Mark 8:1-21
"Faith Amnesia"

V.1-3
“I can’t make it I’m hungry ”

V.4 But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?

Overwhelmed with circumstances creates an inability to see Jesus

Ex: Peter on water

Jesus is patient

V.5-10

What's my one loaf going to do for these 4,000 people? Why give at all?

•If God is asking, maybe we should just give and see what happens.

V.6 Let’s be thankful
1 Thess 5:16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Should we expect more when we’re not thankful for what we have?

V.4-10

Couldn’t Jesus have performed this miracle another way?
God wants to use us

1 Cor 1:26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

V.11-13 Why are they there?
“Show us a sign.”

They don’t deny the power of Jesus, they just don’t believe it is from God.

Mark 3:22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.

The ultimate sign

Matt 16:1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven... He replied, A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.

Lazarus and the rich man
Luke 16:27 He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' 29 Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' 30 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' 31 He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'

It’s not the evidence, it’s the unwillingness

Ex: Richard Dawkins

V.14-16 “yeast”

Spiritually
1 Cor 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast-as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Luke 12:1 Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

Matt 16:11 How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. 12 Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Jesus is the Great Provider. Worry not.

V.17-18

“Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”
See Jer. 5:18-31

Jesus is pointing them to Jer. To show the significance of rejecting Him?

V.19-21

Watch out for faith amnesia

Josh 4:4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.