Do You Not Remember

It's great to be with all of you this morning.

If you have a Bible, let's open up to Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

I'll pray again one more time briefly for us.

Father, you know the needs of our hearts better than we even know ourselves.

Lord, some of us are worried, fearful, doubting, anxious.

And we need to be calmed.

We need to be comforted by your fatherly love and compassion.

Lord, some of us are probably passive, Lord, weak, unmotivated, sluggish.

We need to be gently rebuked, Lord, motivated.

So, Father, would you fill me full of the Holy Spirit?

Would you use me as a vessel?

Would you speak to all of us, myself included, Lord?

None of us come here perfected this morning.

We are all in need of fresh mercy and grace.

We want to be closer to the Lord Jesus.

We want to see Christ in the scriptures and be transformed from one degree of glory to the next.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

Think about this.

When you have free time, where does your mind most naturally go?

What is it that you tend to think about the most often when you're not focused on some task at hand?

Or maybe you could ask the question this way: what is it you tend to worry about the most?

What is it you tend to brood about the most?

What tends to be the thing that rests in your heart the most heavy, that you're most often concerned with?

The context of the passage that we're going to look at this morning is Jesus has been in Gentile territory, non-Jewish territory.

He's been trying to hide, trying to rest, uh, trying to get some extended time with just his 12 apprentices to teach them, to prepare them, to lead the church.

Once he's gone, it hasn't gone exactly great because he keeps healing people and the news keeps spreading.

Mark chapter 8, we'll start in verse 1.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

In those days when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd, because they have 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 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 Dalmanthu.

The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, 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 again, and went to the other side.

Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only 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 four 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 understand?

Do not yet understand.

So we find Jesus again surrounded by a great crowd that has no food.

Now, this was probably in Gentile territory, and we find out this crowd has been with him for three days.

So likely this crowd was a little bit more prepared.

They're in a very desolate place.

They had brought bread enough for three days.

They prepared well, but they were so mesmerized by his teaching, they stayed to the point that they ran out of food.

And he is moved with pity in his heart.

I want to help them.

I care about them.

I don't, we're in such a desolate place.

I think if I disperse them to go find food, some of them will literally fall down from hunger and weakness before they can reach any town or village where they can find food.

Okay?

Middle of nowhere.

The disciples, again, are flabbergasted, right?

I mean, if if you just remember the gospels or if you've been here the past few weeks, just a few months ago, and it's only, I think, two chapters in the Gospel of Mark, he had a time where there was a large crowd, 5,000, and Jesus basically like, hey, you guys feed them.

And they're like, 200 in area?

We can't feed all these people.

And again, they're kind of shocked.

What do you want us to do about it, Jesus?

Why are you trying to involve us in this?

There's no chance that we can find the food, much less get the food.

It won't work.

He asked them again, Well, is there any food that you can find?

Well, yeah, we found seven breadcakes, and they end up finding a few little fish as well.

He prays, he thanks his father.

He starts breaking it off, giving it to the 12 disciples.

They start handing out, and just miraculously, he never runs out.

In fact, by the time they're done, there's seven baskets full left over.

4,000 people have been fed.

Jumps in the boat, back across the lake, and it almost seems like maybe they went across the lake to get away from the desolate place to get some more food, supplies, whatever.

But they land there and it's like the Pharisees are there waiting.

He's back in Jewish territory, and it says they're seeking from him a sign and they're arguing with him about it.

Now remember, these Pharisees have been kind of stalking Jesus, watching him.

They had been there when he in the synagogue healed a man with a withered hand.

They'd seen that.

Some of them had been there when there was a lame man in the house, and Jesus said, get up, carry your mat, go home.

They'd already seen signs.

But the bottom line is, guys, most of these Pharisees, these religious elite leaders, they hate Jesus.

They despise him.

They're disgusted with him.

Because up until this point, they have been known, right or wrong, as the experts in the Old Testament.

And all the masses of the crowd came to them for answers.

And they had a position of power and prestige.

They also made good money off of this.

And Jesus is coming along, this humble man teaching, ruining their authority.

And not only is he an amazing teacher, a teacher of truth, a teacher not just of man-made tradition, but of the authoritative word of God.

He's also doing miracles to boot.

And they're like, we can't compete with this guy.

And they they see what he's doing.

I mean, he's claiming to be the new Moses.

He's claiming to be the Messiah.

Well, let's go and ask for like a real sign, a big sign.

Maybe a sign from heaven.

And probably one commentator said, probably they're looking for something like, you know, Moses split the Red Sea.

Why don't you do something that big?

And then maybe we'll believe.

But they're error.

Listen, what maybe they're hoping he'll try and fail, but the point is, they're not coming in real humble faith.

They're coming out of pride and arrogance.

And Jesus basically says, you know what?

He sighs, he's frustrated, he's saddened, he's grieved, but he's like, I'm not gonna waste time with this.

I'm not gonna play these games with you.

Gets in the boat, leaves again.

And as they're in the boat, you can tell what's heavy on Jesus' heart is these leading influential people, politically and spiritually, in Israel, which is supposed to be like the Old Testament church, they're not trustworthy.

They're bad influences.

Herod, the Pharisees, they're bad guys, and I'm brokenhearted that they have so much influence in my people.

And I'm even concerned for the disciples.

They could get swept up in some of this.

So he's it's like they're in the boat, and that's what's heavy on his heart.

He says, guys, you gotta be worried about, you gotta be concerned about the yeast, the leaven.

Okay, and I'm not a baker, okay, so I've asked some questions about this to my wife and people that know more.

But you know, even today, you put a little bit of yeast in bread, it makes it rise, it spreads.

Again, one commentator I read said, part of the way leaven would work, okay, it was invisible, it was potent, and it was gradual.

Little bit of yeast, a little bit of leaven in a lot of bread.

You can't tell it's working, but it works seemingly mysteriously, seemingly quickly, and very powerfully.

And this was a common type phrase for influence.

He's like, you got to watch out for those guys' influence.

Because their wrong way of thinking can get into your heart, it can get into your mind, it can get into your ministry philosophy.

And the 12 disciples hear that and they're like, oh, dang it.

We only got one loaf of bread.

Uh, part of the reason we went across the lake was to give some more stuff.

You know, we got so excited watching Jesus verbally beat down the Pharisees again.

We forgot to buy more bread.

You know, Peter's your fault.

Noah's and Jesus kind of overhears the conversation again there in this tiny boat again.

He's like, are you guys serious?

You're talking about physical bread?

You think that's what I'm concerned about?

Do you not remember the miracle from a couple of months ago?

5,000 men, and all we had was like five loaves.

And we fed them all, and you all had a basket.

And then we just did it again.

I'm not worried about physical bread.

If we get hungry enough, I can take this one loaf, I can feed us all.

Why are you so sluggish?

Why are you so hard-hearted?

Why are you so slow to understand and believe?

Several points of application, okay?

The first is this, and listen, this one has come up a lot, but there's a reason why.

Because it's so important, and Jesus doesn't want us to forget it or miss it.

If you have been fed by Christ, he wants to use you to feed others.

And I don't mean physically, I mean spiritually.

If he has been feeding you his word, if you have been learning, if you have been growing, if you have been spiritually blessed, spiritually influenced by the Lord Jesus Christ, you have been saved, you have been sanctified, you are maturing.

Wherever you are in that process, he wants to involve you.

One of the highest privileges of being a Christian is not just sitting on the sideline, but getting in the game with the Lord Jesus Christ, ministering to others, whoever you are, wherever you are.

And I've made that point several times, I know, because the Gospel of Mark keeps making it.

And like, why do you keep making it again?

Because, as John said in the confession, we're all very prone to forget.

We need to hear the same truths over and over.

There's a place in the letter to the church at Philippi where Paul says, It's no problem for me to remind you of the same things again, and it's a safeguard for you.

Who is it in your life that God is calling you to be a conduit of his grace?

None of us are supposed to be just a cul-de-sac of grace, just a receiver.

He's doing stuff in us so that he can do stuff through us.

The second thing: if there are lessons in our lives that the Lord Jesus is trying to teach us, and for whatever reason, we are slow, we are sluggish, we are stubborn to learn it.

God is the very definition of perseverance.

It's like, praise Him.

He doesn't just forget and say, Well, I just give up.

And He doesn't just skip to lesson two.

He says, Oh, you didn't get that one, let me just keep bringing you back around.

So if you feel like you're maybe in a hard place where the Lord is trying to teach you something, the best thing to do is, oh, what are you trying to teach me?

So I can learn, but so I'd like to move on.

You ever been in that situation?

I'm tired of this lesson, whatever you're trying to teach me.

Where in your life?

What is it God's trying to make you more patient, more self-controlled, more self-aware, more humble?

I don't know.

Third thing.

In ministry, in life, but specifically in ministry, we do the natural part, he does the supernatural part.

I mean, you know, Jesus was the only one that could take the seven loaves and multiply it to be enough to feed 4,000 and have seven baskets left over.

But he said, disciples, here, I got it apart for you.

Just hand the bread out.

And guys, that's a great picture of what normal life with Christ looks like.

He asked you, do the normal part.

Pray, talk, love, serve, give.

And he will do the supernatural part that we cannot do.

Hudson Taylor, who was a great missionary, started the China Inland mission when all the other there were missionaries going to China, but they all stayed on the coastal towns that still had some Western influence and was kind of safe.

And he's like, No, no, no, we're gonna go into the deepest, darkest corridors of China and share the gospel.

And he has this great quote.

He said, God's work, done God's way, will never lack God's resources.

Don't worry about the money, don't worry about the time, don't worry about the energy.

If you are clear that God is calling you to do stuff, go ahead and take the risky step of faith and trust him to meet you in the process.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed in the tasks that God has called you to, such as parenting?

I don't have what it takes.

But pray, God help me, help me, be patient, help me be gentle, help me not murder anyone today.

And then you wake up and you do the basic stuff, right?

You bring them to church, you bring them to Sunday school, you try to do family devotions with them in the car, you try to do children's catechism and you sing little songs.

But here's a listen, and this is true in all of life, but at least for me, nowhere more have I felt this tension.

What I do in parenting really matters.

I can have a really good influence on my kids or I can really screw them up.

And yet, if the wind of the Holy Spirit does not blow on my kids' hearts, nothing good is gonna happen eternally in their lives.

You feel that tension?

And that's true everywhere.

Do what you can do, the natural part to minister to other people.

But then you have to be prayerfully dependent.

God, you gotta show up.

Or this is all a waste, it's all in vain.

Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain, they build it.

Fourth, it is sin to proudly ask God to prove Himself to you with a sign.

Now listen, there is a humble way to ask for a sign.

We have examples in the Bible.

Probably a lot of us are familiar with Gideon.

But but it comes from a place, when rightly done, of humility, of weakness, of overwhelming.

Oh God, I can't, is this really you?

Do you really want me to do this?

This see?

I need, I'm so weak.

Please help me.

And part of what's inherent in the right kind of humility and asking something is listen, I'm gonna obey you no matter what, because you're God.

You don't owe me a sign.

I'm planning on obeying, but Lord, I would sure like a little extra encouragement down here.

There's a right way to do it.

But the Pharisees are an example of the wrong way to do it.

Arrogant, stubborn, stuck up.

I know what God's called me to do, but I don't like it.

I don't want to do it.

I don't trust it.

God, you really want me to do it, you better do something super natural out of the ordinary to convince me.

That is a dangerous place to put yourself.

Because what Christ might do is like, fine.

One of the worst things that God can do with us is just leave us alone.

Give us over to our own sinful ways.

You want to be arrogant?

Fine.

Have fun with that.

See how it works out.

It's a terrifying thing.

Again, I've made this point, but it's still, as I read it, as I study it, is shocking to me.

This group, these Pharisees, they knew the Old Testament, they knew the prophecies.

They've got God in the flesh right in front of them.

And instead of coming humbly and asking for more and trying to learn, they want to pick fights and win battles.

It's the height of insanity.

Where is God calling us?

Where's God calling you?

Where's God calling me to humble ourselves, to be broken, to be lowly, to repent of our pride, to trust him, to obey him?

The fifth thing, and this kind of goes with what I just said, but you can be in very close proximity to Jesus and still totally miss him.

You realize that?

Most of these Pharisees that we know of didn't repent.

And even more sobering than that is even when Jesus is in the boat with the 12, trying to educate them, trying to prepare them, there's one guy in that boat getting more than the Pharisees.

He's getting the 201 lessons.

He's getting next level Jesus.

And yet he didn't believe, he didn't accept.

You can come to church, you can come to Sunday school, you can read your Bible, you can do a lot of the outward things in a sense to be close to Jesus.

And yet, if there's not real inward repentance and faith, it's a waste.

Don't play games with the God of the universe.

We can play games with others, we can deceive others.

To some degree, we can play games with ourselves and deceive ourselves.

I know I've done that.

You can't deceive the Lord.

He sees it all, he knows it all.

So the sixth thing focus your heart and mind on spiritual, not earthly issues.

I mean, what Jesus is moved with compassion for the crowds that are physically hungry, but what really moves them, Jesus was not primarily a social justice warrior.

When Jesus gets in the boat, what was the heaviest thing on his heart was not that there's poor people that don't have bread.

That broke him.

He was humble, he was compassionate.

But it's like there's people that don't really have the food of my word.

Even though they have it, they don't really have it.

That's what was heavy on his heart.

That's what he was concerned about.

That's what he spent his free time thinking about.

So he's trying to warn them.

And the 12, they're so spiritually sluggish, they don't get it.

Are we ever that way?

So focused on earthly things, small things, minutia, that we miss the big thing that he's doing.

And here's the sad and scary thing, guys.

If we stay in a position of being spiritually sluggish, like the disciples were, if we don't, by God's grace, move out of that, we can move into a place of being spiritually stubborn like the Pharisees were.

Just listen to Matthew chapter 6, the last few verses.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Most of us have heard this before.

Just listen, just imagine for a second.

Maybe even close your eyes for a second if you want to, if you're into that.

You don't have to do that, okay?

But that Jesus Christ, these are the words of Jesus, are saying these words right now to you personally in your season of life in whatever circumstance you're dealing with.

Here's Jesus talking to you.

Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life.

What you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body.

What you will put on is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds of the air.

They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Are they not, are you not of more value than they?

And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

And why are you anxious about clothing?

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.

They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat?

Or what shall we drink?

Or what shall we wear?

For the Gentiles, the pagans, they seek out.

After all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Guys, is it wrong to ever think or talk about food, clothing, drink?

Of course not.

Church gets over.

You say to your spouse, hey, what do you want to eat lunch today?

It's not like you big sinner, how dare you.

Of course, some of your time, some of your energy, some of your has to go to those type things.

But for God, it's like the leftovers.

It's like, man, that's the baskets of stuff.

That's the easy stuff.

Yeah, talk about it, think about it when you need to, but it should never be heavy on your heart.

Because God's such a good dad.

He knows you.

Of course, he's gonna give you that stuff.

He feeds birds.

Who cares about birds?

They drop out of the sky like that.

You're an adopted child of the king.

Of course, he's gonna take care of you.

He does, though, want you to be very concerned about spiritual things, about sin in your own life, sin in other people's life, people's souls, your own soul.

He wants you thinking seriously about God, his kingdom, his righteousness.

Again, let me try to make this really practical.

Okay.

In parenting.

When you think about your kids, when your heart is heavy, listen, you might be the most stoic person in the universe.

But if you got kids, your heart gets all wrapped up in them, doesn't it?

And in some sense, thus it should be.

But what is it that you really think about and are concerned about when it comes to your kids?

Is it their grades, what kind of scholarship they're gonna get, how smart they're gonna be, their job, the money they're gonna make, how good they are at sports, how physically attractive they are, who they're gonna date, their cool points.

Should a parent never think about those things?

Yeah, you should think about it a little bit.

You should mainly think about their soul, their salvation, their sin struggles.

What's the heaviest on your heart when you think for your kids, when you pray for your kids?

You know, uh Tim Keller has a great quote where he essentially says, one ounce of sin, like the teeniest little ounce of sin that you can imagine, is worse than all the suffering in the world.

We should avoid sin like the plague and be willing to suffer a lot if that's what it takes to get out of sin.

It's not how I live my life, unfortunately.

I mean, losing all the money, losing all the friends, losing all the food, losing all the drink and fun and all the safety would be a better deal if I could stay out of sin than sinning a little bit to make sure I can hang on to all that.

I mean, that's how much we should prioritize our faith, our walk with God, our obedience to God, our relationship with Him.

And why?

Because He said so, but let me give you an even important reason.

Because that's how the Lord Jesus Christ prioritized us at the cross, right?

I mean, he literally lost all things that we might gain them all in him.

He even lost momentarily in his humanity his intimacy with the Father, his experience of the compassion of his father.

Why?

Because that's what we deserve.

He took it so that we can have it forever.

He has loved us so overwhelmingly, we must trust him.

Guys, you know the main reason you don't need to be asking for a sign?

We've already got a sign.

The life, the death, the resurrection of the God man in history.

That's our sign.

Only sign that we ever need.

If God loved us so much that he gave us his only son, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

He's my dad.

He runs the whole universe, he owns everything.

He's gonna give me all the good stuff that I need when I need it.

I can trust him, I can rest, I can enjoy his grace, and then by his grace, I can be a conduit of that same truth and mercy to others.

Let's pray.

Father, how good and wonderful you are, and how often slow and sluggish of heart we are to remind ourselves to remember.

Lord, help us to remember.

Help us to meditate, help us to think deeply on these things, help us to set aside time every single day, not just to go through the motions of reading our Bible and checking a box, but to feed ourselves on your word and to preach truth to ourselves just so that we can be faithful for the next 24 hours.

Because God will probably forget at some level by tomorrow morning.

Give us grace as we seek to do the natural part of the Christian life, the walking, the reading, the talking, the showing up.

Would you do the supernatural part that we cannot do?

And let the power of the wind of the Holy Spirit blow in and through our lives and in and through this church to grow us up in Christ and to use us as vessels to minister to others.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.