Impact message this week. Ben spoke, and did a great job!

Message #3 10/8/08 (Mark 8:1-30)

Pray…

This semester we have been talking about the life of your heart. Guess what we will be talking about this week? That’s right the life of your heart. Where have you been putting your heart this week? Have you been putting it in the light of God’s love or have you been giving it to the world? Is the heart growing or is it dead? Is your heart attached to living things or perishing things? Tonight we are going to be talking about Jesus Christ the satisfier of hungry souls.

Mark 8:1-30
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, 2"I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away." 4And his disciples answered him, "How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?" 5And he asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" They said, "Seven." 6And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven 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. 7And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. 8And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 9And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away. 10And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

11The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him. 12And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, "Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation." 13And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

14Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." 16And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve." 20"And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven." 21And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

22And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" 24And he looked up and said, "I see men, but they look like trees, walking." 25Then Jesus[c] laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26And he sent him to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village."

27And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" 28And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets." 29And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." 30 And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.





You are Hungry

Two examples: what two things do they have in common?

1.Look at verse 17-20. If I could ask this group a question, this is the questions I would ask. Jesus asks the disciples why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Answer: They are hungry. They only brought one loaf so they need to get more food. Now the disciples have two options at this point. Keep in mind they have just seen Jesus feed 4,000 people on one occasion and 5,000 people another. They could one, go to Jesus and say, “Hey, we’ve seen you turn a little bit of bread into a lot of bread and we are hungry. Can you do that again?” –OR- they could do what they did: discuss how to get themselves more bread. Maybe some were saying we need to turn around. Or maybe some were saying we need to get to the other side quicker. Which do you think would have been more effective?

2.What is this plant? What is it doing? It’s starving! It has no food! Remember the first week we said that the plant died because it didn’t like sunlight or water. It only wanted to be in the closet.

1.) They are both hungry.
2.) They are both rejecting their source of food.

Everyone of you has come in here tonight as one or both of these things and I’d be willing to bet that there are a lot of you who think you are only hungry but have also rejected your source of food. Your all hungry and looking for someone or something to feed you. And look we’ve talked about this…Your hearts are hungry. There is a spot in your heart that longs to be filled and satisfied. But here is where we really start to lie to ourselves. Our hearts are hungry for the wrong things. We run from one thing to another trying to fill it up. And you fill it up with friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, popularity… and after its all over you realize, you’re still hungry. You are still hungry. . It’s like drinking salt water. You drink and for one brief second it feels good going down your throat but in a quick moment it makes you thirstier than before. And so you drink again just for a brief moment of satisfaction until eventually the salt sucks all the water out of your body and you die of dehydration. And on and on it goes one thing to another trying to fill up this hunger inside of you. All the while you fail to realize that God was meant to be that satisfier of the soul. That Jesus stands next to us asking, “why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?” As if to say, “the thing you are hungering for is right in front of you.”

Now let me ask you a question. Do you think all Jesus came to do was feed people’s mouths with food? Do you think Jesus is some kind of cosmic dispenser of worldly and fleshly comfort? A lot of people think that way. Do you think that when He fed the crowds and put His power on display for all to see that He wanted them to worship their own comfort and filled bellies? Do you think Jesus wanted people following Him because He could give them some bread? No, but that’s what He got wasn’t it? After Jesus feeds the five thousand in John 6 a group comes running to Jesus. But He knows why they are there. “Truly, truly I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves.” Unfortunately that is how many of you relate to Jesus. Listen, Impact is wonderful but I wonder how many of you come here thinking about who will be here? How many think about who will notice you? How many spend all their time, even now, thinking of ways to get someone’s attention. So we listen to the bands, and we carry around our Bibles and we throw in a couple Christian catch phrases. But what we are really after is someone to think that we are important. What we really want is someone to acknowledge how cool we are. Or maybe your like the Pharisess. You use Jesus to prop up your own self-righteousness.Your Christianity is tied up in all the things you do. It has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Do you see what we’ve done with this Jesus? Do you think Jesus is some kind of fast food mart that exists to simply fill your fleshly desires?! NO! He came to satisfy the hunger of your heart! But many of you don’t want your heart to be satisfied by Jesus. When you here things like being satisified by Jesus you think, “That’s boring.” Now listen…don’t forget the plant. Why is the plant starving? Why is your heart starving?

Jeremiah 2:13
For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

The Jews would use cisterns to catch water to drink when it rained. But sometimes the cisterns would break and along with water, mud would seep in creating a kind of muddy soup. God says, the sin that people have committed is that they have looked at the fountain of living water that can satisfy the thirst of their soul and they said “not good enough.” I’d rather drink this muddy water. That’s what you’ve done. Do know that about yourself? Do you know that you have passed your heart around to drink and feast upon muddy water while the God of universe offers living water that will satisfy? And listen… I know some of you are thinking, “what is all this talk about drinking and eating and being hungry?” Look at Jesus words in John 6:53

“Truly, truly I say to you unless you eat the flesh fo the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:53

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

It’s serious. If we feed on anything but Jesus, (the world) we have no life. We are dead. If we have drank the dirty water and ate the food that does not satisfy we are dead. But those who feed upon Christ will live. This is life and death here. Do you want to know what it is to live? Feed upon Christ.. Am I calling you to become cannibals? No. I am calling you to fill that longing of your heart with what it was meant to be filled by…Jesus Christ. But Jesus is boring to you.

God Is Just to Let You Die in Your Hunger

Listen you are not victims here. You are the furthest thing from it. You’re starving and deserving of destruction because you have chosen mud over water. You chose it. There are many of you in this room longing for the food of this world, but listen…when you eat the food of this world there is no life in you. When you eat the food of the world you get death. When you eat the food of the world (sin) you get God’s wrath.This is what you deserve. It’s what I deserve. Let me remind you of a little story…Do you remember Adam and Eve? What did they get when they satisfied their craving for the fruit? Separation from God and death. Let remind you of another story. How many remember the story of the exodus?

Psalm 78:10-32
10They did not keep God’s covenant,
but refused to walk according to his law.
11They forgot his works
and the wonders that he had shown them.
12In the sight of their fathers he performed wonders
in the land of Egypt, in the fields of Zoan.
13He divided the sea and let them pass through it,
and made the waters stand like a heap.
14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,
and all the night with a fiery light.
15He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep.
16He made streams come out of the rock
and caused waters to flow down like rivers.
17Yet they sinned still more against him,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18They tested God in their heart
by demanding the food they craved.
19They spoke against God, saying,
"Can God spread a table in the wilderness?
20He struck the rock so that water gushed out
and streams overflowed.
Can he also give bread
or provide meat for his people?"
21Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath;
a fire was kindled against Jacob;
his anger rose against Israel,
22because they did not believe in God
and did not trust his saving power.
23Yet he commanded the skies above
and opened the doors of heaven,
24and he rained down on them manna to eat
and gave them the grain of heaven.
25Man ate of the bread of the angels;
he sent them food in abundance.
26He caused the east wind to blow in the heavens,
and by his power he led out the south wind;
27he rained meat on them like dust,
winged birds like the sand of the seas;
28he let them fall in the midst of their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29And they ate and were well filled,
for he gave them what they craved.
30But before they had satisfied their craving,
while the food was still in their mouths,
31the anger of God rose against them,
and he killed the strongest of them
and laid lowthe young men of Israel.
32In spite of all this, they still sinned;
despite his wonders, they did not believe.
And some of you are saying in your head I don’t deserve that. “So I want a b/f and so I want everyone to like me…”

The reason you don’t understand that you deserve to destruction is that you don’t know what you’ve passed up. I say living water and you have no idea what that means. Look…how valuable is God? He is really valuable right? More valuable than anything you’ve every even conceived of in your brain. Understand that in going after your own way, you’ve said to God, “You are not good enough.” You have said in your heart that the things your feeding yourselves with are more valuable than God! It’s and insult like no other. Remember Jeremiah 2:13. Look at the verse before it. “Be appalled O heavens, at this. Be shocked be utterly desolate, declares the Lord.” Who in here hasn’t gone after the desires of their own heart? Who in here hasn’t stubbornly followed your own way and fed yourselves with the things of this world. You went after the muddy water instead of the living water. You went after idols instead of the living God. Let me sum it up for you. Because you have sought to feed yourselves with the food of this world and thus declared that God is less valuable than those things, you have chosen to starve to death and thus earned God’s destroying wrath.

God is Merciful in Jesus Christ

There are some of you that need to go home tonight without the rest of the message. Some of you don’t think you earned destruction. You’re just fine. You don’t deserve that. But there are those who understand that you are hungry and that there is nothing in this world that can satisfy that hunger but you know you need to be filled. And you want the answer. You understand the hopelessness of your situation. I’m here to tell you tonight that there is a God of mercy who longs to fill you. Despite the fact that you have turned away and satisfied yourself with the food of the world, God longs to redeem you to Himself so that you might truly be satisfied with the food He offers, Himself. Look what Jesus says when He sees the hunger of the crowd. “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.” Now listen, Jesus is not obligated to feed these people. It’s not his job. But he has compassion. They are hungry and he longs to fill them. Now again, Jesus is concerned with their physical hunger but do you really think that in that moment all Jesus wanted those people to know about Him was that he could do a cool magic trick and make lots of bread? But listen there is a problem. People that have passed up true food (God) and thus life, didn’t earn food. You don’t deserve to be given food that leads to life. Listen…your soul deserves to be forever unsatisfied running from one thing to another being disappointed over and over and over again for all eternity. That’s what you chose remember?

If God is going to give you food that leads to life, someone is going to have to die hungry. Someone has to take your place. And you may say, “O I know where he’s going with this.” Listen! This isn’t a cute story. This is the life of your heart. Someone has to die left completely apart from the satisfying power of God to be punished on your behalf. To receive your destruction. And not just anyone. God Himself in the form of Christ Jesus has to become hungry and thirsty. And thus did Jesus cry on the cross, “I thirst.”

When Christ was hanging on the cross, when God was pouring out all His wrath that you deserved on Jesus, what does Jesus say? He’s hanging on the cross and what does He say? He say’s in John 19:28 “I thirst..” I thirst! And the soldiers mock Him by giving him sour wine meant to prolong His torture. Do you understand what happened on the cross? Do you understand what was going on? Jesus comes to the earth to become hungry and to become thirsty in your place! We said earlier that God was meant to fill the hunger in your soul. That’s all Jesus knew. He had never been unsatisfied before and rightfully so. He never knew what it was for His heart to hunger or thirst. He is the King! Perfectly satisfied by the Father for all eternity. And the king becomes the poor begger dieing of hunger and thirst on the cross. Not only physical hunger and thirst but God takes away His satisfying power from Christ and He is left hungry and thirsty and then God crushes Him. And here is the amazing thing. For those that believe, God on that cross put to death your hunger and your thirst for the world leading to death. He puts to death His Son and destroys for all time the endless hunger and thirst of the heart. And Christ rises in victory and says:

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

And as a result of His death He can now say to poor hungry souls that have in their sin filled themselves with the food of this world…and for those of you that have filled yourselves with the food of the world and you have seen that it has left you hungry, despite your unsurpassed sin against Him, He says:

Isaiah 55:1-3
1"Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.

Read with me again…

Mark 8:14-21
14Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat. 15And he cautioned them, saying, "Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." 16And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread. 17And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" They said to him, "Twelve." 20"And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they said to him, "Seven." 21And he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?"

They didn’t know who He was. They didn’t know that He was the one that could fill them. Do you see? Do you see what they were doing? Jesus puts His power to feed them on display and they begin talking about how they will fill themselves. What will they do? How will they get more bread. And Jesus says, “Don’t you know who I am. I just fed four thousand with table scraps. I am able to feed twelve people. But you are hard of heart.” He’s not rebuking them because they are hungry. He’s rebuking them because they don’t get that He is the Christ. He’s the one that will satisfy. They don’t know who He is. And I know tonight there are some of you that will see this work of Jesus on the cross. You will see that He died on the cross, bore your hunger and your thirst and your death…. You will see that He took your hunger and he took your thirst and destroyed it so that if you would believe, you would never have to hunger again. But you will leave here tonight and start looking for ways for the world to satisfy your heart. You will take your heart and give to the person sitting next to you or the crowd at your school or some boy or girl that thinks your special.

The Blindness of Your Hungry Heart

I don’t think that it’s coincidental that in the text directly after Jesus asks Peter, “Do you not understand” he goes on to heal a blind man. We are people that need to have our eyes opened. Listen…the dead heart, the heart that feeds on this world hates true food right. It can’t see Jesus as true food because it hates him. When Christ died on the cross, for those that believe, He put that heart to death and gave a new heart that longed to be filled by Him and so live. Maybe you see that your heart is starving and you see Christ but you don’t love Him. You see that heart wants to give itself away to worthless things and that your heart longs to feed on the world. Go to God, ask for a new heart, ask Him to open your eyes to see who Christ is: son of God, sin on our behalf, the satisfier of our souls.
After Jesus heals the blind man He is walking with Peter and Jesus asks him, “Who do people say that I am.” John, Elijah, a prophet. There are many things this world tells you Jesus is. Some of you use Jesus and this group Impact that is about worshipping Him as a method to gratify your hungry hearts with the attention of men. But the real question is not who people say Jesus is. Who do you say He is? Do you believe it? Did Jesus starve in your place so that you would be filled?