The Gift of Curiosity: Mark 8:1-21

Yes, I still battling this sinus infection, but we'll get through it.

And no, we're not having children's churches fifth Sunday.

But kids, uh, if there's anything that just kind of goes over your head, just ask mom and dad on the way home, okay?

Make sure they're listening.

I'm glad you're with us, all ages, as we dive into the Word of God.

Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

We are at the feeding of the 4,000.

Interesting, interesting report that Mark gives us through Peter, the apostles, what God's son did to minister to God's people, and he's still ministering today, if we have ears to hear.

So let's hear the word of God.

Mark chapter 8, verse 1.

Mark 8:1

In those days when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd, because they've been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way.

And some of them have come far from far away.

And his disciples answered him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?

And he asked them, How many loaves do you have?

They said, Seven.

And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they set them before the crowd.

And they had a few small fish, and having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them.

And they ate and were satisfied, and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full, and there were about four thousand people.

And he sent them away, and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

The Pharisees came and began to argue with them, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.

And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, Why does this generation seek a sign?

Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.

And he left them, got into the boat, and went to the other side.

Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they only had one loaf with them in the boat.

And he cautioned them, saying, Watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive or understand?

Are your hearts hardened?

Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?

And do you not remember when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand?

How many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?

They said to him, twelve.

And the seven for the seven thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?

And they said to him, seven.

And he said to them, Do you not yet understand?

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.

May we ask the Spirit's help to enlighten and to enable our understanding.

Let's pray.

Father, we we do thank you and praise you this morning that you have given us the bread of life opened up before us in the Bible.

But you gave us the bread of life incarnate in your Son Jesus.

What more could you give us?

Spirit of God, take us to Jesus this morning.

In unmistakable ways, take us to Jesus.

Amen.

This morning we're going to talk about the miracle, the demand, and the question.

The miracle.

Liberal scholars attack this passage and say clearly the Bible needs to get its act, get its story together.

This is probably referring to one feeding, just different details.

We know better than that.

No, Jesus clearly fed another large crowd, a different large crowd on a different occasion.

So let's just do a little compare and contrast, okay?

I've got it all lined out in columns in my notes.

You do what you need to do.

Think about this though.

How is it like?

How is it different?

The feeding of the 4,000 that we just read, there were seven loaves.

The feeding of the 5,000, there were five loaves.

There were seven baskets left over on the feeding of the 4,000.

And by the way, a different Greek word is used than the feeding leftovers on the 5,000, the 12 baskets.

This word he uses like a hamper.

Apparently, it could hold more.

This one occurs after three days with the crowd.

Before, it was one day with the crowd.

Before it was in the spring, it appears now to be late summer.

This one is a big difference.

The feeding of the 5,000 were mostly Jewish people, almost all Jewish people.

This is clearly almost all Gentiles.

And again, we asked the question after the last couple of weeks in the sermon series: what is Jesus doing?

Hanging around with unclean people, the Gentiles.

The Jewish people wouldn't even walk on their dust.

Jesus had no problem with that.

Jesus would go wherever the need was, and he still does today.

Now these were clearly two different miracles.

So why did Jesus perform this feeding again?

He tells us.

He had compassion on the crowds.

And he still does.

This Greek word means the entrails or the vital organs like the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys.

That which is innermost.

Compassion, that which is innermost, spills over.

It spills out.

It goes out.

Jesus feels deeply.

He feels deeply for the things that concern you.

It's remarkable how he does that.

Because he's God.

He not only knows everything about your life, he cares intimately about everything about your life.

That's his compassion.

That's just who he is.

So he's being moved deeply because he looks around and there's been three days, and these crowds have been following him.

And another big difference between the first one, the feeding of the 5,000, they wanted to make him king.

They had ulterior purposes.

They had seen enough of his miracles.

They thought he had the stuff.

They thought he had the credentials.

Now let's leverage this to start establishing a new kingdom.

Let's throw out the Romans.

Very different motives.

This crowd, if you've been with us for the last couple of weeks, you know this crowd, the Gentiles, they are having fresh encounters with Jesus.

And they are amazed at what he does.

He's the one who heals the blind, the deaf.

He's the one that heals lepers.

They're falling in love with Jesus.

This crowd.

And they want to follow him.

So much so that they didn't stop and do all their planning for the trip.

They ran out of their food.

It's almost like, but who cares if we can be with Jesus?

Who cares about all the other things in life if we can be with Jesus?

Jesus is our example.

Church, don't send them away.

Don't send the people who need compassion away.

If they will engage with the heart, if they come with their bodily needs, if they come with their tangible material needs, let's do all we can to meet those needs in the name of Jesus.

Why again?

Because they were needy.

That's why there was a second miracle.

But secondly, let's look at the demand for a sign.

After Jesus feeds the 4,000, and they were satisfied.

They were all satisfied.

And maybe we shouldn't rush too quickly past this.

If you're one of the crowd, 4,000.

We would call that a megachurch.

4,000 people.

The Bible tells us they all ate, and once again, it's a miracle.

Jesus begins distributing the bread, and he just doesn't stop.

That's a miracle.

We're not given more details, logistics about how that actually happened, except he was the Son of God.

And when he wanted to feed people, he had the means wherewith to feed people.

And so they all ate.

And they were all satisfied.

And it's almost like, who is this man?

It's almost like they had this hunger for more.

Who is this man?

We're still finding out.

But what we know is where he goes, we want to go with him.

That's a beautiful thing.

Still today.

Do you want to be with Jesus?

Or do you just kind of schedule time with Jesus?

There's a difference.

You know, you can schedule time with Jesus and say, okay, I've got to have my devotions today.

I set aside a time.

I meet with him.

Maybe I don't even remember what I read 15 minutes later?

No.

No.

That's not for you.

Jesus wants to meet with you.

He wants to have your ear.

He wants to have your full attention.

When I meet with him, I pray to him, Lord, would you please let me bring my full attention so I can be present.

Remind me in whose presence I am.

Do you sometimes forget that?

Yeah.

The demand for a sign.

He gets off the boat with his disciples.

Verse 11 says.

And the Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign.

Listen to this, to test him.

There was nothing, there were no good motives in this.

They just wanted to trip him up one more time if they could.

Try.

What did Jesus do?

Do you see?

Look at look in the text.

How did he respond?

He sighed deeply.

It's almost like he's got this X-ray vision.

He looks right into the hearts of people.

He says, I see what this is about.

You're not really interested in knowing me.

You just want to, you're curious about me in a superficial way.

You want to try to make me look bad.

Jesus says, I won't have it.

I'm not going to give you another sign.

I've given you plenty of signs.

Mark tells us that it was the Pharisees and Herod.

Matthew tells us it was also the Sadducees.

Interesting bedfellows.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees hated each other.

They had completely different agendas.

The Pharisees were all about keeping the spiritual rules of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch particularly.

They took God's word very seriously, even though many of them missed the gospel, even as they knew the Word of God.

The Sadducees were very different.

They were worldly.

They were really much more interested in the political power that was available to them as rulers of the synagogues, the Sanhedrin.

And then there's Herod.

Herod was a power monger.

We know that, right?

Herod, he was just always trying to, it was all about the power.

Keeping the Jews in place so they didn't uprise and cause trouble in Rome.

What do they all have in common?

Well, none of them honestly, honestly wanted to really know who Jesus was.

They went through the motions sometimes, but they didn't really want to know Jesus for who he was.

And so Jesus in the boat with his disciples now cautions his disciples and he says, watch out.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.

We know leaven is an influence that corrupts, that changes things from the inside out.

And all but one time, I believe, in the New Testament, leaven is used in a very negative way.

Leaven is what the yeast makes the bread rise.

It gets in there and then it grows and it multiplies.

Now, you see where he's going with this?

Be careful what enters your heart, because it will grow and multiply.

That's the point he's making.

Be very careful what you admit into your mind, what you watch, what you listen to, because it's going to have a pervasive influence on how you think and how you live.

Jesus says, be careful what you attach your heart to.

And that is a warning for every person here today.

Be very careful what your heart attaches to.

If it's your career, you're going to try to stuff your career into your soul.

You can't do that.

If it's your family, it's your marriage, your community, the church, the church activity.

None of those things can feed your soul.

We have to stop and think about that sometimes, don't we?

Jesus says, watch out.

Guard your soul, guard your heart very carefully.

Be on guard constantly.

What Jesus was saying about the Pharisees to the disciples is this the problem was not a lack of evidence, but a hard heart.

And it's still that way today.

There's never a problem of a lack of evidence.

Jesus gave plenty of evidence.

He gave his credentials and all these miraculous healings in his divine teaching.

Jesus gave plenty of evidence.

That's not the problem.

What we don't need today, just like in the Pharisees' day, is simply another sign.

Rather, we need faith to see and to believe the sign that God has already given us.

And that cross is the sign.

He gave us his own son.

And whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.

Do you believe that?

That's the sign of all signs.

The miracles that he performed were pointing to the authenticity of his deity.

This is God in the flesh.

The hard heart always wants more evidence.

Someone said an ignorant heart cannot harden itself.

It doesn't know better.

Only a knowing heart can harden itself, which is why those closest to Jesus, the Pharisees, the disciples in the boat, and we in the sanctuary, yes, we stand in the gravest danger.

Do you see why?

Because we're closest in proximity.

There's always going to be the temptation to think we know because we're here.

There's always the temptation to think we know because we're so familiar with the Word of God.

You with me?

This is just the way it works.

I mean, those of us that are in closest proximity need to take heed and guard our hearts because they can harden over time.

The disciples are worried about lack of bread.

Jesus is concerned about their lack of faith.

The danger is all the more deceptive with those who are in daily contact with Jesus.

Their proximity to Jesus is intended to grow into a deeper faith, or else it will simply inoculate them against catching the real Jesus.

Many people have been inoculated against the gospel.

They've been hanging around the gospel, they've been hearing the words of the gospel, they've been hearing about Jesus for so long, they think they have the real thing and they don't.

That's what this teaching is about.

Beware.

Beware of feeling comfortable in cozying up to the teachings of Christianity, lest you not have Christ.

Yes, it is grace.

This is how Bishop John Rile put it, it is grace, not place, that makes people believers.

Here Jesus is out in foreign territory, the Gentiles.

It's not place.

They weren't safer in Israel than out in the desert with the Gentiles.

You're not safer in this church, sanctuary, if you're putting your faith in these outer things.

It's not place.

It's not where you were born.

It's not this, it's not that.

It's what is going on in your heart.

This is what Jesus is addressing.

Let me give you an illustration.

It's a very uh moving one to me, anyway, this week as I've been thinking about it.

I heard Tim Keller use this illustration once, and it got me curious.

I went back and did more research.

This is what I found in World War II.

And this is how the Pharisees illustrate what you're going to hear next, what we all have to be on guard against.

April 1945, the Allied forces were taking over Germany at the end of World War II.

One of the primary goals to free those who had been prisoners in the German concentration camps as fast as possible.

The Germans tried to hide the horrors of what was done in those camps, especially to the Jews, by destroying, burning, and burying the evidence.

But the atrocities were too vast and too gruesome to hide.

Such was the case when the American forces liberated Buchenwald camp on April 11th, 1945.

American soldiers were overwhelmed by what they saw.

When General George Patton visited the camp on April the 15th, he was so overcome by what he saw that he became sick and vomited.

The Germans would often kill prisoners by hanging them, and I'm not going to go into the details of that.

According to camp records seized, over 50,000 prisoners were executed during the operation of this camp, mostly Jews, whom Hitler wanted to totally eradicate.

The Americans and the Allies wanted the German civilian people to see the horror that had been going on right under their noses for the past several years.

So the soldiers made the residents of the nearby town of Weimar walk the five miles to the camp to see.

A newspaper reporter was there and that day described the scene.

German civilians, about 1,200 of them, were brought from the neighboring city today to see for themselves the horror, brutality, the human indecency perpetrated against their neighbors at this infamous concentration camp.

They saw saints, excuse me, they saw sights that brought tears to their eyes, and scores of them, including German nurses, just fainted on the spot.

This is what they said.

We didn't know.

This is what the German civilian population would say over and over again about the concentration camps in the months after the war.

But was that really true?

Another town, Ordruff, was a smaller concentration camp near the larger one.

All the able-bodied citizens of a nearby town, Gotha, were ordered to go to Ordruff and dig graves for the hundreds of bodies left behind.

But this was too much for the mayor of Gotha and his wife.

After it was over, the mayor and his wife went home and hung themselves.

They left a suicide note, and this is what that note said.

We said we didn't know.

We knew.

Pharisees.

And the disciples and us.

How quickly we can say we didn't know.

But we know.

Romans chapter 1 tells us that we suppress the knowledge of God seeing and evidence through his creation.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

We have a way of pushing down what God wants to put in, don't we?

We have a way of pushing down.

We have a way of ignoring what he puts right smack dab in our face.

He says, I want you to pay attention to this.

I want you to deal with this.

I don't want you to ignore this.

And we have ways of covering it up.

We have ways of pushing it away to our own spiritual peril.

Third point, last point, the questions.

Some five rhetorical questions that Jesus asked, like rapid fire gun, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

This is unusual, I think, for Jesus, but he did it on this occasion.

He looks at the disciples on the boat and he says, Why are you discussing among yourselves no bread?

You still not understand.

I mean, they're arguing.

Maybe they're blaming each other.

Hey, how come you didn't bring the bread?

Well, he didn't, you know, whatever.

No, I'm not talking about the physical bread.

I'm talking about the spiritual condition of your heart.

Are you feeding on Jesus or are you feeding on the junk food of this world?

Are you asking the junk food of this world to nourish your soul?

Counselors talk about tolerance.

The more you feed your soul with the junk food of this world, the more you need.

What you had before is not going to be enough if your soul is feeding on the junk food.

And that could be something as seemingly innocent as a career or a family.

You just need them to come through for you.

You just need that to satisfy you.

You just need that to give you purpose and peace in your life.

And you need it too much, and it's destroying your soul.

That's what Jesus is saying to us.

Give it up.

Let the truth in.

Admit the truth of what Jesus is showing you.

This is the gospel.

Do you still not understand?

And they've been with Jesus quite a while now.

They knew.

But they didn't know.

Intellectual honesty will always include humility.

Did you hear that?

There's a lot of scoffers, there's a lot of debaters today when it comes to the religion.

They're supposedly quite interested in having theological arguments and debates.

No.

Intellectual honesty will always bring a humility to be confronted with the truth, to be confronted with the facts, to be confronted with whatever it is that the Holy Spirit would speak to you about.

They, these, to their credit, these disciples possessed a growing curiosity.

I see that in them.

They kept asking.

They kept wanting to know more.

Okay, Jesus, we failed that one.

Can we take the test again?

Well, I what is it?

I just saw this, I just saw this thing on TV the other day about if you want to be a Civil War um guide at Gettysburg.

Incredible testing that is required.

I think those that make it finally are like six percent.

All these Civil War guys, they want to be guides in Gettysburg, and they study and they study and they study and they study.

And I was just really, it's interesting in the timing.

I think I saw it yesterday, and you know, and I'm thinking about this.

And they would they would they would interview the people coming out, and people have studied for months.

Some people have studied for years because they just want to be a guide on that tour.

And they'd come back, and the interviewer would say, Well, how'd you do?

Well, I I failed.

Again, third time.

Are you gonna quit?

Why would I quit?

This is my passion.

I want to do this.

There's something there, isn't there, for us?

Why would you quit?

Why would you walk away from what he's offering you?

Think.

Think hard.

Don't be hard-hearted.

They possessed a curiosity.

They acknowledged their need to listen and to learn in the coming weeks.

We're going to see it.

Watch for it in the coming weeks as we're through going, continuing to go through Mark.

Watch for their growing curiosity.

Watch for their growing understanding.

What do I not yet understand?

What do you not yet understand?

Is your heart hardening?

Because you don't want to accept it?

Are you putting it down because it just seems too challenging?

Are you opting out for the junk food that the world has to offer?

I mean, it's like eating cotton candy, right?

I mean, it'll fill you for 10 seconds.

But you're gonna be hungry in ten minutes.

This is what Jesus is talking about.

This is what he's talking about.

Stop gorging yourselves on things that are not true, that God's word has not said.

What Jesus is offering you, repent and turn toward Jesus.

Let him feed you.

Let him feed you.

What things shut my heart down?

Am I curious enough to inquire?

Some of you know, you have known me well.

For the last 35 years of my life, literally, I've been on a journey.

I want to know my story.

I want to understand how my story impact and interact with his story.

It seems to me that Kelvin said it.

Kelvin said, the more you know yourself, the better you know yourself, the better you know God.

And the better you know God, the better you know yourself.

Why do so many people today run from this?

I know I know why, I think.

It takes courage.

It takes courage.

It's easier to not examine what's going on in your life.

It's easier to not ask the hard questions.

It's easier just to say, I don't get it, I don't understand it, but I'm gonna just get through my life.

Don't do that.

Please.

That's not for you.

I have found the more I've studied my life, and that for all of us includes chapters in our story that we wish were not there.

Okay?

All of us.

There's chapters in our life we just wish were not part of the story, but they are.

Remember what we said last Sunday after the miracle of Jesus' last healing?

He does everything well.

And right, we can acknowledge that he did everything well at creation.

Anybody disagree with that?

I mean, he made a perfect world.

We messed it up, but he made a perfect world.

He did everything well at the cross, yes.

But how about you remember the third question?

What about providence?

What about the story of your life?

Can you say about your life?

He does all things well.

Can I see it through the pain of my life?

Can I see it through my tears?

Can I see it through my longings, unfulfilled longings?

Can I say today, he does all things well?

And it might well take me a long time to get around to understand that and to believe that, but I affirmed that he does all things well.

So I I uh this story just came to me in the first service.

I hadn't planned on it, but the Spirit gave it to me.

I remember years ago, Sharon and I went to Orlando for counseling course all week, and our professor was a lady, Christian woman, who's an alcoholic.

Alcoholic.

And she's worked very hard to overcome the alcoholism in her life, like a lot of Christians, frankly.

A lot of Christians struggle with alcohol.

She did.

She was a therapist, and she tells a story that when she had a relapse, one night she's out at her trash bin about midnight, opening up the lid, looking to see if there's any liquor that had not been all drunk.

And she felt this divine presence.

She felt as though Jesus was speaking audibly.

He wasn't, but he might as well have been.

She felt Jesus said there's Jesus.

She just felt his presence in her shame.

Have you ever met Jesus in your shame?

That is a powerful meeting with Jesus.

And not just to run away from your shame.

She said, I said to Jesus, what are you doing here on the curb at midnight?

Holding a leftover bottle of booze.

Jesus, what are you doing here?

And it's as though he said to her, I'm always with you.

I'm with you at your worst.

And I'm with you when you think you're at your best.

I've never left you.

She goes on to tell how transformative that encounter with Jesus was as the Spirit was working in her heart that night.

Jesus loves you at your worst.

That's true.

And it's a powerful truth to understand that and to believe that and to accept that.

That can be life-changing.

He's not waiting for you to get your life all cleaned up, get your act together, so that you're good enough.

We'll never be good enough.

That's not the gospel.

Here's my question for you.

How does your story and his story intersect?

Unless we are curious and hungry for truth and grace that only Jesus can give us, we will settle for answers that leave us empty.

And there will be no more transformation going on in our lives.

We'll sing the songs, we'll pray the prayers, but there's no more ongoing transformation.

That's just the way it works.

Unless we're curious and hungry for the truth and the grace that He alone can give us, we will settle for answers that leave us empty.

We'll go to church, we'll do ministry, we'll do service, we'll do whatever we do, but we won't be experiencing His peace.

We will not experience His joy, and we'll know it.

And we'll say, well, we knew, but we don't know.

Don't let that be you.

I I knew, but I didn't know.

No, you no, you knew.

You knew that the Spirit is knocking on your door.

You knew that the Spirit is saying, I want you to deal with this.

You've been running from this for too long.

I want you to deal with what I'm bringing to your attention, I'm bringing to your heart.

Let's do this.

The Spirit wants to take us to Jesus.

Jesus knows what to do with us.

That's the good news.

John Newton.

The slave trader converted.

John Newton says, I've never been, I've never despaired of any man since God saved me.

That's a beautiful statement for a Christian to make.

I have never despaired of any person because I know that there's no other person who is more vile a sinner than me.

And look what God did in saving me.

Yeah.

I boy, I just kind of got choked up singing his song earlier, Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder.

That line, this line, man, it got me again today.

Let us wonder, grace and justice join and point to mercy's store.

Well, we could preach a whole sermon on this line.

When through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more.

This is a theologian who wrote songs.

This is a man who understood the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Can you see right now, because of the work of Jesus Christ on your behalf, justice smiles.

What would that look like if you believed that?

Do you live with self-guilt?

Do you live with self-condemnation?

Do you live with a nagging conscience?

Do you just go around feeling, well, I'm just, I messed this up, I messed that up, I'm never good enough?

Is that how you feel sometimes?

You come to Jesus.

Justice smiles.

It's done.

He has done everything for you.

He has no more warrants to put out for you.

Justice smiles and asks no more.

Could it be any better?

Could it be any better to be loved by him?

To be forgiven by him.

To be wanted by him.

Does it get any better than that?

No.

So let's invite the Spirit to do His work.

Does our sanctification today reflect what we believe about the real Jesus?

I close with this thought by Matthew Henry.

The arithmetic of the two feedings, the 5,000 and the 4,000, add up to a theology of grace.

Grace means that what we are or not and don't have is pretty immaterial.

What matters is that there is a miraculous Lord to whom we can give whatever we are and whatever we have.

Though the disciples had no bread with them, they had with them the one who could provide bread for them.

If they did not have the cistern, they had the fountain.

We have the fountain.

We have the bread maker.

And his compassion is moving toward you by the Spirit's work today.

Nobody's going to have compassion for you like Jesus.

And his heart is moving toward you by the work of the Spirit.

Father, we ask, would you please give us faith to believe?

Lord, do not let us have a divided heart.

Do not let us have a demanding heart.

Holy Spirit, show us what you've given us in Jesus.

That Jesus is enough.

That Jesus is my all-in-all.

Holy Spirit, show us, teach us, convince us.

Lord Jesus, move into the corners of our heart that we've been trying to deny you access.

May your word be honored.

May you be glorified by what you do in us now.

In Jesus' name, Amen.