Transcript
Steven Furtick (0:00)
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Steven Furtick (1:06)
Hey, this is Steven Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. Well, take a seat. We're so glad you're here. Today we're continuing in the series Savage Jesus from the Gospel of Mark. Believe me when I say that I never thought I'd say This is the 10th installment of this series. I usually preach short and sweet, but I got in the Gospel of Mark and then I couldn't get out. Today we'll be in Mark Chapter six. I want to introduce my scripture by way of of a story. When I wrote my first book, I had the privilege to record the audiobook myself. They sent a very professional recording engineer from the publishing company to record the book, and he would stop me and correct me if I made any mistakes. If I got a little too Southern, he was a Northern Pharisee and he judged my accent. He'd say, it's a little twangy, let's get it again. Or if I smacked my lips or mispronounced a word, he'd back it up and make me catch it again. It was annoying. But I appreciated his professionalism and because the publisher was the largest publisher in the world, not the publisher I Wrote for. The publisher I wrote for was owned by a publisher who was owned by a publisher that was the biggest publishing company in the world. This guy worked for the big publisher because of it. He had worked with a lot of big names. This was my first book and my first time I kept having to take breaks. My mouth would get dry during one of those breaks. I realized this guy had worked with a lot of famous people. I asked him to tell me a story to entertain me during my break. I said, tell me about somebody you worked with. That was difficult. He told me a story about a very well known political figure. I don't know if the story is true, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story? That's my motto. I'm going to tell the story. I'm not going to say the name. But it was a famous political figure who was recording his memoir about his life. That was after he had served his term, four, eight years, something like that, in office. Not going to tell you who it was. But he said when they were recording the memoir, it was very long. It was about a 700 or 800 page book and it had to be an abridged version. So when they were recording the audiobook, they had to decide which sections to leave and which sections to skip. At one particular point in the memoir, there was a section about a scandal that happened in this particular notable figure's life related to offices of oval nature and things of this sort that happened during his tenure in what some call the highest office in the United States of America. When he was telling me about it, he said when they got to the part about the scandal, he said the person who wrote the memoir, the former president, this is falling apart, said he was going to skip it. He stopped the recording and he said, I think people are sick of hearing about this by now. I think we can skip this part. Do you think this is really significant? The audio engineer said it was a real challenge to look back at somebody who had been the most powerful man in the world. At one point he said, I had to look at him and say, yes, Mr. President, this is significant. That's my title for my message today. Look at your neighbor and say in your best Bill Clinton voice, tell him this is significant. Our scripture lesson for today comes from Mark, chapter six, something Mark the Evangelist included in his gospel record that he thought was significant for us to know about the ministry of Jesus Christ. Mark 6:45 records. Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida he did not tell them to pack ponchos. He did not give them a warning about the storm they would encounter. Just a simple instruction. I wonder if God doesn't tell us everything because he knows we could not handle the details. So he dismissed the crowd and sent the disciples to get a head start. I'll meet you on the other side. You're almost going to die on the way. He didn't tell them that after leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. Later that night, the boat was in the middle of the lake. 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. Because God often looks like fear from a distance.