It's a school that the college bought years ago and it made into a Christian college. This chapel sits out there. It's basically abandoned and it is said that Wilhelmina lives there. Wilhelmina is a ghost, supposedly. She occasionally makes an appearance. She is the stuff of legends, has been for decades. I remember when we were living there that one of our young men from the church was a student at the campus strapping six foot to 275 pound football player kind of a guy.
He was sitting on the edge of the lake there with his girlfriend. They were chatting away. It was about 11 o'clock at night and he said all of a sudden there was a flash of light like a light bulb exploding or the flash of a camera inside this abandoned chapel. He said almost immediately there came this white thing out of the chapel floating through the air and dissipated, the ghost on the lake. I remember when I went to Chicago as a student.
Our RA in the dorm got a few of us who were freshmen around. There were about six of us as I recall. He wanted to share with us a matter of great concern for new people in Chicago. Well, of course, being from the farm in Kansas, I figured I needed to learn everything I could about it. He gathered us around. He began to tell us about the ghost that was out in Lake Michigan in a lighthouse just offshore from Chicago.
I'm not sure if it was a lighthouse or a pumping station, but you can see it out there. He talked about the night. He had heard the stories. He talked about the night that he rode out there with some friends. He drew us in talking more and more quiet about this evening. Our hearts were just beginning to beat hard. You could almost hear our hearts beating in our chests. He got to a certain point in the story and then he said, and we at that point had to go change our clothing.
Ghost stories are the stuff of legends. We're going to talk about a ghost story about a ghost on a lake in Mark chapter 6. Immediately it says, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida while he dismissed the crowd. After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, 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.
About the fourth watch of the night, he went out to them. That's about three to six o'clock in the morning, 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. When it says they cried out, the word literally means they screamed. I will tell you that when that 275 pound football player told me about that story, he was as white as a, pardon the pun, ghost.
He was terrified by what he saw. These disciples were terrified by what they saw. They screamed. Immediately he spoke to them and said, take courage. Look at his eye. 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. When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus.
They ran throughout the whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. Wherever he went, into the villages, towns, or countryside, they placed the sick in the market places. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak. All who touched him were healed. All who touched him were healed. Tales abound about ghosts. They energized the imagination of listeners and scared some of us out of our wits by the stories that we hear.
Usually, ghost stories are about having a good laugh at somebody else's expense, like I experienced in Chicago. But they can also generate nightmares, can't they? In the legends of ancient days, and particularly the days of Jesus here, the appearance of ghosts, or more correctly, spirits. You see, ghosts are usually thought of as departed people who have hung around for some reason. Such an idea is foreign to the Bible. When a person dies, they go to their eternal destiny, either heaven or hell.
They don't hang around here. But there are spirits. There are spirits. These are fallen angels. These are demons. Some of them are good angels, of course, too. But the ones that play games like this one on the island in Minnesota are fallen spirits. The legend was, in those days, that if you saw a spirit, something bad was about to happen to you. Something bad was about to happen. It was a superstition regarding seeing a spirit. So the disciples obviously were terrified.
They were afraid something bad is about to happen. But the reaction of disciples betrays something deeper than superstition. The Bible says it reveals hardened hearts on their part. Now, if you want to talk about something truly frightening, think about that, the reality of a hardened heart. You see, the disciples had failed to grasp the spiritual lessons that Jesus expected that they should have known.
They simply did not get the picture, even after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 the day before, the 5,000 men plus women and children. The last four words of verse 52, I think, are the scariest words in the whole text. Their hearts were hardened. I want to say to you today, beware of a hardened heart. A hardened heart leads to critical failures.
Some of the failures that can happen with hardened hearts are suggested in the account that is before us today, which we're now going to look at in more detail. In verses 45 and 46, we see that a hardened heart can lead to the failure to comprehend the Lord's program. What Mark does not tell us, but John and his gospel does, is that the crowds were ready to take Jesus by force after the feeding of the 5,000 plus people and to make him the king.
I want to suggest to you that just perhaps the disciples were caught up in that movement too. That their thoughts were moving in the same direction as the crowds. There was a strong nationalistic, political spirit among the Jewish people. They hated Rome unanimously. They desired deliverance from Rome. They felt that Jesus would be the ideal leader to lead them out from under Roman oppression. It seems like abruptly Jesus sends his disciples off alone.
This is a different boat trip than the one in chapter four when Jesus got in the boat with them. This time Jesus sent them off alone. Why did he do this? Because he wanted to grow their faith some more. He wanted to give them a lesson. So he deliberately sent them into another storm. When you listen to us pray, isn't it interesting how often we pray for our loved ones and for ourselves and we say, and dear Lord, keep them safe.
Can I say to you this morning that Jesus' primary concern is not to keep us safe. His primary concern is that we grow up as his disciples. Jesus purposely sent his disciples onto that lake knowing that a storm was a reality. He himself turns to prayer. He sends them to the waters and he goes up into the mountains to pray by himself. This is the second of three times in the Gospel of Mark when Jesus faces a crisis and he prays.
Each time in Mark it seems as though there is a temptation that Jesus is feeling to step out of God's timing for him and God's plan for his Messiahship. Here we understand from what John tells us that there was this movement that was very powerful to take him right then and to make him king, but such would not have been the will of God. Even his disciples must have been caught up in this and so Jesus abruptly says, you guys get in the boat and get out of here.
And then he turns away from the crowds and goes by himself to pray in this time of temptation. We might expect that those who were the very closest to Jesus would have known that this was not yet his time, that the wraps were not yet to come off of his Messiahship, that it was premature. They did not comprehend the Lord's program. That is very clear here. They did not understand the timing.
Now, to their defense we have to say that Jesus had not yet clearly articulated to them that he must go to Jerusalem and there die and be raised again. He would tell them that soon enough. But even now their hearts were hardened. They were not holding to the spiritual truth or the plan that Jesus was trying to impress upon them. Before we get too critical of them though, we need to look in our own hearts. Are we much different than they are?
Are our own hearts calloused or hardened to the passions and the purposes of God? After all, what is God's program today that we, his followers, should be comprehending and participating in? Well the answer is very clear from Scripture. He tells us that his program is that we should go and make disciples through evangelism, the equipping or the establishing of converts, and then sending them out along with ourselves into the harvest fields of the world.
I want to say to you without any shadow of being concerned that I'm wrong, that the Lord's purpose in this weekend has been the harvest crusade. Have you been with God's program this weekend or have you missed it because of a hardened heart? You see the passion of God is that people hear the gospel, that they have the opportunity to believe that Christ be lifted up, that he might draw people to himself. Have you cared to invite your friends and to participate in the harvest crusade?
How receptive and willing is your heart for the Lord's program? I think of the global outreach celebration coming up soon and the opportunities we have to participate in that and to respond and be a part of the faith promise of our church saying I want to invest in the Lord's work through our missionaries. Are you with the Lord's program or not? Do you comprehend what he's up to? If our hearts are hardened, we miss the Lord's program just like the disciples did.
We as a church have a wonderful opportunity next month to bless our community in what we call beautiful day. Later this month we have the opportunity to invite families throughout our region to come to our campus in the fall festival. Each week we carry out kids clubs on the school campuses. Several seasons of the year we sponsor sports teams here at the church, a sports ministry. We have a group of people who go to the Arbor Apartments up the road here and lovingly serve those folks.
We have others who are involved in ESL. In December we'll have a Christmas outreach concert. We participate in reaching to the poor of our community through Love, Inc. There are lots of ways in which we as a church are seeking to participate in God's global and local program for outreach. If we talk about the Lord's purpose and the Lord's plan and the Lord's program, dear friend, this church is trying to do that. Are you plugged into it? If your heart is not hardened, you are.
But the disciples, unfortunately, here are like too many Christians today. They simply do not comprehend the Lord's program. It's passing them by. The program of God to establish His rule and His kingdom here in Silicon Valley through the transformed lives of men and women, and for them to become then passionate followers of Jesus who carry out the purposes of God in their lives, that program is your program in mine.
God is at work calling out a people for His namesake among the nations of the world. Let me ask you, do you comprehend that? Are you participating in it? Are you plugged in somewhere in the Lord's program? Or like the disciples, are you missing it? Do you have a hardened heart? One of the results of a hardened heart is a failure to comprehend the Lord's program and to miss it with your life. I don't know if there could be a greater tragedy or a more scary thing than that.
More scary than a ghost on a lake. There's another failure that I see here that comes from hardened hearts, and that is the failure to perceive the Lord's presence. Verses 47 up through verse 51. The disciples were out there in the lake, three and a half miles or so from shore, headed toward their destination. The wind was blowing against them. The waves were pounding the vessel, and they're rowing into the night trying to get over there to the other shore.
And it says in our text that Jesus saw them. Now apparently it was not a cloudy night. Some people think that this happened during the Passover, which would have meant a full moon. And in a full moon, one could easily have seen out into the sea that far. There would undoubtedly have been some light on the boat. Jesus saw them out there, and it says he went out to them walking on the lake. Don't miss that. He went out to them walking on the lake.
The story is told about Mark Twain and his wife, who in the late 1800s made a trip to Israel. Unfortunately, it didn't convert the humanist, but he went there out of curiosity to learn what he could about Jesus. They were staying in Tiberias, and one night the moon was out, and he thought, will it be a nice night for a romantic boat ride? So he went down to the dock, and he saw a man with a rowboat there, and he said, sir, how much money would it take to take us on a boat ride?
He was dressed in his white finest as he was customarily dressed, so he wanted somebody to row the boat for him. And the man thought a moment, and he said, $25. This is late 1800s. $25 was $25 in those days. And so he swallowed hard, and he said, well, this explains to me why Jesus walked. As like the disciples, we miss the Lord's nearness. We are dominated by our old way of thinking, the boxes that we put around our understanding of how the Lord is at work, even in our own lives.
Most typically we see our circumstances as a chance or as coincidence. We face in our lives the winds of opposition, or maybe the breeze of ease, or the gust of an interruption, and we don't stop to ask ourselves, hmm, where is the Lord in this? You see, if God is sovereign, we need to view our lives within that framework. He is after all the shepherd, as David says in Psalm 23. He provides for our needs, and he protects us. David said, I'm never afraid for what? Thou art with me.
Say those words. Thou art with me. What wonderful words those are. The disciples, in their hardness of heart, failed to perceive the Lord's presence. They thought it was a ghost. Now, I can't condemn them too much, and I will tell you, I would have screamed louder than any of them had I been there in that boat.
Out of hardness of heart, Jesus expected that they should have known about the feeding of the 5,000, that he was sovereign, that he could take care of them, but their hearts were hardened. And so Jesus says to them, after they cried out, they screamed, Jesus said, hey guys, wait a minute. Take courage. And you know what he says then? He literally says, I am. I am.
The text is translated, in my translation at least, it is I. But literally he says, I am, drawing upon all that that would mean to a Jewish man. And then he says, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. By the way, Peter wanted to get out of the boat on this occasion. You remember that?
Mark doesn't tell us about it, which is interesting, because Mark probably relates Peter's viewpoint on things, but Matthew does tell us that after they had recognized Jesus, he had identified himself and they recognized him, that Peter said, Lord, if it's really you, if it's not just a spirit, if it's really you, then let me come out there with you. And Jesus said one word, come. Come on. Come on out here. And you know what? He did.
I saw a bumper sticker a couple of weeks ago, you've seen it undoubtedly, it said, the next time you think you're perfect, try walking on water. You know what, you don't have to be perfect to walk on water. Peter wasn't perfect. He walked on water. Why? Because Jesus was there. The Lord was present. When our hearts are hardened, we fail to see the Lord's presence in our lives, and we get scared just like they did. We look at the news that we got from the doctor.
We look at what's happening in our family. We take a look at the economy or our work situation or what's happening in our marriage, and we get scared and we cry out, God, where are you? He says, don't be afraid, here I am. Will you believe that this morning? You see, more scary than a ghost on a lake is having a hardened heart and allowing yourself to be dominated by your circumstances, your fears, instead of realizing the Lord is with you. Be not afraid.
The hardness of heart and the hardness of heart of the people generally at that time led to a third failure, and that is a failure to understand the Lord's power. After all, they had seen the miracle of the feeding the day before. John tells us that after this night, after this time on the lake, Jesus explained to his disciples and to the crowds, he said, you're looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.
Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life. Believe in the one whom God has sent. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry. You see, what is impossible for man, Jesus can do, and his power is more than to do miracles by extending a life or restoring a limb or delivering from a demon. His power is so great, he can even give eternal life to one who believes on him. That's how great he is.
Consider how few of the people who ate the loaves or who touched him and were healed experienced a changed life. They ate to get full. They touched to get over their disease, but they did not understand his power to give them eternal life. They recognize Jesus, yes, for what he could do for them, but how deeply did they allow him to work and his power to bring them what they really needed, which was forgiveness of sin and eternal life.
A hardened heart causes one to fail to understand what the Lord's power is and how he is able to even transform a life and an eternal destiny from hell to heaven. What creates a hardened heart? Let me just suggest some things that create hardened hearts. First of all, learning truth without practicing it. Head knowledge, you see, puffs up, and it deceives one into thinking that he is spiritual or mature. There are some people who take pride in knowing their Bible. They know so much of it.
They're sort of the Bible answer man, and yet the truth has never transformed their lives. They know a lot, but they've never applied it, and consequently their hearts have become hardened. They are merely a database of information, not a changed life. A heart can be hardened by pretending to be something it isn't. In other words, play acting.
Participating in a Bible study or in a small group or being involved in student ministry or being a part of a life community and acting like a Christian while you're in a certain context, but as soon as you get out of that, then reverting to old patterns. You cater to the friends who are around you. You act like they do. You talk like they do. You live like they do. Pretending to be something that you're not hardens your heart.
I talked to one person a while back who said, I'm not coming to your church anymore. I'm tired of people in church who are not real. There are too many people who put on a show, they're phonies. You know what that person was really saying? I'm not real. She was saying I'm a phony, and she was projecting that on others. She was saying I'm a hypocrite. See, when we're hypocrites, pretending to be something that we are not, then our hearts get calloused.
Our hearts are hardened by resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit, number three. For every time that we say no to God, it's like we build up a callous on our hands. When I came off the farm, I had calloused hands. I don't anymore. But in those days, I had callouses all over my hands because of the work of farming. The more that you use your hands in manual labor, the more there's a hardness that builds up. And the same thing can happen to the heart.
When we say no to God, it forms layers of callous in which our hearts become less sensitive to God. We get hardened hearts by being too busy to listen to God. I'll tell you the truth, I worry about families in our church who are so busy. I worry about their kids, kids who are kept so busy in sports and in dance and in activities and all kinds of other things that they don't have time to connect with the student ministries in our church.
And someday the parents are going to say, well, the student ministries never ministered to my kids and the fact is the kids were never here because they were too busy. I want to tell you parents, you're developing hardened hearts in your kids when you allow yourselves to get too busy for God.
When you have them involved in so many things that they can't be involved in the spiritual things that they need the most at this time in their lives, being too busy to listen to God with family activities, with work, whatever. Our hearts get hardened when we grow casual about holy things.
When we come to church and we just kind of stand around while others sing, I've stood at the back of our worship center and I've watched and I've seen people just stand there while others are worshiping God and singing. It's not that they don't know the words, it's just that they don't care to worship. They just kind of stand and look with this dazed look in their eyes and you say, was the television show that good last night? Was the party that much fun? What's going on in your mind?
They're very casual about being in the holy presence of God and every time that happens there's a hardness that develops in the heart. We have students who come to church and send text messages to one another instead of listening to the word of God. It hardens the heart. Or who write notes, talk to one another during church, who make jokes, or who pretend to come to church and then walk around our building. They don't come in here. Parents don't know that.
Parents, if your children are doing that, then you need to have them sit with you in the service until they can learn what it means to listen. Because you see, it's very dangerous for them to come to church and to mess around in the time of holy things. It hardens their hearts as it does any of us. Your heart can be hardened by allowing yourself to become too self-focused. Demanding to be left alone because you have your own needs to be concerned about.
I heard about one father who comes home from work and he demands that no one talk to him for an hour because he is so stressed out. Come on dad, get real. Don't be so self-focused. It's a good thing to turn the telephone off by the way. What about dragging your family to another church when you get your feelings hurt?
Allowing yourself to become so self-focused that you and somebody else have a falling out and so you take off and drag your kids away from their friends that they've connected with here. All of these are the kinds of things. I by no means exhausted the list that hardened the heart. How do you recover from a hardened heart? I only know of one way and that is to repent. By repentance I mean to change your mind.
A change of mind that includes an open, unguarded acknowledgement to God of your condition. Say, oh God, my heart is hardened. I am missing your program. I don't get your presence in my life. My life, I overlook that. I'm not connected. I'm not experiencing your power in my life because my heart is hard. And then to turn away from your current direction to follow Jesus and to surrender to him. I don't know of any way to get past a hardened heart but that.
But I'll tell you what, far more scary than a ghost on a lake is a heart that has grown hard to God. That is truly frightening. Let's pray. Where's your heart this morning? Is your heart soft toward God? Is your heart receptive to the things of God? Is your heart hungry for God? Or would you have to say, no, I'm afraid my heart needs to be changed and I want it to be changed. I've been doing my own thing. I haven't been listening to God. I've been too busy. I've been very self-focused.
I've gotten my feelings hurt. I have an unforgiving spirit. I'm bitter. Whatever the issue is, my friend, bring that to God in an open, unguarded acknowledgement of your sin. And then turn to him. You see, he's waiting for you to cry out. He's waiting for you to cry out so that he can say to you, don't be afraid. It's me. It's me. I just want to come and get in the boat. I want to be with you. I want to soften your heart. I want to teach you how to walk with me.
Will you let the Lord have his way this morning? Will you let him change your heart? Will you ask him to? Father, have your way with us, I pray, and do what needs to be done. In Jesus' name, amen. Would you stand together with me, please, and let's sing together.