The Leaven of the Pharisees

We have officially made it to the halfway point of the Gospel of Mark and we will be diving into Mark 8:1-21 tonight. While we don’t have a lot of time to cover these verses, there is a lot that happens within these verses that we are going to do our best to cover. There are three main things that I want us to talk about tonight and it is these 3 things: satisfaction, provision, and influence. I think that deep down, every single person in the world wants to feel satisfaction. Do you think that it is easy to be satisfied? Do you think that feeling of satisfaction is something that is easy to find? I don’t think that it is and here’s why, deep down almost every time that we get the thing that we think will satisfy us, it always seems to come up short and leave us wanting more or something else entirely. Let me give you an example from my life, just a few weeks ago I was taking Ripley to the vet out in Clarksville and as I was on the way there, I felt that intense hunger that can only be described as absolute starvation but nothing sounded good except for one specific item and that was a McDonald’s sausage mcmuffin. The only thing that I felt could satisfy my hunger was this over processed, 400 calorie mcmuffin. So of course I did the only thing that could be done at that point, I swung into McDonalds, had a buy one get one coupon so now I’m up to 800 calories worth of mcmuffin and I’m happy, the dog’s stressed, but who cares? It’s mcmuffin time! I ate that first mcmuffin and you want to know what happened? Really nothing. I wasn’t satisfied. I tried the second one, still not satisfied. My hunger went away but it did not satisfy me like I thought that it would. I left that McMuffin experience thinking, “Meh, I wish it was better. I wish it was more.” The satisfactions of this world always leave us with a longing for more or they leave us with the feeling that we weren’t satisfied like we thought we could be. If we think we’ll be satisfied with one thing, once we get it, we won’t feel satisfied and will want more. Not so with Jesus. What we are going to see tonight is that Jesus is more than willing to provide for our greatest satisfactions. Let’s open up in prayer and then we will dive into Mark 8:1-21

Mark 8:1–21 NASB95

In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.” And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people. They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well. And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces. About four thousand were there; and He sent them away. And immediately He entered the boat with His disciples and came to the district of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” Leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side. And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? “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 you picked up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.” And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

Jesus Satisfies

Let’s start by looking at these first 9 verses. At first you might be thinking, “Wait, haven’t we already read this?” Back in Mark 6, we read about the famous feeding of 5,000 men so is it possible that throughout the years, scribes or even Mark himself got confused and recorded the same event twice? Well there are a few key facts that show us that this isn’t just a case of copy and paste gone wrong. Here are 3 key differences in no particular order: The first is that the description of the kinds of fish, number of loaves, and the size of the leftover baskets are completely different. In Mark 6, the disciples tell Jesus that they only have five loaves of bread and two fish. In Mark 8 they have seven loaves and it says that there are only a few small fish. The Greek word that Mark uses for small fish is like a sardine so it is a completely different fish than what was described in Mark 6. In Mark 8 we see that the disciples pick up seven large baskets of leftovers while in Mark 6, they pick up 12 baskets. So different fish, different sizes, different numbers. The next difference is that in Mark 6, we read that there are 5,000 men that are fed and we know that the number of women and children were not included in that count. Here in Mark 8 we see that there is specifically 4,000 people and that includes men, women, and children. The final way that we know that these are 2 separate miracles is that Jesus Himself testifies in verses 19-21 that two different events took place. So, this is not some error in the text, this is a completely different miracle. In verse 4, the disciples ask Jesus a question. Jesus says that He feels compassion for the people that have been with Him for three days and what a great reminder for us that Jesus is a God of compassion. He sees us in the state that we are in and His heart goes out to us. The question that the disciples ask Jesus is, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” What we see here and what we see later in this chapter is that the disciples still don’t get it. They still don’t get who Jesus really is. The question is not only, “Jesus how do we do this?” The question turns now to, “How do we satisfy these people?” The disciples realize that man has a satisfaction problem. Even if they have enough, will the people actually be satisfied? The problem though is that people are never satisfied. Back in Mark 6, after Jesus feed’s the 5,000, they still weren’t satisfied because as we saw in John’s account of the event, they wanted more. They didn’t want more of Jesus to meet their greatest needs, they wanted more of what Jesus gave or could do to meet their personal satisfactions. Even in the last half of these verses that we read about the Pharisees asking for a sign, they had seen signs but they weren’t satisfied! Jesus had already shown more than enough evidence that He was exactly who He claimed to be. I know that each and every one of us are looking for the answer to the question of satisfaction somewhere. We are looking for it in a person, in a position, in power, money or romance. We believe that if we get it we will be satisfied and won’t want anything else but that has never actually worked. No, in order for us to feel everlasting, never-leaving, always and forever satisfaction, it needs to come from a supernatural source. It needs to come from something that we ultimately cannot provide for ourselves. So, where do you find fulfillment? Where do you find satisfaction because I know that you are looking for it somewhere? The answer as we see is that it is only provided through Jesus.

Jesus Provides

It shouldn’t be hard for us to see that Jesus provides for the needs of the people and just as we saw with the feeding of the 5,000, there is an abundance in what Jesus offers to us. Not only does Jesus provide an abundance, He provides perfectly. It should not be lost on us that the number of loaves and the number of leftover baskets is the number 7. Why is that significant? In Scripture the number 7 symbolized completeness. It symbolizes perfection. At the end of 7 days, God created the world and said it was very good. God didn’t have part of a world to finish on day 8. God commanded the people of Israel to celebrate the Jubilee every 7 years as a reminder of their freedom from slavery. It was a day of great rejoicing because God had totally rescued His people from bondage. God didn’t save only a fraction from Egypt, He saved the whole nation. That wholeness and completeness that is associated with 7 all throughout Scripture is probably just a coincidence here right? Or could it be that as the disciples returned with 7 large baskets, Mark makes sure that we know that they aren’t walking out with doggy bags, could it be that Jesus wants us to know that He and His work are perfect, whole, complete, and His mercy, love, and grace abounds? That’s exactly what Jesus is showing these people, that’s exactly what Jesus is showing His disciples, it is only through Him that we can see the One that is able to provide and satisfy in full. There is no waste with Jesus, there is only abundance! Jesus is more than able, He is more than willing, to satisfy the greatest needs of your life because only He is able to do it! J.C. Ryle said, “We must never allow ourselves to doubt Christ’s power to supply the spiritual wants of all His people. He has bread enough and to spare for every soul that trusts in Him. Weak, infirm, corrupt, empty as believers feel themselves, let them never despair, while Jesus lives. In Him there is a boundless store of mercy and grace, laid up for the use of all His believing members, and ready to be bestowed on all who ask in prayer.” Why are we so afraid to ask Jesus to do what He is so willing and able to do? I pray that I would see Him as the answer to my longing heart. As Augustine would say, our hearts are restless until they find rest in Him. In Jesus we see the only way that will really provide for us and we also see an example that as Christians that we absolutely must follow. Jesus sees the needs of the people. He sees them and loves them and has compassion for them and I wonder if we look around and see people in the same way. Jesus cares for our physical needs then as He walked on the earth and He absolutely continues to care about your physical needs now that He sits on the right hand of God in Heaven. But do you care for the needs of the people around you. I don’t see how we can call ourselves Christian if we are not compassionate towards the people around us. This is why we are collecting for flood victims tonight because we want to show the compassion of Jesus. Jesus cared greatly for these people, He provided for these people and there is a very real chance that some of those that ate with Him that day would be in Jerusalem as Jesus was tried and crucified. Yet Jesus has compassion all the same. Charles Spurgeon said, “To attempt to be a Christian and not to live for your fellow men is hypocrisy: to suppose that you can be faithful to Christ and let these multitudes die without an effort is a damnable delusion. He is a traitor to his Master who does not enter heart and soul into the great life-work of that Master, and his life-work was “that the world through him might be saved.” So, how can you provide compassion for others? What can you do now that may make an impact for eternity? It’s not enough to just see an opportunity to show compassion. You need to actually show it. You need to meet people where they are. You need to pray for people. Far too often our prayers are too me-centered. When we talked about prayer a few weeks ago, we talked about how when Jesus prayed, He prayed always that God’s will would be done and He prayed on behalf of His people. Who have you prayed for this week? Who have you shown the love of Christ to this week?

The Problem of Influence

With just the few minutes that we have left, let’s talk about influence. I hate pushing this to the end and only taking a few minutes on it but I want you to turn in your Bibles to Mark 8:11-21 and just have that text before you. We won’t actually read it again but feel free to familiarize yourself with the passage. In these verses the Pharisees come out and they ask Jesus for a sign. Mark 8:12 says of Jesus, “Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”” This is not the groan that we saw Jesus groan with the deaf man. This is righteous anger. This is, “My perfect patience has run out.” These pharisees had every reason to believe but they wouldn’t. They could not accept the fact that Jesus was who He claimed to be. One more sign would not have made a difference. These Pharisees were in a state of permanent, spiritual blindness and even though they knew the Law and could teach pretty well, their hearts were too hard and their eyes to blind to save themselves or to save others. The time had come where Jesus had had enough. Our God is a God of great patience but He is also a God of perfect justice. In 2 Peter 3:9–10 we read, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” The Lord is patient, but the day will come when the Lord will judge and He will judge perfectly. You may think that you can push Christ off today and He will continue to be patient tomorrow but you are not guaranteed that in the slightest! God has already shown you more patience than you deserve! Don’t wait until tomorrow! Be right with God now! Tomorrow is the devil’s day, today is God’s day! Jesus warns His followers of the influence that these Pharisees had later in these verses. A time comes when Jesus and His disciples leave but they forget to bring extra bread with them. We read in Mark 8:15–16 “And He was giving orders to them, saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread.” If Jesus says look out, that’s a big thing that we need to watch out for. But what does Jesus want them to look out for? What’s all this talk about leaven of the Pharisees and Herod? Leaven acts like yeast in bread and it is this which causes bread to rise when you bake it and you don’t need a lot for bread to rise. You only need a small portion and then it goes throughout the entire dough. What Jesus is saying is that it only takes a small amount of influence from the Pharisees, it only takes a small portion of their belief, it only takes a small piece of rejection, to ruin the entire person. Even a slight rejection of Jesus goes through the entire person and impacts the entire person. So, I ask you the same question that Jesus asks the disciples, “Do you not yet understand?” Do you not yet understand the Gospel? Do you not yet understand Christ? Do you not yet understand the need for salvation and the only way to it? The Gospel is not hard to understand, a child can understand it. The words of Jesus are not hard to understand, just hard to swallow. You do not need another sign but you may need more understanding. Won’t you ask the Lord to give it to you? Everything you need to know Him, He has already provided and this provision completely and totally satisfies. We’ll finish with this quote from John MacArthur. He says, “Though the Lord has not given new revelation since the close of the New Testament canon and the passing of the apostolic age, believers have been given the complete Scripture, the Word of Christ, empowered and illuminated by the Holy Spirit. Divine revelation in the Scripture is all that they need for life and godliness. As believers immerse themselves in the truth of Scripture, they inevitably grow in sanctification and Christlikeness.” Everything you need to be satisfied, everything you need to know about Jesus in order to be saved, has already been given us in the Word of God. Let’s pray.