Like Jesus, Care for People: Mark 6:30-44

Have you ever known someone who went out of their way to care about people? I have known many people who cared for other people, but usually when this subject comes up, I think about my dad.

From 1966 to 1970 my dad worked as a civilian in Viet Nam. He worked for the company that shipped, received, warehoused and distributed the material for the war. He oversaw 50% of the operation for the war.

The place where he worked had an Army chaplain, but not a chapel for the troops. Dad figured out a way to provide the needed material and have a chapel built. Then he brought my mother over for a month to lead music and help out with chapel services.

Dozens of local Vietnamese people worked for my dad. When Saigon fell, he was in mourning with worry about the people who had worked for him. He was worried that they would be killed by the communists, and sadly many of them were killed.

You see, my dad cared about people. In our text today, we will see Jesus care about people.

In Mark 6:30-31 Jesus went out of His way to care about His apostles.

Our text picks up the history of Jesus' apostles coming back from Him sending them out to minister to people. Mark inserts the history of John the Baptists beheading after verse 13 of chapter 6, then picks up the history of His apostles coming back from their ministry in verse 30.

The Apostles gather around Jesus and report to Him all the details of their ministry. They had been away and had been overwhelmed with work for some time, then when they try to get alone with Jesus to debrief, they were overwhelmed with people again.

They were so overwhelmed with people they didn't even have time to eat! So, Jesus tells them to come with Him and find a quiet place away from the crowd so they could get some rest.

Jesus cared about these men and knew that they had been working hard for a long time and needed time alone to rest and eat. So Jesus was caring about the well-being of these men who were working hard for His Kingdom and wanted to get them some down time.

Jesus cared for His people and was trying to get them some time to rest and recuperate after a time of intense ministry.

If you are a part of a church, how do you feel about your pastor and staff getting plenty of time off and time to rest? Trust me, they work hard and need time to rest and time for vacations.

Jesus cared about people getting time off to rest and recuperate. We should care for people the same way!

In Mark 6:32-34, Jesus had compassion and cared about the crowd.

Jesus and the apostles are trying to get away from the crowd to rest. They get in the boat and head off to a solitary place. The crowd recognized Jesus and His apostles and ran ahead of them to the solitary place they were going and got there before they got there.

Jesus and the apostles are heading away to get away from the crowd for some rest, but the crowd beats them to the place they were going.

Jesus is trying to get away from the throngs of people for some rest for Him and the apostles. When they get to the place of rest, what do they see? More crowds of people waiting for them.

How does Jesus respond? You would think He might be thinking, “Let's go farther away to beat the crowd!” That is not how Jesus responded.

Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So, what did He do? He began to teach them many things.

When you are tired and need a break and people need you, what do you do? Jesus took care of people, even when He was trying to get away from them!

I remember being tired from ministry one night, and when I got home got a call that a family needed me at the emergency room at the hospital. I spent most of the rest of the night with them and their badly wounded son, praying and waiting for news from the doctors.

How do we respond when people need us? Jesus took care of them with compassion and ministry. He issues our call to do as He would do.

In Mark 6:35-44 Jesus had compassion and fed the crowd.

It is late in the day and Jesus had a crowd of five thousand men. Matthew 14:21 points out that the number of people who ate was about five thousand men plus women and children. It is possible that He was dealing with fifteen or twenty thousand people!

Jesus' disciples say, “Jesus it's getting late, send these people away so they can get something to eat in surrounding villages and countryside. “

Notice Jesus' response in verse 37A, “But he answered, ‘you give them something to eat.'” Jesus' response to His disciples is, “no, boys. We are going to feed these folks; you get them something to eat.”

We are about to see one of the great miracles of Jesus. It is important to see that it springs from His desire to care for people!

The disciples tell Jesus that it would take eight months of a man's wage to buy enough food to feed these people and ask if they are to spend that amount of money and feed this crowd.

Jesus asks them how many loaves they have. When they found out what they had, they told Jesus that they had five loaves and two fish. These loaves are barley loaves about the size of an average biscuit and the fish are small fish the size of a large sardine.

So, they had five biscuits and two sardines!

What does Jesus do next? He has the disciples have the people sit down in groups of hundreds and fifties on the green grass. Why is He doing that? He is getting them ready to be fed. He is getting them organized to be fed in groups!

He has five biscuits and two sardines and fifteen or twenty thousand people to feed. He assumes that they are going to be fed. Guess what this is called. We call it faith! It is supremely confident!

When we are having compassion for people and caring for them, we should be supremely confident in the movement of God! Why? Jesus was, and Jesus is our perfect model! Our call is always to follow in His steps!

Notice what Jesus does next. He takes the five biscuits and the two sardines and looks to heaven. Then Jesus gave thanks. He thanked the Father for what He had.

Jesus was being compassionate and feeding a great crowd. He had the average lunch for a Palestinian child and was thankful for what He had.

I am acutely aware that we, as a country are going into a time of inflation. The inflation rate is now 6.2% and headed up. That means that what cost us $100 a year ago is now $106.20! Most of us still have the same income we had before, but our cost of living has gone up! Like Jesus, we are functioning under the compassion to feed our family. How do we respond? Be thankful for what we have is where it starts!

Look what happens next. Jesus takes the biscuits and fish, breaks them and has the disciples pass them out to this great crowd of people. They are all fed and have their fill!

They pick up 12 baskets full of the leftovers! That is much more than the five biscuits and two sardines Jesus started with.

Jesus acted in compassion to care for people, was grateful for what He had and thanked the Father for it, then assumed everyone would eat, passed out the food and they all ate their fill.

Jesus went out of His way to respond to people with compassion and care for them and they were cared for.

Jesus went out of His way to care for people. He was trying to rest the apostles, teach the crowd and feed the crowd.

That is just the beginning of Jesus' caring for people!

1 Peter 3:18 puts it like this, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit.” (NIV)

Christ was the only righteous person to ever live without sin, but He cared for people so much that He died for the sins of the unrighteous. He did it once for all! Why did He die for sin? To bring us to God.

Christ was put to death in His body and made alive by the Spirit so that He could remove our sin and bring us back into relationship with God and guarantee our relationship with God and our life with God forever.

He cared for us so much that He chose to die at our execution so we could go free. When someone dies for you, he cares for you.

Jesus went out of His way to care for us, to the point of dying on an old rugged cross! Jesus sets the standard and makes the call to care for people like He cared for people.

I know that my dad cared for people with a passion that was beyond human! Where do you suppose that he caught that passion?

Dad caught that passion to care for people when he came to Christ as his Lord in Prescott, Arizona in 1948!

Get close to Jesus as your Lord and you will catch that same passion to care for people like Jesus cared for people.