Jeffrey Heine: If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Mark chapter 7. Once again, sorry about the air conditioning. We tried to get some fans to blow some air up to you guys up on the balcony. This morning, we are going to look at the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000, or 4,000, which he does in Mark chapter 8. But before we go and look at that story, we're gonna briefly look at the story of Jesus healing a man who is both deaf and mute.
If you remember a couple of weeks back, we were supposed to look at that text. We ran out of time, so I punted it, to this week. So we're gonna look at that this morning first before we jump to the feeding of the 4,000. So Mark chapter 7, we'll begin reading in verse 31. Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, and the region of the Decapolis.
And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, that is, be opened. And his ears were opened, and his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. And Jesus charged them to tell no one.
But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
If you would pray with me. Father, I pray that you would make our deaf ears and our blind eyes hear and see you in this place. I pray that we would come to see you and to adore you. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Amen. So the last time, we were in Decapolis, if you remember, Jesus had just healed the man who was possessed by a legion of demons. And after he did that, if you remember the townspeople, they came to Jesus, and they begged him to leave. They were terrified of a man who had such power as this. And so, as he left, the person he had just healed came to him and said, can I go with you?
And Jesus said, no. I want you to stay, and I want you to go tell everyone what I've done for you. And that formerly possessed man, he became the 1st missionary to the Gentiles. And we see he did a really good job. He apparently told a whole lot of people, because now when Jesus returns back to Decapolis, there's a crowd of people waiting for him, and they are welcoming Jesus, and they're sending people to Jesus for him to heal.
1 of these men is both deaf, and he has a lead or a speech impediment. Apparently, this man used to have hearing, but at some point, he lost it, and with that, he lost his ability to speak clearly. And when this man is presented to Jesus, he he doesn't just heal him then and there. He actually pulls the man aside away from the crowds to heal him. If you remember, Jesus is trying to keep a low profile as he's in the Gentile territory.
He doesn't wanna draw too much attention to himself, and so he doesn't wanna heal this man in public. So he gets him off to the side, and once they're alone, he then heals the man. But he does it in the most unusual way. He doesn't heal anybody else like this. I mean, he puts his fingers in the man's ears, and then he he spits on his hand, and he he touches the person's tongue.
I mean, it's it's really weird when you're just reading this. Like, what in the world is Jesus doing? He he doesn't do that in other places. He just speaks, you know, be healed or walk or see, and he just heals people at a word. Sometimes he'll reach out and he'll touch people like he'll touch a leper, and they will be cleansed and healed.
But here, here, he does these weird things. I actually think what he's doing is really is really quite compassionate and tender. I think he's using sign language. I mean, it'd be kind of a terrifying thing if you couldn't hear, and then all of a sudden, unexpectedly, you could hear everything again. And and Jesus, I think, in this real tender moment, he pulls the guy aside, And then we see that He actually looks up to heaven when He prays, which is not normal.
Jesus is letting him know, I'm gonna do these things, and then he looks up to let him know he's going to pray. And so he's just communicating with this man everything that he's about to do to him. And then we read in verse 34, after looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, Ephphathah, which means be opened. And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Do you remember the last time in the gospel of Mark, we had words of Jesus preserved in Aramaic?
It was when Jesus brought back to life Jarius's daughter who had died. And in that moment, if you remember, Jesus went and He said those words. He grabbed her by the hand and said, Talitha kumi, which means little girl rise. And we talked about how Mark preserved those original Aramaic words, because sometimes there's just a scene no one forgets. And people are like, oh, that I mean, I remember that moment Jesus said these exact words, talitha kumi.
But why did he preserve the words of Jesus here? I mean, yes, healing somebody of of being deaf and mute, it's it's an amazing miracle, not quite on par with Jesus raising the dead. And, and so what was it exactly about this moment that left such an impression with people that they remember the exact words that Jesus said, and they wanted to preserve it? I think a couple of things. First, it was likely the first words this man heard, and he remembers it, ephathah.
He hadn't heard anything, but all of a sudden, those words came to him as clear as day. And as he told the story, he tells people exactly those first words he heard. But I think another reason, just kinda hidden there in the text, but Jesus sighed. He sighed, and I think that really stuck out to the disciples. I mean, right before Jesus says ephphatha, we read, he sighed.
This is a very unusual thing to do before you heal anyone. I would have thought that maybe Jesus, he would have smiled, knowing what he was about to do, or perhaps even laughed to let the guy He's doing all this other sign language to let the guy know, but here he the disciples remember that. Well, I think the reason that Jesus sighed here is because He knew that the moment He healed this man, word of that healing would get out. It spread like wildfire. The crowds he'd been able to avoid would all of a sudden come en masse again to him.
He wouldn't be able to escape them. The the flames of opposition would be would be fanned even though further in flame, and the road to Calvary would get shorter. I think he knew when he healed this man, his death is coming. This term mute here is found only one other place in scripture, Isaiah 35. It's a very unique word.
And I think what we can see here is Jesus is obviously fulfilling that text. In Isaiah 35, we read, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. So Jesus is obviously aware of Isaiah 35 as he does this, but he knows all of Isaiah 35, And it's just it's not just about the messianic blessing that comes to the world. It's also about judgment, and God will judge this world. And Jesus knows in this moment, though, judgment is not gonna fall on the people.
It's gonna fall on me. I can heal this person, but it will cost me. I can forgive this person, but it means the cross. And so as He is about to heal, He, and He heals this man, and everyone remembers it. And sure enough, Jesus, he was right about the crowds.
This man could not keep quiet. The people who saw this miracle could not keep quiet. Everyone is telling everyone. And then soon we have a great throng of people all gathered around Jesus again. This time, the crowd around him is not mostly Jewish.
They're mostly Gentile. We read about this in chapter 8, beginning in verse 1. In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now 3 days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.
And his disciples answered him, how can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? And he asked them, how many loaves do you have? They said, 7. And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the 7 loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. And they set them before the crowd.
And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said to them that these also should be set before them. And they ate, and they were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, 7 baskets full, and there were about 4,000 people, and he sent them away. And immediately, he got into the boat with his disciples, and he went to the district of Dalmanusa.
Are you getting deja vu as we read the story? Feels pretty familiar, doesn't it? I mean, it it's nearly identical to Jesus feeding the 5,000, which had just happened earlier. I mean, there's there's a few differences. You know, the 5,000 earlier were mostly Jews.
The 4,000 here are mostly gentiles. And unlike the the 5,000 that Jesus fed, who who weren't starving or anything, the group that's in front of him now, they're actually hungry. They've been out there for 3 days. It was a real need for them to get food. So those are some of the small differences.
But really, the main difference is this. Jesus heals less people than he did before, And there are also less leftovers than there was before. So all in all, it's a less impressive miracle. Not saying it's not a miracle. I can't do this.
It's it's still impressive. It's just not as impressive, which begs the question, why in the world did Mark include this in his story? What Why does he take the time to tell a very, very similar story to one he's already told, but it's less impressive? It would be like if I went up to you, we're having a conversation, and I were to say, hey, you know what? I just ran a marathon, and you would be like, wow, that's amazing.
And I'd say, not only that, I just walked a mile. Like, Well, I mean, great. Good for you, but, you know, you should probably tell those stories in a different order. You should you should probably tell the the lesser story first, and then you should build to the bigger story, but Mark switches it. Why?
I mean, we're not that impressed with this, at least not after the 5,000. But Jesus or Mark's point in writing this is actually not so much about Jesus feeding everyone. His point is that the disciples didn't learn from the previous miracle. Here, you have a similar situation, less demanding, less people, and yet they still didn't learn anything about Jesus being able to provide for so many. So the focus of this story is not so much on the miracle, but on the failure of the disciples to comprehend who Jesus is.
Can any of you relate to this? To the best of my knowledge, God has provided for me 55,701 meals consecutively. I'm 50 something years old. It wasn't hard for me to do the math, even though I was a speech major. It's just, you know, 50 something years times 365 times 3.
I even added a couple leap years in there. And so we are 55,701 consecutive meals, give or take. Sometimes I ate more than 3 meals a day. Perhaps there was a time or 2 I ate less. But that's a lot of faithfulness, isn't it?
I mean, that's a pretty proven track record of of God providing for my most basic needs. He's now done it 55,701 times in a row, So why is it that sometimes I worry about tomorrow's bread? I worry about tomorrow's provision. I mean, can you get a better track record than what God has done? And yet I doubt.
And then when I look 15, 20 years out and I think about my retirement, I can have even more doubts. Yet God has proved himself over and over to me. This crowd here, they've been listening to Jesus for 3 days, and they have long since run out of food, yet notice not one person has left. They wanted Jesus more than they wanted food. Now, should they have come prepared to be out there for a while in the middle of nowhere?
Should they have thought to bring some provisions? Probably. But they weren't thinking about food. They they were just thinking about being with Jesus. Any parents of teenagers out here, of course, understand this.
When your teenager runs out of the door into the cold, they're not wearing a jacket, they maybe only have one shoe on, hoping the other one's in the car, and you yell out at them, hey, put on a coat. It's freezing out there or it's gonna rain, and they just say, gotta go. Gotta be with my friends. It's a hypothetical situation that we've endured, like, a 1000 times at our household, but they don't care about the provisions because they just want to be with their friends. Actually, you know, I've grown up, or my household is all women, and which means that anytime we go out, I have to pack 5 coats if I want to have one by the end of the evening, because none of them think ahead.
It's easy to be critical about your teenagers as they do this. Jesus isn't critical. He's not frustrated. And these people wanted to be with him. I mean, they wanted to be with him.
So he has compassion on them. They wanted to be with him so much, they weren't even thinking about food. For 3 days, hanging on his every word. This is a people that are hungry for Jesus. Let me ask you.
What are you hungry for? Now I know that there are some people here who will go and they will camp out all night at a ABC liquor store just in the hopes of getting that special bourbon the next morning. I won't call you out by name. You know who you are. I know some others of you who will camp out at a Chick Fil A, all for the hopes of being one of those people who get free Chick Fil A for an entire year.
Some of you have camped out at some venue when you're going to a concert, all in hopes of being one of the first in and getting a great seat. The point is this, we do not mind being inconvenienced for something we really love. And the more we love it, the more we don't even see the inconvenience. These people loved Jesus, and they just weren't thinking about what they'd eat. In Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, he said that we were not to be anxious about what we eat or drink or the clothes that we wear, for our heavenly father knows that we need these things.
Then he says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. And here we get to see a a visual of that. These people were seeking first the kingdom of God, and then Jesus added to them. And to be crystal clear about this, when Jesus says, seek first his kingdom, and I'll add these things for you, Jesus is not speaking metaphorically. He is actually saying, put me first in your schedule, I'll give you the time you need.
Put me first in your finances, I'll give you the money you need. Put me first in your relationships, I'll give you the relationships you need. He is saying, I will take care of you if you put me first, because God takes care of his children. And here, Jesus, he takes care of his people by feeding them. Now before he feeds them, notice that he first gets his disciples away from the crowd and says, I need to talk to you first.
So look at verse 1. It says, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowds because they have been with me now 3 days and have nothing to eat. So before Jesus feeds them, he first gets the disciples aside and says, I just want you to know something. I care about these people, and they're really hungry. Why is Jesus doing that?
He wants to see if the disciples have learned anything. I mean, they've just seen what Jesus has done in feeding 5,000. They've just seen his compassion on a hungry crowd. And so now, they've seen what Jesus has done. They see the people in need.
So what should their response be? Jesus is essentially saying, guys, do the math. What does Jesus' power, my power, plus my compassion, plus these people's need, what does it look like? Does it look like 0 or 4,000 being fed? What does my power plus my compassion for these people plus their need look like?
Is it them having nothing or them having an abundance? It should have equaled the disciples having faith in who Jesus was. It should have equaled them saying, hey, Lord, we don't have much here, we only have these few loaves, but we've seen what you could do with a few loaves, so you command us and we're feeding everyone. That's what it should have equaled. Do these disciples have the resources to feed all of these people?
No. But that is a Jesus problem. That is not their problem. And you need to understand what's a Jesus problem and what's your problems, but when Jesus tells you to do something and you lack the resources, that's on him. So if Jesus tells you to go and to share your faith, and you say, well, I lack.
I like the courage, I like the words to say, you know what? That's a Jesus problem, not a your problem. You're supposed to go. If Jesus tells you to give some of your finances to someone, maybe to pay their bills or to pay their groceries, you're like, if I do that, I don't know if I'm gonna have money for me left over. You know what?
That's a Jesus problem. It's not your problem. You you go. You obey. Do the math.
Jesus's power, plus his compassion, plus someone else's need in front of you, what does that equal in your life? Does it equal those people having nothing or more than enough? Well, the disciples here, they apparently didn't learn anything from Jesus feeding the 5,000. I can't be too critical on them because once again, I haven't learned much. And so they respond to him in verse 4 by saying, how can one feed these people bread with bread here in this desolate place?
Now we we don't know the tone that g they said this to Jesus, but I'm picturing it being sarcastic. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Notice they don't use any respectful term to Jesus. They don't call him sir, master, lord. It's becoming a pattern in Mark.
They will begin using those respectful terms less. The crowds will use them more. It's like they're seeing less and less of who Jesus is. But despite that response, Jesus, he doesn't blast his disciples. He doesn't say, oh, gosh, your lack of faith and respect.
No. He has compassion on them just like he had compassion on the crowds. Despite their failure, Jesus uses them. It's another theme you'll find in Mark. Jesus uses flawed, faithless people for his glory.
That's good news for us. If you're thinking, I've got so many flaws, yeah, you don't know half of them. Jesus does, and he says, they're no obstacle to him. So he uses these faithless, flawed people to gather the little bread they have, the little fish they have. He blesses it, gives it to them.
They give it to all the people, just like before. Everyone eats. Everyone's satisfied. They pick up 7 baskets of leftovers afterwards. A lot of people, they wonder what's the significance of the 12 baskets left over for the feeding of the 5,000 and the 7 baskets left over for the feeding of the 4,000.
I have no idea. You could probably do a doctoral dissertation on it if you wanted. It's a huge rabbit hole you could go down. If you do, I would just say don't miss the main point. Everyone ate.
Everyone was satisfied, and there was such an abundance, there was food left over. After they eat, Jesus dismisses the crowd. He then in verses 11 through 13, he says we're gonna go on this boat journey to a place called Dalmanousa. It's kinda like Chester, Alabama. Anybody?
Chester, Alabama? Yeah. No one knows where Dalmanusa is either. Really, no one has any idea, but Jesus apparently knew because he took his disciples there. And when he did, they ran into some Pharisees, had an argument.
They wanted Jesus to do a sign. He's like, you don't deserve a sign. Disciples get back in the boat. When they get back into the boat, Jesus, he decides to warn them about the Pharisees. Verse 14.
Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. And he cautioned them saying, watch out. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. I mean, this would really be comical if it wasn't so sad.
I mean, it's still kinda funny, but it's also sad. I mean, Jesus, he takes this moment. He's like, now that I've got you on the boat together, let me let me take this as a little teaching moment to teach you about the Pharisees and Herod, and he's got the one loaf of bread with him, and so, like, he uses that as a prop, and he begins talking about the leaven of their teaching. And so he pulls out this loaf of bread, and he's, you know, he's teaching, and you can almost picture Peter. It's like, oh my gosh.
That's the only loaf we have. That's literally all Peter's thinking at this moment. It's like, okay, that's it. We're gonna starve. And you can almost picture him looking over Andrew.
He's like, I thought you were supposed to bring the bread. You know, Andrew's looking at John. He's like he was supposed to. The kid forgot it. Meanwhile, Jesus, he's saying things, words are coming out of his mouth, but nobody's comprehending what he is saying.
Jesus says something about leaven, and they're like, oh, man. Leaven makes the best bread. I am so hungry. Lauren, earlier this week, she was trying to tell me a story. It was great.
It was a confession. It was the first time I mentioned this to her this morning as she was sitting there. And, she was telling me she had a $5 coupon to Ace Hardware. And so she went to Ace Hardware to buy, some flower seeds and something else, which I don't remember. Lauren, at the last service, she yelled dirtbag.
I was like, are you describing me or saying what? What were you forgot? She's like, both. And so she also went to get dirt. But I didn't hear that.
All I heard was she went to go buy herself flowers, and you know what immediately sprung in my mind? Miley Cyrus. I can buy myself flowers. I mean, you know the song. Write my name in the sand.
I mean, like, it was just it was there. She writes a remarkable earworm. I mean, it gets in there, and that's all I'm hearing. I mean, Lauren's mouth is moving, but Miley Cyrus is playing just like it's gonna play for you for the rest of this time. You're not gonna hear anything else I say unless I sing it to that tune, but, it's the same thing here.
Jesus is waving that bread around trying to teach him something really important. He's warning them about something, and they're just like, oh, man, bread. That's the only loaf we have. You need to compare that with what the scene we just had before. 4,000 people for days going without bread because they're so hungry for Jesus, hanging on His every word.
The disciples alone with Jesus get this rare opportunity to to hear Him speak, and they can't hear Him because all they want is bread. You begin wondering at this point in Mark, who exactly are the disciples? I mean, are they really listening and following to Jesus? Well, at some point, as Jesus is talking, they begin whispering to one another. John, God, why didn't you bring the bread?
I don't know. Like, Jesus is like, I can hear you. Why are you guys talking about this? Verse 17, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand?
Are your hearts hardened? We probably, you know, probably at this point, he's sighed. He's at least just pinching his nose and like. It says, having eyes, do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear?
Once again, he just healed somebody who was deaf. Right after this, he's gonna heal somebody who's blind. He's like, the deaf and the blind hear and see who I am. What about you? Do you not remember when I broke the 5 loaves for the 5,000?
How many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? 12. Right. And the 7 for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? 7.
Then he said to him, do you still not yet understand? I tell you, sometimes gospel stories that they're really hard to preach because, maybe there's just some technical difficulties of interpretation in the text. Maybe there's certain words that are hard to translate. It's hard to figure out the context in light of other scriptures. There's some texts in the gospels that are hard to preach because they're so complex, and then there's others that are hard to preach because they are so simple.
This is one of those. This is a really simple, simple text. The point of this story is, do you see who Jesus is after all He has done? Do you have faith in Jesus that he will meet your needs? The disciples here should never have worried about bread simply because Jesus was in the boat with them.
All they had to do was ask. Do you believe that Jesus will give you what you need when you ask Him? Do you believe that if you seek first His kingdom, all these things will be added to you? After I preached the 8 o'clock message, I had someone come up to me. She was in tears, and she just said, I want to believe, but I've been praying for things, and it Jesus just hasn't answered.
He hasn't answered. And can I just say, I don't pretend to have all the answers to these questions? Don't. Just because I'm up here doesn't doesn't mean I know everything. It's like, yeah, that is hard at times.
I mean, we have to wrestle with things at times. Jesus, He told His disciples, He knows the very hairs on their head. Not a hair of your head will fall to the ground. And then in the next sentence, he says, and some of you are gonna die. You're like, what?
I said, none none of my hairs are gonna fall in here, but I'm gonna die? Sometimes what Jesus says is hard. He he he's sovereign over our lives. He is saying he is in control and he does care for us. But then sometimes it seems like he's really silent.
And so, all I could tell this lady who came forward was just, I don't have all the answers, but I do know this. When Jesus is silent, we have to remember He's still in the boat with us. Jesus came to this world to be with us, so we know He cares. And He might not give us what we ask for, but He gives us what we need. And nowhere in scripture do you ever find Jesus ever rebuking anyone for asking too much of Him, or asking too often.
Matter of fact, he always encourages, ask everything, ask often, and so all I could say is I encourage you to do that, And just to maybe take a step back and be thankful of the ways that God has already provided for us. And then I don't know where this came from. I'd read this, a little while ago, but this might mean nothing to you. But I said, do you know what the most rare substance in the entire universe is? It's like I have no idea, and this not was not where I thought the conversation was going.
And so let me tell you. The the most rare substance every astrophysicist is gonna tell you this. The most rare substance in the liquid water, and yet we swim in it. We can go anywhere. We just we just drink it.
We don't even think anything about it. Do you realize how abundantly God has provided for us in this world? I mean, we're just dripping in His goodness. There's a reason Jesus would walk around. He's like, look at the birds.
Look at the flowers. He is in awe of how God has created this world and how he provides for everything. He's not looking at, hey, look at the mansion, and look what I don't have. He's looking at all the other ways, the amazing gift of life itself for us. Jesus was in awe.
Do we have that kind of thankfulness when we think of, God, what do I really need? Well, you have provided. Once again, for me, 50 5,701 meals of God's faithfulness. What is that number for you? Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and these things shall be added to you.
Pray with me. Jesus, thank you for your care. Thank you for getting in the boat with us. You have not left us alone. And in the times that you, always perceived as silence from you, may we remember that you're there with us.
But, Lord, may we remember the things you've done, and may that give us confidence in what you will do in the future. May we believe who you are and trust what you will do. And I pray that when we add up the equation of your power plus your compassion and the needs in front of us, lord, we would see abundance. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.