The Turning Point | Mark 8

Y’all can go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark 8.

I’m gonna test y’all’s memories for a moment. So at the very beginning of our series in Mark back in August I said that this book was divided into two parts. Do any of y’all even somewhat remember what those two parts are?

The first half of the book of Mark goes from chapter 1 all the way through verse 30 of chapter 8. And the purpose of the first half of Mark is to show us who Jesus is. Mark puts Jesus on display as the Son of God with all these miracles He preforms and the authority by which He speaks. All of this leads up to one big event that we’re gonna talk about tonight.

Then starting in verse 31 of chapter 8 all the way through the end of the book in chapter 16, Mark switches gears. The purpose goes from displaying who Jesus is to why He came to Earth in the form of a man. And so we learn of Jesus’ identity in the first 7 and a half chapters, and we learn what He came to do in the next 8 and a half chapters.

We are covering all of chapter 8 tonight. And this switch happens right smack dab in the middle of chapter 8.

So this is how we’re gonna walk through this. Mark chapter 8 is gonna answer three questions for us. We’ll have those three questions on the TV for y’all.

Who are we?

Who is Jesus?

What has Jesus come to do?

I encourage you to go ahead and write down these three questions if you’re taking notes, and as we walk through Mark 8 tonight, we’re gonna be getting the answers to these questions as we go along.

Alright we got a lot to cover so let’s dive into Mark 8.

1. Who are we?

Someone read verses 1 through 9 for us.

Mark 8:1–9 NLT

1 About this time another large crowd had gathered, and the people ran out of food again. Jesus called his disciples and told them, 2 “I feel sorry for these people. They have been here with me for three days, and they have nothing left to eat. 3 If I send them home hungry, they will faint along the way. For some of them have come a long distance.” 4 His disciples replied, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?” 5 Jesus asked, “How much bread do you have?” “Seven loaves,” they replied. 6 So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to his disciples, who distributed the bread to the crowd. 7 A few small fish were found, too, so Jesus also blessed these and told the disciples to distribute them. 8 They ate as much as they wanted. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven large baskets of leftover food. 9 There were about 4,000 men in the crowd that day, and Jesus sent them home after they had eaten.

This story right here is going to set the theme for the rest of this chapter. We open up chapter 8 with a large crowd gathering around Jesus (about 4,000 men are among the crowd), and they’re all hungry. Sound familiar?

What story have we already talked about that this sounds a lot like? Jesus feeds the five thousand

And so here Jesus does the same miracle again.

So I want you to put yourself in the shoes of the disciples for a moment. So this has happened before. Jesus is teaching a HUGE crowd and they’re hungry. They need food so the Jesus says, “Alright let’s feed the people.” And when Jesus fed the five thousand, He asked the disciples to gather what bread and fish they had in the crowd and Jesus multiplied it so that it fed five thousand people with all of them being satisfied.

So you’d think, same situation, the disciples would go up to Jesus and be like, “Hey Jesus. We saw you do this before. Would you do it again?” But no, Jesus asks the disciples to feed the crowd and the disciples ask Jesus, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”

C’mon. How are the disciples this blind to who Jesus is? And that’s the theme of the first section of Mark 8.

We can go ahead and hit the next slide. Who are we?

We are spiritually blind people to the glory of God (Mark 8:1-21).

The disciples still couldn’t see who Jesus was and what He was capable of. So Jesus reminds them. They gather together seven loaves of bread and a few small fish, and Jesus multiplies it to feed four thousand people. Specifically it says there were about four thousand men, so there could’ve been many more once you add women and children.

And this theme continues in chapter 8.

After Jesus feeds the four thousand, He and the disciples hop in a boat and head over to a place called Dalmanutha. And as soon as they dock, the Pharisees hear that He’s there and head over to argue with Jesus.

They start demanding that Jesus give them a sign from heaven, and we see Jesus’ response in verses 12 and 13. Someone read those two verses for us.

Mark 8:12–13 NLT

12 When he heard this, he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign.” 13 So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake.

You wanna know what’s funny? Jesus says here that He’s not gonna give the Pharisees the sign they ask for.

Why do you think that is?

Jesus just multiplied food to feed four thousand people. He did the same with five thousand people earlier. He’s healed people of many different diseases and disorders, He’s casted out many demons, He has taught the Word of God with authority. He has already given them everything they need to see! They are just blind to who Jesus is.

If they won’t believe after Jesus has done all these things, they won’t believe anything Jesus does.

Jesus is so upset they just immediately leave. They just got there and immediately leave.

But that’s not even the end of Mark 8 showing us how blind humanity is to the glory of God. If you didn’t already think the disciples and the Pharisees are blind, just wait till we read this next story.

Verse 14 opens the next story saying that Jesus and the disciples left Dalmanutha so quickly that the disciples forgot to get food. They only had one loaf of bread left. And Jesus says something that I’m sure the disciples thought was pretty strange at the time.

Someone read verse 15 for us.

Mark 8:15 NLT

15 As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, “Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.”

What is Jesus talking about?

Let’s get a little bit of context. Yeast is an ingredient used in bread dough that makes bread rise when it’s cooked. And yeast is often compared to sin in the Bible. The reason why is it only takes a little yeast (or leaven as they often call it in the Bible) to cause a whole lump of dough rise. Paul actually says in 1 Corinthians 5:6…

1 Corinthians 5:6 (NLT)

6 … Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?

In the same way, it only takes a little sin to corrupt someone and puff up their own ego.

So Jesus is saying here, “Don’t sin like the Pharisees.”

Now why is Jesus saying this? Well what did we just see the Pharisees do? They questioned Jesus and asked Him for a sign despite having a ton of evidence showing that He’s the Son of God. And what happened at the beginning of this chapter? Jesus took seven loaves of bread and three fish to feed over 4,000 people. A quality that would be very helpful in a food shortage.

So Jesus is basically telling the disciples, “Learn from these things. Don’t doubt me. Have faith in me.”

And guess what the disciples do? They begin to argue with each other because they didn’t have any bread. How blind could they be?

Jesus, probably fuming at this point, says…

Mark 8:17–21 (NLT)

17 …“Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? 18 ‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? 19 When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?”

“Twelve,” they said.

20 “And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”

“Seven,” they said.

21 “Don’t you understand yet?”…

It’s sad at how blind the disciples are.

And it’s easy for us to read this and think that. But what if I told you that if you and I were in the same position, we would do and say all the same things the disciples did?

The truth is we are all blind to the glory of God. We are incapable of seeing how great God is. But there’s good news. And that’s in Jesus.

2. Who is Jesus?

The group arrives at a place called Bethsaida, and some people bring this blind man to Jesus and ask Him to heal the man. So Jesus takes the man out of the village, spits on the man’s eyes and lays His hands on him, and asks him, “Can you see anything now?”

The man basically said, “Kinda, but I can’t see very clearly.”

So Jesus puts His hands on the man’s eyes again, and suddenly his eyesight is completely restored.

There’s a reason there’s two steps to this. Jesus didn’t run out of healing juice the first time causing Him to have to try again. No, there’s a reason for this.

Jesus shows up in this man’s life and now He can kinda see. Does that sound familiar at all?

Now I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t quit my job, leave my family, and abandon everything to follow after some random dude. I say that because the disciples knew there was something special about Jesus. Yes they are blind to the fullness of who He is, but they can kinda see. They left everything for a reason.

And we’re about to see their eyes completely opened.

This next story is what all of Mark chapters 1 through 8 have been leading up to. This story in verses 27 through 30.

Mark 8:27–30 NLT

27 Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” 28 “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.” 29 Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” 30 But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.

Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” and Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” Their eyes are finally opened to who Jesus is. They see that He is the glorious Son of God who came to save them.

But as we saw in Jesus healing the blind man, it was only through Jesus that they were able to see. Without Jesus, they were blind to the glory of God. But with Jesus, they could see God for who He is!

And that’s the answer to who Jesus is. We can go ahead and hit the next slide. Who is Jesus?

Jesus is the Messiah that gives sight to the blind (Mark 8:22-30).

So for 8 chapters, we’ve been learning that Jesus is the Messiah. He’s the Son of God sent to Earth to save the world. But there’s a still a problem. The disciples are still sinful people. Everyone else on Earth is sinful. And sin needs to be paid for. We can’t enjoy a relationship with God with our sin unpaid. And the payment is eternal judgment.

So that brings us to the third question.

3. What has Jesus come to do?

And this is the turning point in the gospel of Mark. For the next 8 chapters, Jesus is gonna answer for us, “What has He come to do?” We’re gonna see three predictions from Jesus in the next few chapters of what Jesus is going to do to save us from our sin, and we see the first one immediately going into this next section of Mark.

Mark 8:31 NLT

31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead.

They just learned that Jesus is the Messiah, and now He tells them that He has come to suffer and be killed by the religious leaders and rise three days later.

Again, imagine you’re in the shoes of the disciples here. You just learned this dude is the prophesied Messiah here to save humanity. And now He says He has come to die.

They didn’t understand why He had to die. Peter even took Jesus aside and reprimanded Him for saying these things. Imagine you just say this guy is this Messiah, then you start scolding Him about the things He’s saying.

Jesus turns around and looks a Peter and says, “Get away from me, Satan! You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Peter finally does something right, says Jesus is the Messiah, and immediately does something stupid right after.

But what Jesus is saying in His response to Peter is He doesn’t see the full picture. He’s only looking from a human point of view. He prolly thinks Jesus is gonna ride into Jerusalem and liberate the Jews from Rome. No, Jesus came to do something entirely different.

Let’s go ahead and hit the next slide.

The answer to, “What has Jesus come to do?” is…

Jesus has come to save us by dying on the cross to pay for our sins (Mark 8:31-38).

We just learned that it is only through Jesus that we have been given sight. Now we see how He does it. Sin has to be paid for. So Jesus came to pay the price we owe because of our sin.

And that’s the only way we’re able to have sight to see God for who He truly is. Our sin blinds us. But through what Jesus did for us on the cross to pay for our sins and through the Holy Spirit working in us, we can see who Jesus is and the great price that He paid for us.

And Jesus doesn’t stop there. Let’s read verses 34 through 38…

Mark 8:34–38 NLT

34 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. 36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when he returns in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

How else can we respond to this incredible sacrifice? We can’t live business as usual; seeking after worldly pleasures and living in pride. We are sinful people, but Jesus paid the price for our sins. And now we get to enjoy eternal life with God.

But before heaven, He calls us to take up our own cross. There are a lot of people who don’t know the gospel. They don’t know who Jesus is and how incredible this sacrifice is. And those who have experienced the grace of God in knowing the gospel, their only response would be to live to tell others about it. A heart saved is a heart that lives to tell about the Savior.

So I encourage each of y’all as we close. If you don’t know Jesus; if your life hasn’t been radically changed by the message of the gospel, you can accept Him as your Savior tonight. You’ve been told who He is. Is your response to continue to live blinded by your sin only for your life to end in eternal punishment for your sin? Or are you going to live your life devoted to your Savior? Please come talk to me, Haley, and any of the other adults here if that’s you tonight.

For those who already Jesus, are there still parts of your old life that you’re hanging on to? Fear, pride, lust? What’s better, to hang on to your old life or to let go of it to be used by God to save other people who don’t know Him?

Let’s get practical. Have you read the Bible this week outside of tonight? Have you have prayed? When you show up to school tomorrow, are you gonna forget about God and just live to try to fit in, or are you gonna live for what really matters?

I wanna close by just reading verses 36 and 37 again.

Mark 8:36–37 NLT

36 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? 37 Is anything worth more than your soul?