debt. But this was 2007, so maybe a few more people carried cash. I won't mention that that's the year I graduated high school. But. But as we turn to. As we continue on in the Gospel of Mark, I thought about this story that honestly, I heard for the first time used as a sermon illustration. And I thought about this story because I wonder, as we turn to another miracle story of Jesus, that I wonder if, as Jesus interacted with the disciples, if there was a part of him that probably felt a little bit like Joshua Bell must have felt as he stood there, an accomplished musician playing very difficult pieces with no one quite recognizing him. The verse we're looking at is mark 6, verses 45 to 52. Mark 6, verses 45 to 52. And I'm reading from the NIV. Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into a boat and go ahead of him to Bethsaida. So this is right after the feeding of the 5,000. While he dismissed the crowd after leaving them, he went on the mountainside to pray. Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake and he was alone on the 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 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. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves. Their hearts were hardened. Now, there's a few things we should notice about this story, because it's probably a story, you know, we're all familiar with, right? You know, maybe we remember a few years back when Sight and Sound got the big LED wall and they did the Jesus production and I got a chance. There was a few people at our church at the time who worked there. And I forget how I got to. But I got to see a production of it. And the big weave comes up on the Jesus wall and there's a boat on a thing. I don't know how they did any of it, that's not my world. But you're familiar with the story of Jesus walking on the water and walking up to the disciples on the boat. There's a few things that we want to pull out of this story that would have been obvious to the original audience and should honestly be obvious to us as we've journeyed through the Book of Mark together. The first thing we have to realize is who Jesus is in this story. And who Jesus is is unmistakably, this is God in human flesh. That is the intent of Mark. That is the intent. That is what anyone would have read into this story. And that comes from kind of a variety of things. First of all, we. We talked about this a few weeks ago when we talked about Jesus calming the storm. There's this idea kind of through the Old Testament of what could be kind of called chaos waters. This idea that only a God, and I say only a God, because this is not just in Judaism and in Jewish literature. This carries over into stories about Poseidon and stories about whatever the Greek version of Poseidon is called. Neptune. I might have those mixed, right? Like, you know, the idea is that if someone or something is able to control water, that someone or something is God, right? Like, culturally, unequivocally, right? And this goes all the way Back to Genesis 1, verses 1 through 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. It's this idea that the depths are unconquerable, that no one could control the sea. And again, I talked about this a couple weeks ago, so at the risk of repeating myself, the idea is that land is conquerable. On land, we can build fortresses, we can till the land, we can create farms, we can bring it under our submission. But no one can do that to the sea, right? Like, no one can bring the sea into submission. And especially for these fishermen, they were victims of whatever the sea did, of whatever the conditions were, of whatever the weather brought them, right? This was this untamable evil, this thing that killed people. Frankly, if you didn't take it seriously enough. And there is nowhere in scripture, except for one place where. Where we hear now several times through the Old Testament, we hear about God controlling water, right? You could think of a thousand of them, right? You know, Exodus, he splits the sea and they walk across on dry land. Joshua, you know, splits the Jordan and they walk across on dry land. Elisha and Elijah Elijah and Elisha also have miracles where they are able to walk across, as on dry land. But in terms of walking on top, that only happens once. And it's in Job 9, verse 8, when Job is reflecting on the nature of God, and he says he alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. Now, depending on what translation you have, that might say tramples on, right? The idea is conquers the waves of the sea, right? It's kind of the same idea of this general trampled on his enemies, right? That is the idea that Job is communicating this idea that one of the characteristics of God is that he conquers over the sea, right? So that's kind of the first image we have. And the second thing we have to see. So first thing was that we have to see who Jesus is, and that is God in human flesh. But the second kind of place where we see it is that Jesus does what God did in this verse. So first of all, he walks where only God can walk. He does something only God can do, but he also does what God did. Look at verse 48. Shortly before dawn, he went out to them walking on the lake. He was about to pass by him. But when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified. You see, Job actually would also go on to talk about God walking by him and not being able to kind of comprehend it, right? So when Job talks about it, he says he is the maker of the bear and Orion. So he's talking about the stars in the sky, the. The Philadelphia and the constellations of the South. He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. When he passes me, I cannot see him. When he goes by, I cannot perceive him. In other words, Job is saying that when God passes me by, he is so much greater than I am that I could barely wrap my mind around this. And so when we read that he was about to pass by him, that kind of reads as a strange detail, right? Like, what do you mean Jesus was about to pass by him? But what's happening here is actually very similar. And some scholars point to this to all the way back in Exodus 33, when Jesus is interacting with Moses. And in verse 19 of Exodus 33, God says to Moses, I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And skip, skipping down to verse 22. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. So this idea here is that what Jesus was doing to the disciples is that his intent was to pass by doing something that only God did, right? Walking on the water, taming the water, passing by, causing his glory to pass in front of them. So it's not just that he's doing something only God can do. He's doing what God did by passing in front of them. And then finally he is saying things that God says, look what happens when he gets in the boat. 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 and they were completely amazed. Another way to translate it is, I don't be afraid or take courage, I am. Don't be afraid. Then he climbed into the boat with them, the wind died down and they were completely amazed. In Jesus saying this, it would have made them think of when God showed up to Moses in the burning bush. Yeah, in the burning bush and said, tell them the I am sent you. You know, tell them I am sent you to them, right? The main thing that we see in this story is that Jesus is God because he walks where only God can walk. He does what God does and he says what God says. And so we see all of this power, we see all of this glory, we see all of this majesty. And honestly, if that's all we pull from the verse, that is enough. That is important. But the second thing that he does is also pretty cool because the second thing that he does is respond to his disciples. Like, let's look at this situation. The disciples are in the boat and it says later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake. He was alone on the land, and 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. The likelihood is that this is between 3 and 6am, right? So they feed everybody dinner, right? Because it was late in the day. And they did the feeding of the 5,000. And then they send them off and. And all through the night they're struggling against the wind and the waves. The wind is kicking up, they're fighting. And here comes Jesus, right? God in human flesh. The disciples are struggling, they're fighting, they're digging into the oars. Jesus is walking right up. They see Jesus and they think he is Some type of spiritual apparition, a ghost. And they are terrified. But when Jesus is passing by and he sees their fear, and this is what separates Jesus from really, I mean, I think any other kind of God, if you will, is that he goes to them in the midst of their fear. You see, this story tells us that Jesus is God, but it also shows us a God who steps into our situations. Right like that. As he's revealing himself to the disciples, he says, I am God, I am powerful. I am the creator of the universe, am the one who controls the sea. But then as he walks by and he sees their fear, he doesn't just say, well, they just got to grow up. They just got to, you know, they just gotta. They just gotta buck up and put their big boy pants on. No, he steps into the boat with them and he says, don't be afraid. This is a God who walks on water, but also walks to the side of those who need him. That understands that, a way to. That understands that we don't just want to see a God who is powerful, who we just worship, who is far off in the distance, who sits on his throne disinterested, but that in the midst of showing his power, he could see their situation and he could come to their side. So the first thing we realize is that Jesus is God. The second thing we realize is that Jesus responds to our needs. And the third thing we realize is the disciples response. And we find out that the disciples are missing the point. The disciples are a lot like those 1100 people who passed Joshua Bell and didn't realize that they had access to a very in demand concert. Right? What we find out at the end, verse 49, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out because they saw him and 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. They were completely amazed, for they had not understood about the loaves and their hearts were hardened. I said last week that the disciples were. These miracles were meant to show the disciples that. I'm sorry. I said last week that these miracles are meant to show the disciples that nature does the bidding of this God. That this, this God, this person they were following is able to multiply bread and feed people. They didn't realize that in the moment they missed it. Right. Like I just said, it's like the commuters who were passing through to get to their train. They had something truly beautiful in their midst and they were missing it. But beyond that, they were actually the most similar to the woman who recognized him and stopped and gave him $20 because she still didn't really stop. She knew who he was, but there was nothing that changed in kind of her priorities. There was nothing that changed. She wasn't about to be late for work, you know what I mean? She wasn't about to change anything about what she was doing in order to experience this, right? Like the commuters were just passing through. You almost get it. Oh, it's just some guy playing a violin. But this woman knew as much as anyone could. But her brush with the musician didn't change her behavior. And that's kind of where we find the disciples, right? They've seen it over and over again. They've seen demons speak to this man and say, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. They have seen him bring nature to heal two separate times. They've seen him multiply bread and fish. They've seen him heal people with a touch of his hand. They've seen him speak words that are full of wisdom. But the text tells us that they still don't get it, that their hearts are hardening, that they are turning themselves off to the possibility that this is more than just a simple teacher, that the idea that this could be the God of the universe in their midst is simply something that they can't wrap their head around, that they don't understand what they're dealing with. And so as I thought about this passage, I thought first of all that we shouldn't be too hard on the disciples because I think I do this too, and maybe you do also. We miss Jesus in our day to day lives. We forget that we are dealing with God himself, right? And our heart becomes hard, right? Because we think about God and we say, oh, well, you know, I just. It's not going to be. I heard somebody say once about prayer, and this isn't a direct application, but I think it kind of helped me to diagnose myself a little bit, that if I got an email from somebody in the world who was truly powerful, right? Let's say, I don't know, the Pope. I probably want to meet with the Pope. That'd be neat. And they said, hey, we're going to make time for you to meet for 30 minutes with the Pope. I'd probably do a lot to get there, right? You know what I mean? Like, I'd probably say, hey, I'm gonna take a day off work. I'm gonna, you know, get to New York or wherever I Have to go, right? Like it would be. I would feel like it was a once in a lifetime thing because it would be right. But I don't always make time for prayer. I don't always make time for, you know, study. I don't always make time for those spiritual things because life gets in the way. That's the way it goes. And so the reality is that my heart is a little hard to this truth, too. I forget that I am dealing with the God of the universe. I forget that God is God himself, that he can handle my worries and my fears and my cares, that he is greater than my greatest concerns. I lose sight of that. So the question I've wrestled with this week is, why does this matter? Why does it matter that we see God as God? Why does it matter that we understand who he is? And secondly, how do I avoid hardening my heart to Jesus, Right? Because it is very much a process. It is a lifelong process of us growing to understand who God is. And I'm sure that if I talk to each and every one of you, we could look back at a time in your life and you could say, yeah, you know, I didn't used to think this about God. I didn't used to understand this about my faith. But I've grown, but I've changed, but I've learned. And so as I tried to answer that question of how do I avoid kind of hardening my heart, I came up with a couple of answers. And the first one was to keep our wonder, right? To keep our sense of wonder, to keep our sense of awe, right? And maybe try to turn down the volume on the cynicism from time to time, right? Because I've been there, right? You hear, you know, somebody share a healing story of, like, oh, I feel like Jesus healed me from this situation. And there's this kind of part of your brain that goes, okay, but, like, I wonder what really happened. Like, you know, when somebody said, like, oh, they. And maybe. Maybe you're gonna string me up for saying this. Or maybe, you know, like, you hear somebody say, like, oh, they did a scan and they saw, you know, they saw a tumor. And then. And then, you know, I was going in and I was getting ready to go into the surgery. They did one last scan and they said, oh, there's no more tumor. And, you know, Jeeves, Jesus healed me. I think if we're all honest, there's a part of your brain that goes, well, first scam was probably bad. You know what I mean? And again, I think sometimes the Cynic creeps in. And instead of simply believing that God is God, because we just have a problem with it or something. And we do this, we hear kind of maybe a story about financial provision or whatever and we say, oh, well, yeah, they just got lost. And maybe you say, like, oh, well, I'm just being real. But what the Bible calls that is hardening your heart. And we have to keep our sense of wonder. We have to work towards just accepting that God is God. That when we see God work, to say, yes, that is God working. And I think this might be why Jesus says we have to become like a child to enter into the kingdom of God. Because this is God we are dealing with. And when we are dealing with God, there are going to be moments where he is amazing. And in those moments, we should be amazed. We should be amazed. And I'm not telling you to shut your brain off and just kind of run in a direction. What I am saying is. Because what I am saying is that we should allow ourselves to simply stand before a God who is amazing and not try to have our first reflex be. I need to figure this out. When I saw that detail in the story about the child and the violin story, I was reading a summary and I had to go find the article, which you have to pay for every article you ever find now. But I had to go double check because it was just like, sometimes you find a sermon illustration that's too good and you're like, somebody made this up and so you have to go check it out. But it's such a good thing thing that happened because a kid can walk by this situation and say, that's beautiful and I want to see more of it, and whatever happened is secondary. Everything is special and beautiful to a kid, right? When my four year. When my three soon to be four year old sees, you know, a Disney princess dressed as a Disney princess, she's not like, that's a 22 year old who was hired for her particularly good bone structure and skin tone so that she would fit the costume and that she would mostly match into that. She's like, that's Moana. That's her. There she is. I'm not gonna figure out how Moana's a cartoon and that's a real person. I'm not gonna figure out why that Moana looks different from the Moana I have a picture with. I'm not gonna worry about it. That's Moana. That's who that is. Because that's how kids are. And Jesus says to us, become Like a little child, we can get so addicted to answers that we forget the point of why we're here. We can get so addicted to figuring out systems and rules and understandings that we forget that we are dealing with a God that is greater than anything we could ever understand. Imagine if you were standing next to someone looking at Niagara Falls and they just said, hey, let me grab you for a minute. I just want to talk to you about how the water pressure works. You throw them over, right? I mean, that's why the barrels are there. I'm just kidding. I don't know if there's barrels there. But, you know, there's nothing wrong with explanation. There's nothing wrong with discernment, right? We shouldn't. I'm not saying that we should accept everything with our brains shut off. What I am saying is, is don't lose the wonder. Don't lose a sense where you are interacting with a God who created the universe. And sometimes it's just amazing. But also remain curious. As I was reading this week, I heard one scholar say, when it comes to our faith, we should always be a little bit over our heads, right? Like we're not going to learn it all, but the more we can, there is always more we can know. There's always more we can unpack. And until we see Jesus face to face, we have to keep going further in our relationship with Jesus. So we don't just keep our wonder, but we keep our curiosity, right? We keep reading those books or studies that challenge us, right? We keep maybe singing a new worship song that we wouldn't have tried otherwise, or listening to a worship album that might be new or different to us. We meet someone one on one for discipleship, either as the person being discipled or the discipler, right? We continue to go deeper into our faith. So we keep our wonder, we keep our curiosity. But the truth is, is that a hardened heart is about more than just wonder or curiosity. Because ultimately we have to take action. We have to do something about what we hear. Because the truth is that the God we are dealing with is. And I'm kind of paraphrasing C.S. lewis here, what the C.S. lewis quote exactly is. He says, like, regardless of what you think about God, he is either God and therefore tremendously important, or none of it's true. And he's not important at all. And he kind of, in his very British way, he says the only thing he can't be is mildly important, right? The only thing he can't be is mildly important. And so there Is, you know, most of us know what we have to do, right? Maybe something that I just said about wonder or curiosity kind of triggered on you. But most of us know the actions we have to take in our faith, right? Like, you know, I've met most of you before. You know, you. You are. You're Christians. You understand. Most of us know, you know, maybe that thing we have to give up, that conversation we need to have, right? That step of obedience in our faith that we felt great about before, but it's kind of fallen to the side. Ultimately, the solution. So the solution for a hardened heart. Yes. Keep your wonder. Yes. Remain curious, but ultimately do something about it. Right? Because knowledge and curiosity are one thing, but ultimately what matters is what you do. And that's not legalism, right? Because as we go through the Book of Mark, the demons, they meet Jesus and they say, that's Jesus. He's God. They knew, they had the knowledge. They weren't followers. The issue with the disciples wasn't that they didn't have maybe necessarily the right set of beliefs. The issue was that they continued to act as though this was just a normal man and that their hearts were hardened as they continued to ignore the obvious work of Jesus in their lives. And I decided to close with this because I don't want us to miss it. We have to remember that Jesus got in the boat, right? Because maybe you're hearing me say this and you're saying, addison, man, my life's hard enough, honestly. And I understand you're talking about wonder, you're talking about curiosity, you're talking about, oh, you just gotta go let it out, your faith. Yeah, that's all great, but, like, it's hard. And I'm just happy that I'm not going to work tomorrow. You know what I mean? I'm just having a tough time. We have to understand that our Jesus gets in the boat. A lot of options that are out there are, you just got to be better. You just got to be better. You just got to do this. You just got to do this routine. You just got to do that routine. You have to earn your way. You have to earn your keep. And to be honest, we feel like the disciples rowing against the wind at 4am Right? Like, they've been at it all night. I'm tired, Jesus. I'm tired. I can't add another thing. I can't add another routine. I can't add another little bit of Bible reading. I don't want to have that conversation. Conversation. I want to get rest. The disciples still needed work. Jesus doesn't callously pass them by. He gets in the boat. He doesn't say, these guys, can you believe they still don't get it? He gets in the boat with them and he says, don't be afraid, it's me. He gets in the boat with them. Jesus always gets into our boat. The question is, do we invite him in? Because all the work stuff, all the parts of us we still have to work on, that's not going anywhere. I'm going to have things to work on until I breathe my last breath and you are, too. I will grow to be more like Jesus, and then I will see him face to face. And I could argue with you about whether we continue to grow in heaven or not. I don't know. But the truth is that there will always be things for us to work on. But the message of this verse, and every time we see Jesus in the New Testament, is not just that he is God, not just that he is God very, but that he is also God who steps into the boat. John 1:1 puts it the Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us. And the Eugene Peterson translation, the message puts it this way, that the Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood, that Jesus moves into our lives and walks alongside us. So the question is, yes, to avoid your heart being hardened, are you keeping your sense of wonder? Are you remaining curious? Are. Are you taking action on those things you would take action on? But kind of over all of that, are you inviting Jesus into the boat of your life? And do you understand that he loves you more than you could ever love yourself? That he loves you more than anyone could love you? And that he wants to walk alongside you and grow you and change you. Not for his benefit, not for the benefit of your pastor, not for the benefit of some type of statistic, but because he made you, because he created you, because he knows the life you were designed to live, a life of fellowship and joy and peace and growth and purpose. And that that is offered to us. And it is not offered with a hey, you better take advantage of this. But a, I could see they're scared. I could see they're not ready for this. I'm going to get into the boat with them. And he always gets into our boat if we simply invite Him. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you. We thank you on two fronts. That you are God, very God. That you are God himself. And that's a hard thing for me to wrap my head around that. To be honest, I probably am more Like Job, he passes by me and I don't perceive him. But, God, help me there. Help me to see the ways you're working and moving in my life and the lives of the people around me. Help me to turn down my cynicism. Help me to find wonder and curiosity as I interact with you. And ultimately, Lord, help me to remember that you're better than I could ever imagine. That you, full of grace and joy and peace, step into the boat with me. If I invite you in. And you take me from where I am to where you're taking me. As I am submitting to you and growing in you. And we thank you for that truth as we worship together. And we pray that you would help us to interact with you, to worship you, to see you with a sense of wonder, to jump into you, with a sense of curiosity, to act in obedience to you. But ultimately to invite you into the day today of our lives. God, we thank you that on this Labor Day weekend. You're speaking to our hearts and you're revealing yourself to us. And I pray that, Lord, you would continue to do so. That as we're home tomorrow, for many of us, Lord, you would spend time with us, that we would create some space. But, Lord, as we go through our week, Lord, we would. We would invite you into the day today, to the hour, to the hour, to the minute to minute. And we ask all this in your name. Amen. Would you stand as we close together in song?