Discipleship Requires a Good Memory

Welcome back to our study of the Gospel of Mark, Lessons in Discipleship. As I remind you nearly every week, these lessons are directed toward believers. Even in the opening chapter of Mark, when Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John, we need to recognize that these men already knew Him. They had been taught by Jesus, and they had already believed in Him for eternal life. So when Jesus calls these fishermen to drop their nets and follow Him, this was not their call to salvation—it was their call to service. When He says, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men,” He is inviting them into a life of mission and ministry, building on the faith they already possessed.

It is crucial to understand the difference between what is required for discipleship and what it means to receive the gift of eternal life. When a person believes in Jesus Christ for eternal life, when they are convinced they will “go to heaven” simply by believing in Jesus, they are "saved”. They will enter Christ’s eternal kingdom and nothing can change that. The theological term for this is eternal security, and Baptists put it this way. Once saved always saved. Simply put the only condition to receive eternal life is to believe in Jesus for it. So, let me put it this way. Heaven is the gift, not the goal. And that might sound strange to your ears so let me explain this.

If your goal is to live a good enough life to make it to heaven, then you have been lead astray. Works do not save us. Jesus saves us. We receive our eternal life simply by believing in Him. You see, heaven is the gift. In short, we need eternal life and the only person who can give it is Jesus, and Jesus gives it to whoever believes in Him. So, we aren’t trying to work our way to heaven. It is a gift we receive from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Which raises an interesting question. What is the goal then? If we receive “heaven” as a gift at the beginning of our spiritual lives, then what are we working towards? I’m so glad you asked. And this is where discipleship comes in. All of us as believers are commanded to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and faithfully serve Him. And if we remain faithful to the Lord during our Christian lives, then Christ will give us the privilege of ruling with Him in His kingdom. Let me point you to a couple of verses.

Matthew 25:23 NKJV

23 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

And here is one more verse from Luke’s Gospel

Luke 19:17 NKJV

17 And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’

Here is what is so amazing to me. Not only does God give us eternal life as a gift, but He gives us the honor and privilege to serve Him and take part in His plan. But that’s not all, He gives eternal rewards to the believers to faithfully serve Him.

So when we talk about discipleship, we are not talking about how to enter the Kingdom—that is God’s gift, received freely by faith in Christ. Discipleship is about how we live in response to that gift. It is the lifelong process of growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Discipleship means faithfully serving the Lord because He has already saved us. It means following Him daily so that, at the end of our journey, we might hear those words: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

The goal of discipleship is not securing heaven—that is already settled in Christ—but being found faithful, so that we may share in His joy, reign with Him in His Kingdom, and receive the rewards He promises to those who endure in faithfulness.

Ok, so that’s my two cents on discipleship. Now let’s begin working our way into today’s passage. Last week we saw Jesus once again perform a miraculous feeding for a hungry crowd in the wilderness. To be clear, this is the second time in Mark’s Gospel that He has fed a multitude out in the middle of nowhere. The first feeding took place back in chapter 6, and the audience was primarily Jewish. But here in chapter 8, the crowd is largely Gentile.

It is important that we recognize the difference between these two feedings. Why? Because together they teach us that Jesus is the Bread of Life—not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. In the first feeding, He provided for Israel in the wilderness, echoing God’s care for His covenant people. In the second, He extended that same compassion to the nations. In other words, the coming Kingdom of Christ is rooted in God’s promises to Israel, but it will also include people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Jesus, the Bread of Life is for all.

One of the aspects of the feeding of the Gentiles that I pointed out last week was how slow the disciples were to catch on to what Jesus was going to do. Here they were again with Jesus in the wilderness, surrounded by a hungry crowd with no food. When Jesus says, “We need to give these people something to eat, or they may faint on the way home.” you would think the disciples might remember what He had done before. It seems reasonable to expect that they would say, “Lord, here are the few loaves we have—You can feed the multitude.”

But do they? No. Once again, the disciples are slow to understand. And that was the title of last week’s lesson: “Disciples Can Be Slow to Learn.” We need to understand this is one of the big takeaways from Mark’s Gospel, the disciples are slow to learn. In fact, in the coming chapters we are going to see Jesus teach things to HIs disciples repeatedly. And even then, they don’t get it.

But here’s the encouragement: their slowness is not the end of the story. Jesus doesn’t give up on them. He keeps teaching, keeps correcting, keeps shaping them into the men who will one day turn the world upside down.

And if we’re honest, that’s good news for us too. Listen, discipleship is not going to be instant maturity — it’s about progressive growth under the faithful guidance of the Master.

So, as we get ready to tackle our text for today, once again we are going to see the disciples being slow to learn. Jesus is teaching them in the boat, and he says, “beware the leaven of the Pharisees”. Now, we need to understand leaven is something that is added to dough to make bread rise. In fact, yeast is a type of leaven. But when Jesus mentions the leaven of the Pharisees; He isn’t talking about the Pharisees baking bread. Jesus is using leaven as a metaphor to present a spiritual truth. But it goes right over the disciples heads. You see, the disciples are worried because they forgot to bring extra bread when they got in the boat. So, as soon as they hear the word leaven they start thinking Jesus is angry with them because they forgot to bring extra bread for the journey.

Now here again, we read this and we think to ourselves how on earth could these knuckleheads have missed this? They just watched the Lord fed a multitude of 4000 men with seven loaves of bread. How did they not realize that Jesus could provide the bread for the journey. We read this account, and we are quick to shake our heads and point out the disciples lack of faith and understanding. But we need to realize that this account shows us something about ourselves. It shows us what little faith we can have when it comes to Jesus providing for our needs.

Think about it. All of us have seen God provide for us in the past. He has seen us through storm after storm, and trial after trial. But what happens as soon as we see storm clouds gather on the horizon? What happens the second we head into another one of life’s storms? I’ll let you what often happens. We go into panic mode. We start to panic, and it is like we forget all the previous things God has done for us. We forget that He is all we need, and if He is in the boat with us, then He will provide. And this is exactly what happens to the disciples. They run short of food and it causes them to panic. And all of us have acted like this at some point or another. Especially when it comes to our physical resources. Right. I mean how many of us in here have gone through financial hardships in the past? How many of us have fretted ourselves to death worrying about how we were going to make ends meet? You see, financial hardships tend to give us spiritual amnesia. We get so focused and stressed out worrying about our lack of money or physical needs that we forget all that God has provided in the past.

So, here is one of the big takeaway for today’s lesson.

Don’t let present fear make you forgot what God has done in the past.

Ok, with all that being said. Let’s get ready to dive into our text, and as we prepare to study let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

The main focus on our study today is going to start at verse 14 of Mark chapter 8, but I want to quickly cover a few verses leading up to our passage. Now remember Jesus has been in predominately gentile areas, and at the end of last week’s lesson we saw Jesus get into a boat and return to Jewish territory. Well, as soon as they return to Galilee here come the Pharisees. Let’s pick up at verse 11.

Mark 8:11–12 NKJV

11 Then the Pharisees came out and began to dispute with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, testing Him. 12 But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.”

Now, I want us to realize that this is a negative encounter. It says, the Pharisees began to dispute with Him. This word in the Greek means to argue with persistence, and it is says they were seeking a sign form heaven, testing Him. Now remember, they had already accused Jesus of performing miracles by the power of Satan. So, they are wanting Him to prove that all the miracles He had performed were really done by the power of God. And it says they were asking for a sign, testing him. This word testing here is also significant. This is only the second time Mark has used this word, and the first time the word occurs in Mark was when Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness. So, here is the point. These guys were up to no good. It wouldn’t have mattered what sign Jesus gave them, they would never believe. In fact, I think they wanted Him to perform a miracle so that they can some how use it against Him. No matter what He did they would say that He had done it by the power of Satan.

Here is an interesting one liner that I came across during my prep time.

Unbelief always demands more proof, but faith rests on what God has already revealed.

The Lord had already provided the proof that He was the Messiah and they had rejected Him. Nothing that He did was going to convince them.

Mark 8:12 NKJV

12 But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.

Then verse 12 says, “He sighed deeply in His spirit”. I want us to understand that Jesus is heartbroken over this. “He sighed deeply” translates a single word in the original language which means

Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament ἀναστενάζω

Anastenazo

I read this definition and I can almost feel it. We know what this feels like. Right. We have all had those experiences that broke hearts before, and it causes us to groan like this. We can feel it internally. It feels like something broke inside of us. That’s probably why we refer to it as having our heart broken because that is what it feels like. It feels like something inside of us has been broken. And Jesus groans over there unbelief and the hardness of their hearts. And then He responds.

Mark 8:12 NKJV

12 But He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.”

Notice is says to “this generation”. Believe it or not this is extremely important. Most of Christianity today thinks that God is done with Israel. They embrace what is called “replacement theology”. And replacement theology teaches that the church has replaced Israel. I could not disagree more. God is not done with Israel. The church did not replace Israel, and this verse points to that. It says, “no sign shall be given to this generation”. Simply put, because Israel rejected their Messiah the kingdom has been postponed. In other words, the Kingdom is not coming to the Jews of the 1st century. But the Kingdom is coming, and Jesus will rule as King of the world from the throne of David. But that is yet to come.

And then verse 13 says,

Mark 8:13 NKJV

13 And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side.

Now, I don’t think I can overstate the importance of what has just happened here. Notice this verse says, “He left them and… departed to the other side.” I want us to realize that these words left and departed carry a lot more weight then just changing locations. You see, this is the last time that Mark’s Gospel ever records Jesus being in Galilee. Tragically the Jews have missed the coming of their Messiah. They’ve rejected Him. Jesus will no longer publicly offered the Kingdom to the Nation. From this point on Jesus will now begin to focus on teaching His disciples as He begins to prepare them for what lies ahead, and by the end of this Chapter Jesus will make the turn south and begin HIs final journey to Jerusalem to endure the cross. What a wonderful savior indeed!

So, Jesus leaves Galilee for the final time, and He is now back in the boat with His disciples. We need to realize there is some heavy heavy stuff going down. He’s just left His hometown, where is was rejected and I think He is heartbroken over it. That is what we saw a couple of verses earlier. He signed or groaned deeply in His spirit. And meanwhile His disciples are in the boat freaking out because they had forgotten to take bread. In fact, let’s go ahead and read verse 14.

Mark 8:14 NKJV

14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.

And as I mentioned earlier we shake our heads here, and we wonder how the disciples could be worried about not having enough bread for the journey. I mean how could they worried about what they were going to eat. Jesus is with them in the boat. But here again let me point something out: this is holding up a spiritual mirror for us. And it shows us what we all do when our resources run scare. I mean it’s easy to point our finger at them, until we don’t where our next meal is coming from. Let’s see how much faith we have then. And I’m going to make another point about this, but let’s tackle the next couple of verses.

Mark 8:15–16 NKJV

15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”

Ok, here we see Jesus doing what He was always doing, teaching. And we need to understand the Lord is now starting to prepare them for what is coming. In fact, before this chapter is over He is going to tell his disciples that He was going to die. In fact, He tells them that He was going to be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed. So, as the Lord departs Galilee for the final time He starts to prepare His disciples, and He says, “beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. In short, Jesus is warning them to beware of the religious and political powers of Israel. He needs His disciples to begin recognizing that the very rulers their nation admired were, in fact, corrupt. In other words, beware of the powerful influence of Israel’s leaders. The Pharisees embodied a legalistic, works‑based religion and unbelief, while Herod represented worldly compromise and corruption. Both were dangerous, both were deceptive, and both were shaping the spiritual climate of the nation.

This is why Jesus used the metaphor of leaven. You see, it only takes a tiny bit of leaven to effect an entire loaf of bread. A tiny bit spreads through the whole batch of dough, and this is what the leaders of Israel had done to the Nation. Their influence, or “their leaven” had led the entire nation astray. Israel was being led by blind guides. They were false teachers, and their leaven had infected the entire nation.

In fact, Matthew’s account says the leaven of the Pharisees was their teaching. Let’s look quickly at a verse from chapter 16.

Matthew 16:12 NKJV

12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Matthew tells us that the disciples eventually caught on. After Jesus rebuked them, they realized He wasn’t talking about bread at all—He was talking about doctrine. And doctrine simply means teaching. The Bible almost always uses leaven as a negative image, because just as a little yeast spreads through the whole lump of dough, so false teaching spreads quickly and quietly until it corrupts everything it touches.

That’s exactly what had happened in Israel. The Pharisees’ teaching of a legalistic, works‑based religion had infected the spiritual life of the nation. Their “doctrine” was shaping people’s view of God, but it was leading them away from Him instead of toward Him. And so Jesus is warning in verse 15.

Mark 8:15–16 NKJV

15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”

He says beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod. But notice what they are thinking about. Verse 16 says, “And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread”. Now pay attention here, but this is one of the most important points of today’s lessons. And I see so much of this.

Being obsessed with our physical needs blinds us to spiritual truth.

Being obsessed with our physical needs blinds us to spiritual truth. When we become like the disciples—so consumed with what we lack—we can’t hear anything else. It makes us deaf and blind. Our whole world shrinks down to me—my needs, my wants, my problems. And when that happens, we miss what God is trying to show us and what He wants us to learn.

That’s exactly what happened to the disciples in this moment, and it’s what happens to us when all we can think about is the here and now. Our focus shifts away from God’s eternal purposes and His greater plan. We stop seeing the brother or sister beside us who needs our help. And in the end, when life becomes all about us, we don’t find joy—we find misery. And boy do I see this a lot. And not just in others, I’ve seen it in myself. This life is a blimp on the radar screen of eternity. Christ is preparing to return to rule this earth. While He is away He expects us to follow His example of suffering. Do you know what that means? We should expect to suffer in this life. We should expect hardships, rejection, persecution, and guess what else. Death. God has been choosing His servants to die for Him for thousands of years. And our job is to face death in faith and say, Your will be done. God my my suffering glorify you, and my it show this world the love of your Son and honor Him. We are not here to lead a political revolution. We are not building Christ’s kingdom. This world’s fate is sealed. We are preaching Christ to a world that is lost so that some may come to believe in Jesus for eternal life. Our political aspirations are completely focused on the next life. We should be monarchists. We are loyal subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ awaiting the return of our King. And if we remain faithful in this life, then we will hear…

Matthew 25:23 NKJV

23 His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.

Being obsessed with this life takes our focus off the next, and there is a million ways this world sucks us in. It makes us think we have to focus on everything around us. It makes us think we have to focus on the bread. But when we do this, the words of the Lord are going in one ear and out the other. This is what happened to the disciples in the boat and listen to the Lord’s stinging rebuke.

Mark 8:17–19 NKJV

17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? 18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.”

Then He goes on and says,

Mark 8:20–21 NKJV

20 “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?” And they said, “Seven.” 21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”

Man, what a stinging rebuke to His disciples, and we need to learn from it. Jesus is training these men to face certain death. These men were going to be martyred, excluding John. These men were going to face all the fury the world and Satan could throw at them. And they needed to learn something. They needed to learn not to worry about their circumstances, but instead rely on His sufficiency to see them through all the suffering that lay ahead. Jesus wants them to understand that He was enough in every situation. He wants them to learn how to look past their circumstances and look to Him. And even in this rebuke He teaches them how to do that. Notice what he does. He reminds them of what He’s done in the past.

He reminds them of His miracles. First He talks about the feeding of the 5000, and then in verse 20 he says, “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said “Seven”.

Here is the final point.

We don’t need more bread. We need a better memory.

Legacy when you face suffering, storms, and are in need, remember who is in the boat with you. Remember what Jesus has brought you through, and remember what He has promised you. You see, a faith that forgets will always fear. That is what happened to the disciples in the boat and that is what happens to us. We panic and throw out everything that God has done for us in the past, and we become spiritually crippled. Do not do this. Remember what God has done in the past. Remember what the Bible says, and rest assured that what God has done in the past, He will do in the future. Church, rest fully assured on the promises that God has made to us in His word. Because that is enough. We don’t need a bigger pantry, we need better memories. Let’s pray.