Q&A With Jesus - [Mark 8]

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Please turn with me in your Bibles to Mark Chapter 8. And as you are turning there, some of you were here two weeks ago.
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We had an elder Q &A. So we had all the elders up here. The church got to ask questions and the elders gave answers.
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And as I was reading through the book of Mark, I was looking at some of the questions in this chapter.
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And I said, you know, it'd be nice to look at it from the theme of how does it look like when you have a Q &A with Jesus?
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The only problem here is, it's not us asking Jesus the question, it's
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Jesus asking the people here the questions. We're gonna be seeing some very interesting questions in this chapter and we'll see how far we can get through Mark Chapter 8.
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But I don't know about you, when someone asks me questions, I normally, especially if I'm not prepared for it, it feels like, you know, the light in front of your eyes and everything just freezes.
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You know, when I was young, and I'm sure some of you can empathize with this, mom asked some questions. Did you do your homework?
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Depending on what time of the day the question was asked, it can be either a helpful question to get you finished, or it could incriminate you with where you are with your homework.
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And if dad questions me, did you hit your brother? I know what that means.
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There's a consequence to my actions. And more often than not, it was the teacher's questions that were intimidating.
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You know, come up there and divide 273 ,000 by 17 .5. And my first reaction is, that question is wrong.
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And I know that there must be something I'm not thinking right. I always look foolish when you come up there and you have to answer under pressure and a duress.
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But then things can get a little scarier. I hope none of you have had this experience. But if a policeman comes and asks you, where were you at the time of the crime?
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You kind of know what the policeman is thinking when he's asking you that question. Or worse still, if a judge were to ask you, how could you commit such a crime?
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You kind of know what the verdict is gonna look like. So we're gonna see a wide variety of questions here in Mark chapter eight.
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And Jesus is gonna be questioning his disciples. He's gonna be questioning the Pharisees and he's gonna be talking to someone else as well.
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And as you see Jesus bring the focus on some key issues as he's asking these people these questions, you're gonna see something exposed.
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And what's gonna get exposed is, there's a dullness in the hearts and minds of the disciples.
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And you're gonna see a certain hardness of heart that characterizes the Pharisees. And these questions in one sense, this kind of progress from the simple to the more profound.
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So as we get closer to the end of the chapter, there are some weighty questions that are gonna be answered. But our challenge this evening and my purpose this evening is that we wanna listen to Jesus.
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We wanna see Jesus lifted up as he is the one who's the ultimate savior and also the ultimate judge.
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And we wanna have those questions motivate us to live out the gospel. And if there's anyone here who doesn't know the gospel or doesn't trust in Christ as yet,
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I pray that these questions will motivate you to trust in Christ and to live in light of who he is.
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So let me just throw those questions right up front for you so you can have these in your mind.
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Some of these questions seem to be very simple. The first one is in verse five. Jesus asks his disciples, how many loaves do you have?
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Verse 12, Jesus sighs deeply and says, why does this generation seek a sign?
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And then question number three in verses 17 through 21 of Mark eight, Jesus said to them, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?
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And then he lists out a series of blithering questions to the disciples.
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And then question number four in verse 23, Jesus took the blind man by the hand and then he asked him, do you see anything?
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And we're gonna see, Lord willing, that miracle as well. Question number five in verse 27, who do people say that I am?
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Central, central question which exposes our destiny.
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And then question number six in verse 29, who do you say that I am? And the final questions in verse 36 and 37, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
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For what can a man give in return for his soul? So we're gonna see some of these questions.
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I don't think we'll get through all of them today. But the first question we're gonna begin with is in verse five.
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Jesus asked his disciples, how many loaves do you have? And simple question, not anything as weighty as the ones we see in the back.
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And there is a purpose in Jesus asking this question. You wanna think of it as a mom who's asking that question to instruct the disciples, because the disciples are gonna see something really spectacular.
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And they need to understand where they are starting and where they're gonna finish. What is it that they had in the beginning and what is it that they're gonna have in the end?
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And the disciples do give the right answer this time. They seem to be okay at math.
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They could look around, they could count and they gave the right answer. And Jesus wants them to keep that answer so that they will remember something else about who
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Christ is. So the question that we wanna ask ourselves is, what did Jesus want these disciples to learn through this question?
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And the context here is, let me just read the passage and I'll give you the context.
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We're gonna see the power of Christ as God himself demonstrated.
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And along with that, you're gonna see the compassion of Christ. Christ loves these people and wants to do something to them.
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And he wants to instruct the disciples something through his actions. So let's begin in verse one. 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,
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I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.
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And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on their way. And some of them have come from far away.
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And his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?
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And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said, seven.
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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 or kept giving them to his disciples to set before the people.
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And they set them before the crowd and they had a few small fish and having blessed them, that is the fish, he said that these also should be set before them.
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And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces leftover, seven baskets full.
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And there were about 4 ,000 people and he sent them away.
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You have a very large crowd listening to Jesus. This feeding of the 4 ,000 follows.
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It's been a few months since the feeding of the 5 ,000 that has happened a little earlier. And it is a little different from the feeding of the 5 ,000.
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There again, there was 5 ,000 men plus women and children. Here again, you have 4 ,000 men plus women and children.
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The places, both the places are kind of remote, but at least in the feeding of the 5 ,000, it's near the
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Bethsaida area. So there were villages that they could have gone and bought food. So if they had enough money, they could have bought some food and fed the people.
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But here, there's really nothing here. It is completely remote. And if you look at the feeding of the 5 ,000, it's a little earlier when the people are instructed to sit on the grass.
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Whereas here, you see the people sitting on the ground. It's much warmer. There's no more grass on the ground and the people are sitting.
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And the numbers are a little different. And the events are distinctly different.
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There are some people who would question, oh, you know what, Mark probably didn't remember one event and he made another event out of it.
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Jesus, in fact, will distinguish these two events later in this chapter. Talk about the 5 ,000, the 4 ,000.
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There was two very, very distinct miracles that happened. Now, the question, when
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Jesus asked them about the loaves is, he says, he wants the disciples to think about something.
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Jesus says, I have compassion. In the other passages, you see the writer of the gospel talking about the compassion of Christ.
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But here, Jesus himself articulates it. And then Jesus asked the disciples to meet this need.
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And the disciples here are faced with the challenge that they cannot solve on their own, but they are given that responsibility of saying, this is something that I want to do.
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And they are gonna have to think through what is in the mind of Christ and what ought they to do in this type of circumstance.
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So the first thing that the disciples do and which they do well is they obey. So Jesus asked them a question, how many loaves?
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And they look around, they count, and they give Jesus the answer, here's what we have.
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And then Jesus further instructs them, here's what needs to be done. The people need to be sitting down in order, and then the food needs to be distributed.
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They do everything that Jesus tells them to do. And then they now, as a result, can see the demonstration of God's power that is completed.
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In fact, if you look at verse eight, this was not just a demonstration of just the multiplication of food for its own sake.
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These people ate and were completely satisfied. They'd been here with Jesus for three days.
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They were out in the wilderness. These people had come to follow and listen to what
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Jesus had taught. So Jesus had been instructing these people for all this time, their food had run out, and they were far away enough from their home that they possibly could not have gotten back.
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And Jesus doesn't just feed the souls of these people by giving them the truth, but also ministers to their body when they had a physical need.
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And so the disciples here are seeing, in one sense, the power of God. Jesus does give thanks to God the
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Father to demonstrate his dependence upon God. But Jesus doesn't do miracles like the disciples would later do in the book of Acts.
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This is not them doing a miracle in the name of someone else. Jesus does it by his own authority, by his own power.
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And every single miracle that he does that is recorded for us in the gospels is to showcase, to proclaim who
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Jesus is. Jesus is God himself in the flesh who has come here to demonstrate
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God's love for mankind. And he's gonna complete his purpose, his love, by dying on the cross, as we'll see later in this chapter.
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So the first thing that the disciples were to see is the power of God. But the second element, and this is what I wanna focus on in this passage because I think it is central to this, is the compassion of Jesus for his followers and ultimately to each of us.
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Jesus, the love of God. I mean, all of us remember John 3, 16. God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
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The love of God was costly. He sent his son who was in heaven, in glory to come down and be like one of us and die on the cross on our behalf, a shameful death, in order to procure our salvation, which was precious to him.
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We see the love of God in all his actions, but very specifically here, the disciples get a eye glimpse of here is how
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God thinks. It's not just that I've taught these people and then I don't care if they die on the way back home.
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Christ cares for each and every one of them. And Jesus wants his disciples to grasp that as well as he's walking them through this miracle.
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You need to have the same love of God as Christ has for his people. And what that does is it gives you a certain responsibility as a follower of Christ for the people of God.
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Now, this text doesn't necessarily make that as your primary thrust.
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And I wanna make sure that we understand when we read narratives, when we look at, especially the gospels, you wanna make sure you understand what the author's primary intent is.
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The primary intent of Mark as he's recounting the view of Peter is to showcase this is who
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Christ is, this is his power, this is compassion, but you cannot miss the secondary application there where Jesus is instructing his disciples on the same compassion that they ought to have for the people of God and those in need.
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And I think later, if you go down to Mark chapter 10, verse 45, Jesus talks about himself.
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He says, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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In fact, the ultimate sacrifice of Christ will be the pinnacle upon which everything else will revolve around.
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The salvation of mankind will be upon that ultimate sacrifice, that ultimate service. And we are gonna be looking at that reference in relation to some of the other questions that Jesus gives.
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But just as Jesus did come to serve, there is a mandate upon the people of God, not just to be passive recipients, but to be active in the service of other people.
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So I'm gonna just give you a couple of passages so that way you know that we have other texts that elaborate that service that we are called to.
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So you don't need to turn there, but you can if you want to. Matthew 25, 31 to 46. Very famous passage talking about the goats and the sheep.
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So I'm just gonna read a small passage or a small section of that passage so that we can recognize who we are as followers of Christ.
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As Jesus is talking about this, he says in verse 34, then the king will say to those on his right, come you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
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And then he gives some evidences how they belong to this kingdom. For I was hungry and you gave me food.
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I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
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I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me.
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I was in prison and you came to me. As you look at the rest of the passage, you would see these people, these
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Christians are like, when were you Lord in all of these circumstances? We never saw you in such a need. And then
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Jesus says, as much as you did to the least of these my brethren, you did this to me. There is a change in the heart of believers that happens that no longer are we living for ourselves, but we have the heart of Christ, the heart of Christ that has compassion for his people.
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And that characterizes the way in which we live, that we also would pour our lives out for those in need that surround us.
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I'm just gonna give you another passage. So you have this in your mind before we go to the next question. And that's in James chapter two, verse 15.
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And that's a little more explicit. If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to him, go in peace, be warmed and filled without giving them the things needed for the body.
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What good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead.
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Christ here is instructing his disciples who he is, his power and his compassion.
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And those of us who follow after him need to recognize as we see in the end of the chapter, there is a cost to the discipleship of Jesus Christ.
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But it is a joyful cost because we have the heart of Christ to love the saints as Christ himself loves them.
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So that's the first question, simple question. And now we're moving on to a much more challenging one.
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And this one is in verse 12 of Mark eight. And there Jesus deeply sighed in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign?
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You can think of this as a judge. Here is Christ looking down at these people who have come and asked him a question.
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And it's not a question that's gonna get an answer like the last one. This is a rhetorical question. There's really gonna be no answer to this, but it's a painful question because Jesus is piercing into the hearts of those who have asked him that question.
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And not just is he exposing their unbelief, but he's actually gonna pass judgment on them as well.
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Here is a person with a hard heart who has come to Christ and Christ exposes the nature of this heart.
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So before we read that section from verses 10 through 13, I want you to think of this question. What is a sign?
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Because Jesus says, why does this generation seek a sign? Think that as we go through this verse.
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Verse 10, this is after feeding the 4 ,000. Immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanuta.
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The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.
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And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign?
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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.
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If you look at the geography of this place, Jesus in the end of chapter seven has just done some mighty healings on the
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Gentile side. And it is quite possible that that's the region where he was when he was feeding the 4 ,000.
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And he comes now by boat to the other side, to the district of Dalmanuta. And here he is encountered by the
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Pharisees and they are asking him for a sign. Now let's step back and ask this question.
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What are signs? When we think of signs, these are things that point to something else.
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So if you're going on the highway, you see a sign that says a Worcester 10 miles, you know that if you keep going down on this highway, you're gonna meet
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Worcester after 10 miles is passed. And the signs there don't talk about Worcester itself.
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When you read Worcester, it doesn't mean this is Worcester, but this is a sign that is pointing to something else.
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So signs in and of themselves have nothing to convey, but they are powerful in that they point to something else.
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And so when you look at a sign, you're looking at what is it that they point to? Now, the question you wanna ask yourself is, is this question from these
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Pharisees a valid one? They sought from him a sign from heaven to test him.
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And to examine that aspect of that question, you wanna just look back. What kind of signs did
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Jesus need to do? What kind of signs has Jesus already done? In fact, right here,
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Jesus has just finished a powerful sign, the feeding of the 4 ,000, the multiplying of food, just taking seven loaves of bread.
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And these breads, we didn't look at this in the earlier section, but when it was finished, you had these basketfuls, seven basketfuls.
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And these were not the small baskets that you have in the feeding of the 5 ,000. You had 12 small baskets when the 5 ,000 were fed, but here you have seven hampers full of food that were collected when the food was multiplied.
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This was a mighty act of God that was to showcase who
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Christ was. So when people saw the sign of the multiplying of the food, they were to say, Jesus, you are God himself.
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And it was not the only miracle. Jesus had done healing in plenty.
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Jesus has done mighty exorcisms where he has chased out demons.
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He has healed the blind who are born blind, unheard of in the culture.
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And everyone who came to him has received healing and gone from them. And in fact, he has even raised people from the dead.
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He has done all of these miracles which signify, which point to who
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Jesus is. And then these Pharisees have the audacity to come to him and say, we want a sign from heaven.
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What do they actually mean? What they're actually saying is, listen, you are multiplying food on the earth.
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You took bread that seen on the earth and you multiplied it. Why don't we see a sign from heaven?
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Like Moses brought food from heaven down. Why don't you do something like that? Maybe then we will believe.
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Or how about something like Elijah? He brought on fire from heaven.
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We wanna see something spectacular from the skies. Something that just blows our minds away.
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But even if they had asked that with a real intent, that would have been okay. But the purpose of their question was to test him.
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They had already seen all the various evidences that God had chosen to give them.
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Jesus had done these mighty miracles. It wasn't just in Galilee. Jesus had done these miracles in Judea where the center of the
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Pharisees were located. He had done this in Galilee. He has done this across the nations that are surrounding them in the last couple of months.
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So Jesus is not just doing these miracles in a corner where nobody has seen. Everybody has seen this.
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Nobody questions the miracles themselves that have been done. And yet these Pharisees are saying, you know what?
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You may have done all of these things, but we will be the judge. We want signs that we think will satisfy us and you better perform them for us, for us to trust in you.
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And when you think of the heart of unbelief, this is basically it. It is Jesus, I don't care what you have done.
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I have my standards. I have my questions and they have to be answered my way.
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And when such a question is asked, Jesus does not answer.
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The problem with these Pharisees, and if you look at the parallel passage in Matthew, you will see that you have the
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Sadducees and the Herodians. Basically, this is a group of guys that are all coming to say, you know, we need to some way or other discredit
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Jesus. And these Pharisees had chosen to trust their man -made religion,
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Phariseeism, legalism, the man -made traditions that they had committed themselves to and they basically are saying, this is what we trust.
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We will not trust you. And here is the way in which we are gonna discredit you by asking for things that we want.
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And the one thing that I want us to get from this passage, when Jesus says this, he says, why does this generation seek a sign?
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He is not just talking merely of the Pharisees. He's talking about the people, the culture, the world that we live in.
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And he says, all of these people, this is basically what's in your hearts and in your minds. All you're looking for is the spectacular signs, all these other things, but you will not trust in the man that God has appointed, the man that God has sent and the man who has demonstrated with mighty miracles already who he is.
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And that is because of your hard hearts and your man -made religion.
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And now when Jesus asked this question, he basically says, I will not give any sign.
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And then he walks away from this place. And I think that can be the most sad thing that ever can happen.
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You know, when you are in the presence of God, you've seen the power of God and you have closed your heart to who
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God is. And as far as these Pharisees were concerned, they probably didn't know that the end was close.
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The cross was not too far from where this is. In fact, in chapter eight, we're gonna see Jesus talk about the cross and he is going to die very soon and he's no longer gonna be here on earth.
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These Pharisees were just intent on discrediting him, but what they didn't know is there is a time when time runs out.
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We have a God who is very patient, but we have a God who has also appointed an end.
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Those of you here who are believers need to keep that in mind as you are giving the gospel, be faithful to the gospel.
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There are gonna be people who are gonna be blind to the truth, who just want things their own way, but do not let that seize you or detract you from giving the gospel.
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Because if you go after feeding the appetites of the unbelievers, you will never end because they will just want bigger and bigger and bigger signs.
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And if there's anyone here today who does not trust in Christ, you wanna ask yourself this question. What does it take for you to believe?
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We have everything that we need. God has revealed himself in the pages of scripture. Christ has come and done what was needed for you to be reconciled with God.
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And if you would put off your faith in Christ, remember there is a time when Christ is gonna come back again, and that might be today.
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And you do not want to put aside your destiny, your eternity, because of your unbelief.
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There are a couple of passages, I'm not gonna read them in detail, but you can just go back and look at this. Romans chapter two, verses three to five.
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This characterizes this generation that we live in. People presume on the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience in verse four, not knowing that God's kindness was meant to lead us to repentance.
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But because of, and Paul says, it's because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
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God's righteous judgment would be revealed. And that is a powerful indictment of this world that we live in, where people just put up these hard hearts that they assume that God would just be forever patient, but there is a time when, in this case,
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Jesus leaves the region and leaves these men to their, in their sin.
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The other passage that I'd like you to maybe go back and look at is 2 Peter chapter three, there in verses four through 10,
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Peter gives a very powerful illustration of this folly that blinds this world that we live in.
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Peter says, they will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
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As you give the gospel, there are people who would just say, you know what? I don't believe this because everything is just going as it did yesterday, the year before, a hundred years before.
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But Peter goes on to talk about how everything that we see was created by the power of God. Everything that we see is upheld by the power of God.
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And there is going to come a day when God is going to come back and judge this world. In verse seven, by the same word, the heavens and earth with that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
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But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.
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The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
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But the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
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This is as certain as night comes and the day follows the next time. We do not know that appointed day, but God is surely coming.
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And this ought to be a caution for those who would put off belief by asking for all sorts of signs. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of these signs.
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And in him, we have everything that we need to know about God. He is the exact representation of the father.
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And our responsibility is to trust in him rather than to test him as these
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Pharisees did. So we've seen the first question to the disciples, how many loaves?
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The second question, which is a rhetorical question, which is a question of judgment about the signs that an unbelieving generation asks.
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And the third question is seen in verses 17 through 21. And this one gets real personal to each of us.
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Jesus said to them in verse 17, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? And then he goes on through a series of questions.
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Do you not, he questions where their heart is, what their understanding is, where their ears are, where their eyes are, and then ask them again, do you still not understand?
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And there is something that has gone on here. And these questions are like a searchlight.
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There is something that is missing in the disciples and Jesus questions are meant to provoke them, to wake them up from the slumber that they are in.
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Think of Jesus here, like I said, like a police siren that's just going on. Here you are driving or suddenly going over speeding.
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And then when you see the lights, the first thing is look at your dashboard. Oops, something is wrong. Same thing with the disciples.
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They've been just slumbering. And when Jesus asked these questions, they are made to wake up.
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And we're gonna see how the kindness of God is revealed even through these very, very searching questions that the disciples are basically speechless.
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You have no answer from them for these questions, at least the questions that question their state.
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And before I read this verse, starting at verse 14, the problem is this, Jesus uses the term leaven.
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And that term leaven is meant to be a metaphor. It is meant to point to something else, whereas the disciples are gonna take it literally.
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And that's where their problem is. Jesus is gonna speak about something else and he's using earthly terms and the disciples will just get caught up in the earthly term itself.
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So beginning in verse 14, now they, that is the disciples, had forgotten to bring bread and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
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And he cautioned them saying, watch out, beware of the leaven of the
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Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And this is just following this event where they had left the
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Pharisees on one side and they're crossing over on the boat. Verse 16, and they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.
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And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?
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Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, do you not see?
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Having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? And then he gives them instruction in verse 19.
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When I broke the five loaves for the 5 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?
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They know this one. They said to him, 12. And the seven for the 4 ,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?
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And they said to him, seven. They remembered it's just passed. And he said to them, do you not yet understand?
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In the parallel passage in Matthew, Matthew clarifies, they woke up, they got the message.
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But what was the message that they needed to understand? Let's spend a few minutes. We'll probably close with this section this evening.
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Now, as I said, Jesus uses leaven as a metaphor, but the disciples take it literally.
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It begins in verse 14 by saying that the disciples forgot to take bread.
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They had just one loaf of bread with them. And if you think about it, they are here in Dalmanutha. This is on the west side of the
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Sea of Galilee. It's on the more populated side of Galilee. And now they're gonna be going towards Bethsaida, which is not as populated.
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So if they wanna think about food, the right place to buy it would have been, we were in Arizona and when you're driving there for five hours, there's no real place except like very small villages.
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You better be packed with food. So if you missed it, then you're probably gonna be hungry for a while.
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So here are the disciples. They forgot to get the food. They just have one loaf of bread and that's probably weighing in on their mind.
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And when Jesus talks about leaven, the first thing that they can think of is bread. We blew it and Jesus found us out.
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But I think the right way for us to think about it is like this. Let's assume, I mean, I know some of you do have this responsibility.
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You have a key to this building and you are meant to come here and open the church, doors before the people come.
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So you come here Sunday morning early because you know you were supposed to come, daylight savings and all, but you forgot your key.
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And so you are standing here, there's a crowd gathering, there's a lot of people and then Pastor Mike comes there and you're starting to sweat.
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And so Pastor Mike says something like this. He says, you know, the key to worship is to enter his gates with thanksgiving and praise.
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So when you hear the word key, you're not thinking about the worship of the Lord, you're thinking
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I missed my key. And that's basically what happens here. These guys are so preoccupied with what they missed that they completely miss out on what
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Jesus was saying. In this case, if you just ask Pastor Mike, he has a key at all times, he could just open it for you.
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And the same thing is true here. Jesus has just done multiplying seven loaves of bread for 4 ,000 people.
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One loaf of bread, I think Jesus could have handled those 12 disciples who were in this boat.
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All they had to do was just ask Jesus, but what had happened was they were so caught up in the earthly matter that they missed out.
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It just went right over their head, what Jesus was talking about here with 11. So they are partly guilty because, you know, they failed in their provisions, but they are fully guilty when it comes to missing out on the weighty spiritual issue that Jesus was talking about.
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Now, what is this weighty spiritual issue that Jesus was instructing them on?
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He tells them, watch out, this is a urgent thing that they needed to be cautioned about because this is something that they could be in danger of, and they needed to be very careful of something.
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Now, he uses the term leaven. Leaven, a little yeast we use in dough, and the dough rises up.
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I have never baked myself, but I've eaten the products thereof, and I understand how this principle works.
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So you just need a little bit of it to make this entire dough rise up and perform its function.
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And the way that Jesus talks about the leaven, especially of the Pharisees, is talking about the dangerous manner in which a little bit of false doctrine that these
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Pharisees are teaching, when they get into your food system, into your understanding of who
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God is and how you are to worship, that can just corrupt your entire understanding of God. You can no longer worship in spirit and in truth if you buy in to a little bit of this dangerous instructions of the
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Pharisees. Think of it like poison. You have a great banquet spread, but you just have a little bit of cyanide on it.
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Just one little thing. Doesn't matter. No, watch out.
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This is extremely dangerous. It's pernicious, and you need to be very, very careful of what it is that these
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Pharisees and the Herodians are doing. Now, what specifically is
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Jesus cautioning them about when it comes to the Pharisees and the Herodians? So in the immediate context, it is one of crass unbelief.
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So here are the Pharisees. They have seen the power of God demonstrated. They have seen who Jesus is in a couple of years, in various contexts, in all sorts of mighty ways, and then they have the audacity to say, you know what?
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I don't care what you have done. I want this done my way. They have, if you look at John chapter, end of John chapter two and beginning of John chapter three, you see even the
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Pharisees, they see these things. How can these things be? When Jesus first bursts on the scene, they are amazed at who
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Jesus is. But soon enough, the work that Jesus does, oh yeah, you know, it's like opening the newspaper and seeing a headline,
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Jesus does another miracle. This, I don't care. You know, now I'm just gonna let these spectacular works of God just become blasé.
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I'm not, those don't move me anymore because now I want things my way. And that's basically the heart of unbelief that lay at the root of these
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Pharisees. And as I said earlier, the reason they chose to disregard the works of God was because they were already committed to something else.
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The Pharisees were committed to their man -made religions. They had the tradition that they had been piling up on top of the word of God so much so that the word of God no longer was an operation.
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They had raised their traditions to be of such value that this was what they thought made them right before God.
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And they discarded, Jesus would condemn them for putting aside God's word in order for traditions.
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And so the legalism that had pervaded their thinking corrupts them and does not allow them to see the mighty work of God that is done right there before their eyes.
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And Jesus wants his disciples, do not let that false teaching get into your system.
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Now, along with the Pharisees, Jesus also wants them about the Herodians. The Herodians, and in Matthew, we have the
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Sadducees as well. So while the Pharisees were legalists who followed man -made traditions, the
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Sadducees were the liberals. They basically were in charge of the priestly functions.
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So they were very wealthy, but they basically had no regard for the word of God. They didn't believe in the resurrection.
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They said, have your good life now. This is basically all there is to it. Just be wealthy, enjoy everything that you can have.
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And the Herodians were the secularists who were in conjunction with Rome. And they basically were looking for political power and everything else.
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They had forgotten that God had a purpose for Israel. God had a calling on his people to worship him in spirit and in truth, and instead had followed all these various man -made systems and they were entrenched in their ways.
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And the disciples, which are still a small bunch of guys out here, they are surrounded by all these false teachings and unbelief that is so pervasive in the culture.
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And Jesus says, watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees. Because these thinking that the disciples are seeing every time, no matter where they go, that they encounter, can very easily come in just one drop of poison and it can corrupt your thinking as well.
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And you can no longer worship when you take, when you buy in to the false teachings of these
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Pharisees. Now, having said that, let's now focus in on where it applies to each of us today.
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So Jesus then asked these caving, blistering questions.
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I am so glad I wasn't there on the boat. I know I wouldn't have done any better if I was there, but this is instructive for us just to look back, you know, 2000 years later, here is the challenges that the disciples faced then.
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And there are similar challenges that you and I face today as well, if you will be honest about our spiritual state.
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Now, how does Jesus wake them out of their stupor? So the disciples here have been so caught up on the food and Jesus talks about the leaven of the
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Pharisees. And then he says, you know what? Let me come down to you.
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Jesus reaches down to where the disciples are. Okay, you're talking about bread. Let me explain something about bread first.
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So he asked them these questions that we just read in verses, in the end of verse 18, do you not remember?
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So there is something that the disciples actually were forgetting even in this immediate context. They knew the power of God.
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Jesus has just done these multiplication of the loaves, but in the frenzy of everything that is going on, they had forgotten who the power of God.
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Jesus was capable of taking care of this need, but they were so caught up in the wrong thing.
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Their eyes were fixed on earthly things, not on Christ himself and on heavenly things. So Jesus asked them these questions, rehearse what has just happened.
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Feeding of the 5 ,000, feeding of the 4 ,000. And as you reflect upon what God has done, you remember the power of God.
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You are no longer caught up in this little Pradeep solution for my little problem that I have in, but instead my eyes now go back to Christ.
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Yes, my God has saved me. He's the one who rescued me and he's powerful enough to deal with this one loaf of bread in the boat.
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And this time the disciples pass the math question again. They remember the numbers, they give them numbers, right?
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And as they are saying, they're like, yes, we know who Jesus is. And there is a urgent need for each of us to remember what
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God has done for us. And when we go back to the scriptures, we wanna remember who
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God is. It's like, oh yes, I talk to myself sometimes. I know that book in the
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Bible. I don't think I need to read that again. I just read it a few months back. No, I don't. I need to read that constantly because I'm a forgetting person just like these disciples are and so are you.
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We need to remember, we need to recollect what God has done in the pages of scriptures and we need to remember what God has done in each of our lives.
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Now, I wanna expand these questions that Jesus has asked the disciples.
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Now, the disciples have some light. They know who Jesus is. In fact, after the feeding of the 5 ,000 in John chapter six,
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Jesus gives some really, really tough truths about who he is.
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Unless you eat the flesh of the son of man, you shall not have life.
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Everybody leaves. But his disciples, the men who are on this board, didn't. And Peter would say, where would we go to,
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Lord? You have the words of eternal life. They have already made their commitment. They are not like the Pharisees.
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They know where their lot is. They are fully on board with Jesus.
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They are in his boat right now. But there are times when they too will forget.
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And in fact, there is gonna be something that happens in the life of the disciples. The disciples are unique in one sense because up until this point, they still don't have the full revelation of God's purposes in and through the person of Jesus Christ.
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In fact, later in Mark chapter eight, Jesus will give them that bombshell.
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Here is why I have come. And then their world will explode even more. He has come to die on the cross on our behalf.
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And after the resurrection, a lot of the things that Jesus has said will solidify on these men. These men, when empowered by the spirit and acts, they will then just go out and live out that powerful calling that God had placed upon them.
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But at this point in time, these disciples have a commitment to Christ, but they still don't have the full understanding of who
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God is or who Jesus is and his purpose in redemption.
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But they're not like the Pharisees. The Pharisees do have hardened hearts. They have seen all of these things and they just have hard hearts like Pharaoh, who saw all the miracles that God did, the plagues that was brought upon and didn't help him to recognize who
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God was and to trust in God. Now, the questions that Jesus asks are so intense that I think it just helps us to reflect upon them a little bit more.
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You see this thing about having ears to hear. In Matthew 11, 15, Jesus says, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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When Jesus was talking about in parables, those parables were meant to showcase spiritual truths through simple daily activities or events or objects.
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But they were powerful towards those whom God has called. But at the same time, they were blind to those who didn't have the ears, could not see it.
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So the parables on one sense were veiled to the perishing, but were illustrating the spiritual truths to those who were called by God.
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And in fact, in Acts 28, if you look at verse 27, Paul quotes
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Isaiah and he talks about how the people's heart has grown cold. Their ears can barely hear, their eyes are closed.
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They can see with their, less they can see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart in turn, and I would heal them.
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That's a judgment on the people who do not trust in God. And what Jesus is doing here, he's not saying that these disciples are unbelievers.
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He's basically like shaming them into the similarity that they have with unbelievers in regards to their dullness of their hearts.
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And you and I today, and I think this is what you want to take away from here. You and I can miss the point of what
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God is doing today in our lives. We could be in that boat with Jesus and then just be so completely caught up with the things of the world that we miss out the weighty instructions and the urgent need to follow after God.
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So how do we do that? So when you open up the scriptures, you want to be careful to ask for the spirit of God to instruct you, to illuminate you so you can actually understand the scriptures for what they say.
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It's very easy to just open up a passage and say, oh, this is what it says. This is what it means. Go off and fall over a cliff.
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Hopefully we don't do that. But the danger more often is not in understanding, especially those of you who come here regularly, you get the feeding of the word.
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You know how to understand scriptures. You had the Sunday school last week on context and how to interpret scriptures.
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But very often it is in the application. We know what the scripture says, but how do we live this out?
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We want to make sure we understand how we live out the truths that God has called us to. And not just in the scriptures in our own lives, as I said, you can see what
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God has done in your life. Everyone who calls yourself a believer here knows the power of God in your lives, just as the disciples had seen
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Jesus do these mighty things. It doesn't have to be spectacular miracles, but you know the presence of God and the power of God in your life as you go through your overcoming sin and in dealing with the circumstances of life that God has sovereignly placed you in.
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And you know how God has been your mainstay and your staff and your refuge. And yet when the next storm comes, it is so easy for me and for you to forget the power of God that has sustained us through those storms and then start looking down at the earth and not look up to God, our strength.
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And that's why it is vital for us to remember as you meditate upon the scriptures, as you look back at what
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God has done and be thankful for his work in your life, that you fix your eyes upon who
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God is, who Christ is, what he has done and what he still does in your life.
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And as you do this, I think we should take heed to the warning that Jesus says, watch out for the leaven of the
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Pharisees and that of Herod, because we are surrounded by a world which has its corrupting influences pervasive.
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And if you do not think carefully, very soon, what is the mores and the customs of the people can very easily seep in.
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Everybody does it this way. I haven't even thought why this should be a problem. And that's why
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God instructs us. If you go to 1 John 2, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, here are the things that are so pervasive around us.
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And we need to guard our hearts and minds as we say, Lord, I will watch out for these things because it is you that I need to keep my eyes fully on.
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And when we look at the falsehood of the Pharisees, they came there to test
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God. Our responsibility is not to test God, but to trust him.
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He will fulfill everything that he does in your life. We don't need to say, well, let me see if God would do this, but say,
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God, I trust you. Remind me, I wanna see how you will do these things in my life, because I know you are good.
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And on the other hand, instead of testing God and you wanna trust him, and on the other hand, you wanna not trust in your traditions and mores.
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Each of us comes from various backgrounds where some things are more familiar to us than others. So I may have, coming from my
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Indian background, there are certain sins that are so prevalent in my culture that I may not even think about them twice.
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Oh, you know, this is what everybody does. But as the word of God places its light sharply on you, you wanna say,
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God, rescue me because I'm letting this leaven from the world come into my life.
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And so must you, as you live in this culture, whether it is in your workplace, with your families that are unconverted, and even converted, we come from this world and we wanna examine our lives in the light of the scriptures so that we would not just trust our traditions, but rather test them in light of the scriptures, because our trust is only in the power of God.
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And I think we should probably close with this verse in Romans 12, verse two, which is very familiar.
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Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
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Let us pray. Our loving and gracious Father, we thank you for the words that you have preserved for us.
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We are always in awe, oh Lord, as we look at the life of Christ, his teachings and his power.
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Lord, even as we reflect upon the might of Christ in multiplying the food for the 4 ,000, when we look at his judgment upon the
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Pharisees who with their hard hearts would dare to test him, and even
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Lord, at the probing questions of Jesus, as he reminded his disciples.
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We pray, Father, that you would guard and protect us. Lord, we know that Christ began this good work in us and he will indeed perfect it at the very end.
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And Lord, as we walk through this life, as we are made more and more like you, I pray for each of these dear saints here that you would help them, oh
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Lord, to remember who you are in the pages of scriptures and in their lives. And I pray for any who do not know you that you would be so gracious as to open their eyes and give them a new heart, a heart that can trust in you and follow after you.