The Compassion of Jesus

Today, we are continuing in our series in the Gospel of Mark. It's called Kingdom Come, the Gospel of Mark and the Secrets of God's Kingdom. And I just want to say I get to preach about every five or six weeks. I'm here to give passing on a break, a week off from the pulpit this week. And I just pray that you have been blessed as I have been blessed, as we've gone through this book. I hope that that continues today. We thought we'd go through a little bit faster and maybe close to the end of Mark, but we're about halfway through. Given just the satisfaction, the refinement we're getting from it as individuals in a body, we're just happy to meditate on it again today.

Today we are in Mark 8, chapter 8 of Mark verses 1 through 10. Open, with me, if you have a Bible and if you don't, you can follow along on the screen. So Mark 8 verses 1 through 10. This is the word of our Lord. "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've been with me now three 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 seven."

"And 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 the 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 that these also should be set before them and they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces, left over seven 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 went to the district of Dalmanutha." Let's pray. This is a word of our Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you this day that we can come together as a people, as a multitude to learn about you, to hear from you, to hear the living word that we have in scripture.

We thank you Lord that you have not left us in darkness, but those of us who know we are saved in Jesus are those who live in the light. And we thank you for the guide that your word is to us. We pray today that as you have been faithful to do throughout the course of Mosaic's history, we pray, bless us with a great sense of your presence. Enliven our hearts to just hear the lessons that you have for us, the comfort we need, the conviction, we need, the growth, the holiness that we need. Lord, open our eyes and just give us receptive hearts. We pray, Lord, that we would be satisfied, that we do pray that the thoughts and anxieties about the previous week, about the week to come would just leave our minds.

And when you enable that Lord that you would fill us with gladness and joy in Jesus. We pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the primary phrase in our text today comes from verse two and it says, "And Jesus said to them, I have compassion on the crowd." Jesus has compassion on the crowd and this is the primary theme of the text. I'll talk about Jesus' compassion. And as I enter into this, I want to admit to you that when I opened up the text this week just preparing, in preparation early on to preach this Sunday, I read this text, I saw the topic of compassion and I really wanted to avoid it. To be honest, my heart coming back from the holidays, I had a great time, got to see my parents, a couple siblings, my in-laws.

I got to be in my hometown where I grew up, my wife's hometown. It was a great time, but in many ways it was ... I don't know if it's similar for you, but it was kind of a family missions trip and a catch-up time between me and the wife, me and the kids, and driving to Philly and DC, a lot of my week was spent on I-95 and Highway 15 in Connecticut and came back tired last Tuesday, getting back to work. And I've been a little bit on autopilot where my body has been going forward, but my soul just feeling a little dry and I saw this topic of compassion or really wanted to avoid it. I basically wrote three sermons as I was trying to justify Pastor Jan preached on this topic a little bit, thoroughly enough a few weeks ago when talking about the other feeding.

The Lord just corrected me. And how did I ... when I identified I was avoiding this, I did spend time in prayer to really just get softened and be receptive to what the Lord wanted me to engage and what wanted all of us to engage through this text this week. And I'll just prepare you, it might not be stimulating to the brain, but just as important as Christians is, we need our heart engaged and this text certainly does it as we cover the topic of compassion and to really ... if you're not really with me on compassion, you're feeling a little cold today, I want to warm your heart a little bit, attempt to very quickly, by reading First Corinthians 13, one to seven, this famous passage that we often hear at weddings on love.

For Jesus said, the sum of God's command is the love God and love our neighbor and talking about compassion, about practically meeting the needs of others, praying that God would use us to meet the spiritual needs of others in the process. Just want to pause and remind us, we can't do any of that without love in our hearts. And if we do so, what do we resemble? We resound noisy gongs, clanging symbols, people who talk a lot but hypocritically don't back that talk with action, with loving action. So let me just read First Corinthians 13:1-7 with the hopes that the Lord prepares you for the rest of the passage.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I'm nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." So I just really want to say we need to love and why ... the sum of Christianity is that we love, we extend compassion to the loss, to the needy around us because Jesus Christ has been loving and compassionate.

And merciful and gracious to us in our needs and primarily in the way that he has met our need to engage our sin, the guilt and shame we carry before the Lord. He provides the means of peace with our father. And so we should go forward with love on our minds and engaging with people with compassionate love. So this morning engaging in the text as is obvious from the scripture I read, we're going to study the miraculous feeding of the 4,000. I think it's best to cover this text going through verse by verse. For those of you who like checkpoints in the sermon, I want to know three points. The compassion of Jesus will be my first section, the power of Jesus will be my second section and the satisfaction of Jesus will be my third.

So for those of you who are very attentive listeners to Mosaic sermons, thank you. We're glad you're here and following. You've been with us the past couple of months in Mark. You'll notice that today's text is not very different than the text on the feeding of the 5,000 that we covered on December 10th in Mark, when we studied Mark 30 through 44, Pastor Jan preached an incredible sermon. You should listen to it. As we open up this text, if it sounds really similar, you're not experiencing deja vu, we haven't gone backwards. We are just going forward in the text trying to be faithful to the scripture that the Holy Spirit is bringing our body to today.

Now, the stories are very similar between the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000, the accounts, both accounts mentioned the compassion of Jesus on the crowd. Both accounts take place in a wilderness. In both accounts, Jesus inquires about how many loaves the disciples have. In both accounts, the people are asked to sit down. In both accounts, Jesus prays over the food and miraculously creates massive amounts of food. In both accounts, there's a distribution process where Jesus has the disciples, involves them in bringing the bread to the people. In both accounts, the people are very satisfied. In both accounts, Jesus dismisses the crowd before leaving on a boat on the Sea Galilee to continue his ministry with his disciples.

Both accounts, there are only two chapters apart and because of these similarities, the text is often criticized by scholars and critics of scripture, those who criticize the deity, question the deity of Jesus Christ. They say that this repetition of these similar stories or many of them say this one story gives reason to believe that the book of Mark, it's just a messy work. The guy who wrote it, who edited it was really just trying to trick people into thinking that there were two separate accounts, two separate events in order to get his literary intentions through, to get the lessons that he wanted to get through forward.

And essentially, he concocted the stories, he wove them together to build this myth of the deity of the God man, Jesus. So we say, just want to leave that battle because at Mosaic we believe in the inerrancy and in the infallibility and the divine inspiration of the scriptures. We're not troubled by this. There certainly are many similarities between the passages, but many differences as well. In the first account, there are 5,000 people running around the lake with Jesus and spending a day with him. In the second account, it's 4,000 in the wilderness of the Decapolis for three days. In this account, we find people who have been with him ... Sorry, three days instead of one, after one day in the first feeding, Jesus feeds the multitude.

In the first account, there's five loaves and two fish. In this account, there's seven loaves and a few small fish, probably sardines. After the first feeding they picked up 12 small baskets of leftovers. In this account, they pick up seven large baskets. It's kind of frustrating because every time you read on this passage, every time you listen to a sermon, everybody has to spend like five minutes, as I just did, saying that there's a lot of debate here, but we rest in the authority of Scripture, the most important and conclusive evidence that these are two separate accounts as Mark shows us, comes from later in chapter 8 verses 19 and 20, when Jesus Christ himself says, "When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"

They said to him, 12, and the seven for the 4,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up? And they said to him, seven. So that's it. Case closed. Jesus himself refers to these events as two separate events. This is a separate feeding of a multitude of 4,000 taking place at a different time than the feeding of the 5,000 chronicled in Mark 6. So this account, it does teach some of the same lessons as the feeding of the 5,000, but there are unique details in this one and that's what we want to pull out because that is what differentiates some of the meaning between the two accounts. So I want to bring out these differences and the primary lessons that we see here in the text through these three main headings and first the compassion of Jesus.

So we begin here at 8:1, chapter eight verse one. It says, "In those days, and I say ..." okay, we're through that required part that I was frustrated that I had to go through, but so come back, listen to me now. We begin now at chapter 8:1, "In those days when again, a great crowd had gathered. In those days." So what mark means is that there was not a great passing of time since that last feeding. Remember Jesus ... these are the days where Jesus, he has traveled recently to Capernaum, to Tyre, to Sidon and now, he is south in the Decapolis. Jesus in those days, it's these days where he is in this Gentile region more prominently Gentile, less Jewish region and he's met by many who are bringing to him throughout his travels, the sick and the needy.

And he is healing a lot of them. He's teaching a lot of them. So Mark is saying, this is what is happening in the Decapolis. Many translations say a multitude has gathered. Verse nine tells us there are 4,000 people. The parallel account in Matthew mentions that ... of the same feeding, that it's 4,000 people not including women and children. So this easily could be a crowd of 10 to 12,000, 15,000, 20,000 would not be unreasonable estimates. A huge congregation has sought Jesus once again as has been the case over and over again to this point in Mark since Jesus started his ministry. So we have the 12 disciples. Jesus, a large crowd of people. And why did these crowds come? To be healed, to see miracles.

Most of all, we expect they came to hear him preach the word in three days with him. It's pretty clear that he would've been teaching them. It was said, why was Jesus ... what was the appeal? John 7:46 has a Gentile say. It was said of Jesus that no man ever spoke like him. People said that he preached in a way that they'd never heard before. People would hear him speak and they're there hanging on to every word that he said. And what would they do? A lot of them ... what we'd see in Mark is they'd hear him speak and if he got up and traveled they would follow him. We see here that he's probably preaching in a single area and just they are camped out for three days.

It's like a revival scene, and that is what seems to be taken here in the Decapolis. Verse two says, they've been with me now three days. In the Greek, the translation for these words, been with me, three words, it's actually one word. It can be translated more precisely that they've been strongly attached to me. They've been committed to me. The people hear Jesus preaching and they want to stay to him, as close to him as possible. They don't want to leave. They hear Jesus preach his message of the arrival of the kingdom of God and the mercy and grace and forgiveness and his call to repent and they'd never want to leave.

It's as if time has stopped and all their needs are being met. Their soul is experiencing satisfaction that it's never encountered before. And all earthly concerns don't matter for three days. Do you know this feeling? I don't know it for three days. I wish I did, but I remember when I first arrived in Mosaic in August of 2011, a year out of college, I grew up in a church ... before I come to Mosaic, I grew up and attended a church where the pastor had a strict rule for himself that he went 18 minutes with his sermons. And I was one of those people that was counting down those 18 minutes. When I arrived at Mosaic and I really think I was saved in those initial weeks where for the first time, I finally saw I'm a sinner, God is holy, I have no access, no right to go into his presence by my own means.

By my own actions, by my own record, but Jesus is perfect and I can have his record applied to me by faith. That's when I started hearing the word and when I heard it was if time stopped, a 45-minute to an hour long sermon, that was like nothing to me. Time felt like it flew by and when it was over I was sad. Do you know this? This is the experience really of every true believer is going to have a love and this kind of deep satisfaction in the word of God, and I would say I still feel it. I'm not saying I don't feel this right now. I love to come to church on Sunday. I want to get filled my soul during Christmas time.

I went home and ate all my favorite takeout foods, Philadelphia hoagies and soft pretzels and lots of local spots and I just had to come back and fast because that ... a few days of that satisfaction that really didn't satisfy, I wanted the Lord. And when I come to church each Sunday, I feel this spiritual exhaustion and need to get filled up. And I elaborate on this to tell you what it was like when I first encountered it. Do you know this? If not, ask the Lord to just give you this experience. Have the humility to say that, "Lord I don't know this and please give it to me." And Pastor Jan and I we're trying to recreate this timeless experience for you each week as we preach the word.

As you hear me speak so slowly, you're like, "I don't know if that's possible with you Andy," but I say, "Go home and list to me at two times speed. I've got the perfect voice for it. You won't miss a detail." My sermons are the same length and pages as Pastor Jan, he just speaks 1.5 times faster than me. Do you know this? Pray, Lord, I want to know and love your word and be satisfied like this. So, people, they were so astonished at the teaching of Christ, they feel such deep soul satisfaction that they seemingly ran out of food. Some of them probably had food. The existence of baskets there means, they probably ... some people probably brought some, but they probably ran out and there were probably others who went, "I'm just going to go hear you guys speak. I've got nothing."

They still stayed and had an unplanned three-day fast. And I also have these experiences. When I first arrived at Mosaic ... and I'm saying this, if you feel like you have experienced this, when I'm not experiencing this, I go to a new believer in Mosaic and I hear them tell me of their experience of just the newness of the kingdom of God spreading and there's this old rain in their heart as they serve the Lord. When I was saved, first saved, when I was born again, it was go, I want to go serve. I want to want more people to know this word and have this peace, this joy from the Lord. I'm going to go serve. I'm going to go help us set up. I'm going to go worship and drink in that sermon, I'm going to sit in the front so that I'm not distracted at all.

And well, naturally back seater, but then I'd spend my whole day just how do I help with tear down? How do I help with spending time with people? It's not to call attention to myself, it's to say again, "Can you get lost in this?" And I still have this experience, I still do it here basically in the building all day. It's now my job. So I do get paid for it. I still kind of get lost and I don't eat all day and then, I go home and I get in trouble with my wife because I'm starving and ask her where her food is. Do you know this wilderness, this satisfaction in the wilderness experience that these people in the Decapolis are experiencing when Christ is preaching to them for three days and we can believe it's the middle of summer.

These people, they're experiencing ... they know what Peter 2 to 3 says ... it's talking about, it says like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. They're living out the fulfillment of man shalt not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, Matthew 4:4. If you study world history, Christianity is not in existence because it was just propagated by people who maintained it over time. It's that, Christianity is the most popular religion in world history because believers have had this experience with the Lord through the engagement with him, through his word throughout history.

It's real, it's satisfying, and we should pray. We should pray that if we don't know this, Lord, give me this experience. Give me this love and satisfaction of you and we should pray. Lord, help us to live in a day where we get to see masses of people, revival, people confessing sin, repenting of it, turning and receiving grace from God at a mass level. Have you read church history? Do you read it? I read it for fun because it's hard, we do live in a pretty desolate place. So I go to scripture, I go to church history to read real life accounts of people who not only we read in scripture of this multitude, this revival among the masses when Christ walked the earth, but over and over again in our nation.

In almost every nation of the world, every region of the world, maybe not modern nation, you can learn about revivals where people are filled and satisfied by God's word and just give their lives to him. So we need to pray for this and God has not changed. He can still do it. His word, his power has not diminished since Jesus ascended into heaven. In fact, his spirit is now poured out on us in a uniquely powerful way and we can experience this today. One of my favorite stories is in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, who would not identify as a Christian, when George Whitfield, a great faithful preacher of history, supposedly preached tens of thousands of sermons in his life just walking around Europe and Britain and the states.

Benjamin Franklin at one point scientifically measured the radius of the crowd of people that came to hear George Whitfield speak in a day where they didn't have microphones to hear him preach and just Franklin was no believer, but he said he could feel this cleansing effect on his soul and he measured that it was probably 30,000 people gathering in a Philadelphia square open space to hear the word preach. And so we should long to have these experiences with the multitudes and pray that they come. So the people forget their needs, but Jesus hasn't forgotten, and this is the compassion of Jesus. So in verse two he says, "I have compassion on the crowd because they've been with me now three 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. Jesus knows people have come a long way. They're in the wilderness. There isn't a Chipotle nearby, there isn't a new H Mart in the area. There's no DoorDash carts that are willing to travel as far as they are into the wilderness. He knows that if he sends the people home through after this long experience in the wilderness without food, that the people could faint along the way. This is the compassionate Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, the God of the universe, cares not just for the people's spiritual needs but for their physical needs as well.

God, Christ, he caress for body and soul. We see this Christ's true concern and he gives us permission to care for our body and soul. And when he instructs us how to play with the Lord's prayer, we address spiritual needs. Our Father who is in heaven hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done all earth as it is in heaven. Skip a section, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others, lead us not in temptation but deliver us from evil. These are our spiritual needs that we should pray for, but then, he gives us ... he acknowledges that we should pray for our practical concerns. Give us this day our daily bread. God, Christ, he caress about them. Philippians 4, 6 and 7 says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication, but thanks to him.

Let your requests be made known to God. God wants us to ask for our spiritual needs and for our physical needs. I think a lot of reformed Bible believing Christians really struggle to enter that practical area to admit when they need God to provide one of their needs, food, clothing, health, a safe place to live, we can ask for that and actually so much more and that's kind of another sermon when we ask for things in Jesus' name. Through Jesus' concern for the physical needs, we get a deeper sense of his compassion, and when he says in verse two, I have compassion on the crowd, the word for compassion in the Greek.

It's one that refers to feeling in his inner organs in the guts, this word, it's roots, talk about the guts. This feeling that arises in this guts out of sympathy, true empathy, true sincere concern for the condition of others. As he becomes aware of it. It's more than a feeling, but it's a feeling that makes him ... that moves him. It's not the kind of compassion that we show when we sign up for a 5K and pay $25 last minute on a Saturday morning just because that's what all of our friends are doing. It's not the kind of compassion that when we donate five or $10 for a friend for their Facebook birthday nonprofit drive, just because we're like, "Oh, well this person's finally into something good."

I want to support this. No, the Lord's passion is so much deeper. It's the kind of compassion that says, I'm not going to leave here until I find out a solution. Disciples, do you have any food? Okay, I can work with this. Let's get moving. People sit down. Jesus has this gut wrench in compassion and has the Lord given you this gut wrench and compassion for anyone, for any cause lately? What are you doing about it? We have to pause and really ask ourselves that there are many instances in scripture where Jesus is marked with compassion for the multitude. Matthew 9, 14, Mark 6 and 8 here. What's a note in Mark's gospel is that he uses this word compassion. This compassion for surprising groups of people.

And Mark Jesus who is Jewish is moved with compassion for people that an ordinary Jew would not have compassion for or any association with. He's moved for Gentiles, lepers, demon possessed, even his own disciples were not moved like Jesus. There are several instances where the disciples, they respond to someone who approaches Jesus, a needy person and quickly reacting by telling him to send them away. This is what they did last week when we studied the text with the Syrophoenician women, they essentially say, "Can't you just get rid of her, send her away?" In the feeding of the 5,000, what did they do at the end of the day? This is before the miracle, the feeding occurred. They say Jesus send them away to get food.

And they're probably thinking about themselves because they want some food. They're not really compassionate. Even in the amount, this account of the feeding of the 4,000, the disciples don't seem to care too much for the people. At least after one day at the last feeding with the Jewish crowd, they actually approached Jesus and said, "Hey, nobody has any food." This is after three days in the wilderness with this Gentile crowd. They don't point out the crowd's need for food. Who does that? It's Jesus. So, the comparison between the reactions to the poor, the needy and of the disciples in Christ, it helps us through this appreciation, Christ compassion so much more.

The disciples are very often attempting to send people away, seemingly showing cold self-focused hearts. Jesus is always open and concerned for the wellbeing of the people around him. As we reflect on this point, we really have to ask ourselves if we, the churc, as a body, as individuals, make the same mistakes as the disciples today, especially those of us, we are church. We really have dignity in the fact that we are rooted on the rock of Jesus Christ and his word. We're biblical. We are reformed. Part of this world, theological world, we say, we need to preach the word. The word is what matters. My church, yeah, preaches the word and we love that.

We love the correct framing of the doctrine, but we need to really back our commitment to the word with deed and this is something that churches throughout history have really struggled with. I grew up in the United Methodist Church as biggest denomination in the country still, though it's breaking apart and I do miss my experience in the Methodist church sometimes because they were so good at deed, just very loving people. The problem was a long time ago they really left scripture and left its authority and they're being torn apart because a lot of what they're teaching resembles just what modern isms of the world modern trends are teaching.

We as churches, we as individuals, we love the word, but we also love to commit good deeds that are inspired by our commitment to the word, out of thanksgiving for Christ's compassion and love and kindness to us. Just as a church passing on, I think Mark has really got our thoughts going. We've also had to think about the church budget for 2024, a lot in the past month, month and a half. And just a few things we're focusing on to try to correct ourselves a little bit, is we just want to pray over those in our body who are sick more. James 5:14 says, is anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

If you're sick, we want to be faithful to this and we want to call for the Lord's help and just make sure people are not struggling out there without our knowledge. Furthermore, we have plans to offer meals. Pastor Jan mentioned for the first time last week, we're piloting lunches on the first week of every month and it's just open invite, if you can, RSVP ahead of time that get us ... help us estimate how much food we need to order, please do so, but this is a chance to just create a space where members, guests, people are starving for food, can come and sit and share a catered meal, provided by the giving of others and build the fellowship and really have greater opportunity to really get to know each other and get to understand each other's needs, where this is part of the heart, this heart of compassion.

Furthermore, Jesus, he talks to his disciples about ... He does this miracle around bread and fish twice. So furthermore, we are going to add another form of food in the near future. We're bringing back bagels for the first time before services in the lobby, for the first time since COVID. We are trying to create a warm, loving, compassionate space and feel to match just the commitment to scripture that we have, and just ... I say all of this, meditate on the compassion of Jesus to hopefully get you to meditate on whether or not you're showing compassion to Christ here, Christ with your life here at our church. John 13 says, "The world will know you by your love for one another."

Christ further instructs his disciples to serve one another by washing each other's feet and just that symbolic, it's where to go that far in your engagements in your personal life. Are you compassionate to others? Is there anyone that the Lord is asking you to serve? Any needs for any neighbors that the Lord is calling you to address? And I live in a building of ... here in Brookline of 30 something units and there's a lot of people three decades older than me and I know they've made me the president of the building to hand over maintenance and the board ... because I'm young. That's it. Hopefully, I've shown them a good neighbor.

Yeah., I learned these needs and a guy just got a hip replacement on Friday. I forgot to pray for him. I know of all these ways where I can just show Christ's kindness and compassionate and I try to turn a blind eye from them sometimes, but I'm trying to faithfully step into those situations. And so what is that for you? We've got to focus on the word. That's true. That's what Jesus did here with the 4,000. He preached the word for three days, but he knows that he can't send them away in the condition that they're in. He sees the need to administer to their bodies as well as their souls. And Jesus is trying to ... he's doing this if ... there's two main focuses of Mark. It's Mark, the author, he's trying to present Christology.

Who is Jesus the Messiah? What is this kingdom he's established and all throughout the book, but the second most important motive he has is to prepare his disciples throughout the book, for life without him. He wants his disciples to equally feel compassion in the way that he feels it and to equally act upon that feeling. He wants to grow their heart and love for others, especially those who are undeserving of them, who they think are undeserving of their compassion. And scripture gives us the example of the good Samaritan, the priest and Levi, those who have God's word in the parable, they walk by the person in need.

And then, who addresses the person in need. So the religious people, they walk right by the person in need. The Good Samaritan, the man outside the covenant promises of God. He's the one. The good Samaritan takes care of those needs. We as a church, we can't do that. There are so many opportunities to show love and compassion to people as Christ has done for us in meeting our deepest spiritual needs on the cross. So often, just meeting our daily needs abundantly in this life. Just some scriptures that really hammer this. Philippians 2, 3, 4. "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also the interests of others."

Second Corinthians one, three to four, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of all mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Do you have a heart like Jesus? And yes, we want people to have compassion for the people in Africa, people in Asia, people in Eastern Europe, people in the Middle East, those areas where Christianity does not have a stronghold or the church does not have a large presence. More importantly, do you have compassion for the people right next to you?

Jesus commands love God, love your neighbor. Are you blessing people, looking to bless people as you have been blessed by God? It's oftentimes what do you offer, your presence that goes a long way to a lot of hurting people. What do you have to offer? Prayer. That's even before presence. There's prayer. So many of us say, I'm going to pray for you but don't. And then, from your resources, what do you have? And I want to say extending compassion is art. I'm a pastor and a lot of my job is engaging people who are volunteering to admit their needs. There's a lot of people who quietly have needs but don't tell us. And you need to have humility to share them with people in the CG and the pastors in your community group.

One of the things is we often ... when we try to extend compassion with people, sometimes we do it a little blindly. We do it without getting close to people. And that's really important. Sometimes we assume people have specific needs because we just see what their needs are on the surface, but because we're not getting close, we're not given the time, the attention that Jesus does to the multitude here, we really kind of go in and we try to act, we try to serve but we make things worse or we kind of offend the person. We need to really be willing to take time to hear people, to get to know their situation before we act.

And then when we make mistakes, it's a learned, extending compassion, serving others. It takes time to learn how to do it well. And you can be a pastor for years and really still make mistakes. Sometimes we have to confess our mistakes to people and we have to learn from them, repent of them. So one thing I do want to say about Mosaic is it's a very generous body. One of the things as a pastor with a bird's eye view of what's going on across our membership and community groups is I find out often several months after the fact that people in our church have financially met the material needs of others. They've given money to people, hundreds, thousands of dollars. They're seeking clothing, shelter, care, legal support. We have members often paying for legal counsel for when there are others who need it.

It is amazing. It is, just love Jesus simple. Our motto here at Mosaic being applied, what do we want happening as we preach the word, we want people to hear the word be changed from the inside out as the Holy Spirit just awakens people and softens their hearts. And we want people to organically see the needs of people and offer what they have, their loaves, few loaves and fish and try to meet them in faith. And our body is great in doing Matthew 6:3 to 4, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you." I hear about a lot of stuff that community groups and members do weeks or months after the fact and we need to keep doing this.

I will say though, sometimes it's easy to just give money. We have to give people time and presence as we extend compassion. So let's keep this up. Last, to close out the thought, Galatians the section ... Galatians 6:9 to 10, "And let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Jesus says, I have compassion on the crowd. We need to similarly extend compassion. Now, I move on to my next point. So if you've drifted for me, come back with me and my first point is a lot longer than the next two. So the power of Jesus. Jesus is about to meet the needs of people with his infinite power.

And I want to just cover four points as we walk through this discussion of Jesus power. First, look at how Jesus brings out the human inadequacy of the disciples before he gives them the ... offers them the solution to the problem. In verse five, he asks, "How many loaves do you have?" He knows he's got, he knows the answer. He's asking because he's getting them to see their own inadequacy. He wants them to see how little they have to offer in this situation. Seven loaves, a few fish when they really spend time to see that fully, gather that, they see that they have nothing to offer to feed this multitude.

Jesus, when he calls his disciples to do his work, part of the process is first showing them how utterly inadequate they are in and of themselves to carry out his mission. He brings them to the end of themselves, to the end of their strength, the end of their capacities, the end of their material resources. And he gets them, primes them, primes their hearts to get to this position where they know that they cannot go forward unless he blesses them, unless he gives them power, unless he steps in and offers the solution. This is how God works when he calls people to do anything for his kingdom. And this is kind of paradoxical, the sermon series, Kingdom Come the Gospel of Mark and Secrets of the Kingdom.

We need to really understand this is one of the secrets. God functions in this way. The rest of the world tells you, promote your strengths, let them be made known. God says, I want you to work in weakness. The apostle Paul said of preaching the word, who is sufficient for these things. Preaching the word, doing the tasks of ministry. Christians are to work from the position of weakness. Paul knew this. Paul grew in this. Paul learned to really love this situation of I am brought to my limits, but I know that God is going to supply, he supplied grace to save me. He's going to supply grace I need to do this thing that he has called me to do.

And he says, "But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my powers made perfect and weakness. Therefore, I'll boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I'm content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for when I am weak, then I'm strong." And as a pastor, I know this is me. I do not bring anything to the table. Any part of my role, I am outside of my comfort zone. I really am not that gifted. I'm a good generalist, but I'm not that specifically gifted anywhere, but I'm learning to grow in this. This is us as pastors. This needs to be everybody in our church taking up calls and trusting that the Lord will supply our ability to carry out those missions that he's called us to.

Those things, those people, those needs for which we have much compassion. So God uses those who he brings to their absolute inadequacy who are aware of it. Next, as we discuss the power of Christ, I want to think about Christ's power and how it requires ... I think a good framing and it's our receptive compliance, not just compliance, but receptive compliance. This is really part of a message that we have ... part of the message today that is for anyone who wants to be a Christian, you're thinking, how do I become a Christian? You need to allow Jesus to be lured of your life. You need to receive his commands with compliance.

Verse six says, "And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground." I want to emphasize the reception of his commands and compliance. In the feeding of the 5,000, the disciples are instructed to sit the people down, so in the last feeding. In this feeding account, Jesus directs the crowd to sit down. To receive Jesus's saving food. In this process, he is active, they are passive. The people aren't to do anything to receive this food that will save them. They're there to look for him ... look him for and receive it from him. So people might be saying today, "Will the Lord receive me? Can I be saved? You don't know what I've done. You don't know what ... I can't stop myself from doing." The Lord says ... yes, he's offering you, come and receive his command to come and sit at his feet.

And let him offer you the food that saves. And so he says, look at the passage. He fed all these Gentile pagans, along with his prideful disciples, all these people who turned to him and all they had to do was receive the blessing of the saving bread that he offered in these conditions. They had to sit, wait and receive, not run up and claim they could help him in the process. The people relied completely on Jesus to supply the saving bread to them. And this connects to our salvation. There's nothing we can do. We simply look to Christ. He has finished the work that is necessary for salvation. We trust in him and rest upon his work on the cross.

Next in this section, on the power of Christ, I want to consider Christ continual ... the continual sufficiency of his power. He saved us with his power, but then there is a supply that is never ending, verse six and he took the loaves, the seven loaves and haven't given thanks. He broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. Jesus broke the bread and he gave, it was a continuous action. Jesus broke the bread, he gave it to the disciples, to a disciple, and he just kept giving. He gave one disciple a bread and another arrived. And then, he gave another disciple of bread and he gave, another arrived and he gave another disciple a bread and they went and served it, until all 15,000 or so people were fed and satisfied.

And it doesn't matter how many people were there, there could have been 5,000, 10,000, a million more people, and there would've been enough bread. There is sufficiency ... Christ always has a provision for us that is sufficient. This is his infinite, continual sufficiency of his power. And what does this do? It teaches us that Jesus is God. This text shows us that Jesus is the same one as he's making these fish anew and making these loaves anew. In that moment, he shows us that he's the same one that was there at the beginning of creation. He spoke creation into existence. He said, be fruitful and multiply. He made a grown woman out of the rib of a grown man.

This is the same God, Jesus here breaking loaves over and over and over in the Decapolis. The same God is alive and living today. And so this is a lesson that teaches that He is God, but it's also a lesson for the disciples as well. It's a lesson for us as well. They're going to live a life on ministry. They're called to be fruitful for the kingdom of God, to go and make disciples of all nations. And they're taking living water, living bread to people. Do they need to worry that Christ's supply of salvific power is ever going to run out? No. There's inexhaustible supply from Christ's power. So lastly, as we think about the power of Christ, think about the room that Jesus leaves for his disciples to be involved.

The human involvement in his great saving work, verse six says, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. So Jesus, he incorporates the disciples into the process of distributing the bread. He doesn't need them to do this. He could easily find a way to get the job done by himself in a much quicker manner, but in his grace, in his humility, he wants to give the disciples the opportunity to be a part of his work. The disciples weren't bringing anything to the table. They weren't bringing anything from themselves to the people. They're solely bringing what Jesus gave to them, what Jesus gave to them, to the people. That's all that we do as Christians.

We don't have to come up with a new message. We don't have to come up with a new way to save people. Every time that there's a shift in the isms of academia, every time that there's a major challenge in world history. We continue to stand on the word, to preach the word, to trust that it is the power of God and to salvation to the Jew first and also the Greek. We deliver that to people with faith that God will keep using the same method that he always has. Praise God. Praise God. We don't have to come up with a new message, new way to get the word out. I look at churches that have left the word and I feel bad for those pastors who are in churches that are not standing on the word.

And I'm actually kind of very impressed with anybody who can somehow come up with a new message to keep the interest of people week after week in such churches. I'm thankful to Mosaic. What decides what we say? The word, and that's what God uses to save people, to sustain his saints, to give them satisfaction and power for the work for him. And it's a blessing to administer the word, and that's not just for preachers, it's all of you. You're all ambassadors of a great king and you're called to go into the world and share the gospel with people, to deliver it with joy, to give a reason for the hope within you to tell people of your love for God and it's an honor. Do you feel honored to just extend such compassion to others, to see them in their deepest ... see their deepest speed.

To be aware of it, to know it, and to have what satisfies them? Every Christian will know, will admit it's not my physical needs. It was the darkness, the depravity, the depression. I was in my sin that needed to be addressed. And then, someone shared the gospel with me. So do you feel honored? And so we get to the Lord works, shares his power, dispels it through us as we are faithful in the delivery. Now, to my final point, we've talked about the compassion of Jesus, the power of Jesus. Now we'll talk about the satisfaction of Jesus. The bread that Jesus brings gives full satisfaction, verse eight, "And they ate and we're satisfied." You can draw this lesson out from both miracles. In John 6, which is a parallel passage of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus goes to the wilderness area.

He feeds the people with bread. And this was to point, explains. To point people back to Moses. And Moses had done the same in the wilderness. Remember, God uses Moses to rescue people out of bondage from Egypt. And he parts the sea at the exodus for them to go into the wilderness. And God, during Moses ministry supplies manna, kind of a bread that reigns from heaven. And Mark has shown in these gospels ... the authors have shown that Jesus is the greater Moses who provides living bread. Even more, Jesus is himself the bread. He's the living bread that John talks about at the end of his account of the feeding of the 5,000.

John 6:51 says ... Jesus says, "I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I'll give for the life of the world is my flesh." So Jesus provides physical sustenance for people. He provides also spiritual sustenance for his people. Does he provide it for the Jews? Yes. If they'll have it, does he provide it for the Gentiles? Yes. If they'll have it. And one of the great themes of the Old Testament scriptures is that there's going to be a time in history where there's a great feast of Jew and Gentile where the Lord brings the Messiah, brings sustenance, life, bread for the Gentiles. Isaiah 55:1 to 3, the Lord gives a great invitation to this meal.

"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. 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." I think other translations are fat foods. "Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live and I will make you with you an everlasting covenant." So the rest of Isaiah 55 continues just inviting people to this feast banquet with Jews and Gentiles, Jews and people from the nations, gathering together. And Jesus at his first coming, he initiates this period and in heaven, in the new earth, we're going to be dining together, feasting together.

Jew and Gentile in the presence of God. Remember last week we talked about the Syrophoenician woman and she goes hard to get the Lord's blessing to receive healing for her daughter. And there's this engagement where she says it's not right to give the children's bread to the dogs. He says, I've come to bring food but to bring it to the Jews first, they're my children. She said, "I know who you are, but even the dogs eat the crumbs of the children when they fall to the ground." The woman knows that at Christ table there's space for both Jew and Gentile. This is shown ... and that both Jew and Gentile will be satisfied. This is shown in that Jesus feeds the 5,000 in a largely Jewish area. They eat and are satisfied. This is shown in this narrative in the Decapolis, a largely Gentile area.

The 4,000 eat his loaves and are satisfied. They're stuffed, is the proper translation. Engorged, because of the filling. On both occasions, the people either fill and in both occasions there are leftovers. In the instance of the leftovers, there are 12 baskets full of leftovers that they collect. 12, it's a number that represents fullness in the Jewish community. Think of the 12 tribes of Israel. It indicates that Jesus offers full satisfaction to the Jews who believe in him. And the instance of the leftovers with the Gentiles, there are seven baskets and it's a number of completeness. When before Moses brought the people ... before the people of Israel entered the promised land, there's a line in the scripture that talks about these seven nations.

These seven Gentile nations will be driven out of the promised land. So this number seven, it indicates fullness of the Gentiles, and this verse shows that seven basketfuls of fragments being left over, there's space for the Gentiles. All of them can be satisfied in God's kingdom at his table. Jew or Gentile, Mark teaches us that ... Jesus teaches us that he is enough. He can abundantly, he can generously satisfy any need that you can have in this barren, empty spiritual wilderness, only Jesus can provide satisfaction for one's body and soul. In verse four, the disciples ask, "Where will we ever find anyone who can satisfy these people in a desolate place like this?" And that's answered in verse eight when it tells us, because Jesus fed them, they ate and were satisfied. Satisfied in verse four and ate, they're the same word.

The disciples found their answer in Jesus. Jesus provides the loaves of fish he satisfies in this barren, empty place. In the Decapolis, Jesus is the only one who can provide satisfaction for the people. 2000 years later, Mark is saying, "In this barren, empty wilderness of the world, only Jesus can satisfy the needs of all the people." No one else can. No other religion can. No other form of spirituality, no money can, no chemical experience, food, foodie experience can satisfy like Jesus. You can have everything that the world has to offer, but it won't satisfy your soul. And when you have it, you'll even feel emptier, because when it doesn't deliver, you really feel the pain.

Jesus is the living bread. He can satisfy your soul and continue to satisfy your soul. If you continue to feed on him, your desire and capacity to feed on him will grow. Think of Mark four, Jesus teaches the disciples about the kingdom of God. And he says that when it takes root in good soil, it grows 30 fold, 60 fold, 100 fold. When someone is satisfied by the word of God, it takes root in their heart. Their desire for it grows, their understanding of it grows and it grows exponentially. And your desire and capacity to feed on it, grows. Jesus can feed your soul to the point that there are leftovers. This pastor is a seven, basketfuls of leftovers. An interesting note that separates the two feedings again is that these are big baskets, seven big baskets for the feeding of the 5,000.

There's 12 small hand baskets, lunch baskets, this large basket. It's the same size basket that the apostle, Paul was lowered down from a wall when he was fleeing a city in Acts 9. So the English word is the same in both accounts, but the word for basket is bigger. In the feedings of the 5,000, it's all to show Jesus provides super abundant provision for the Jews and super abundant provision for the Gentiles. All people can come to him and be satisfied. And I do want to say one note is that there's a special ... Jesus, Mark again, he has the first motive of showing us who Jesus is, as the Christ, as the Messiah in these verses. Those verses I mentioned from Mark 8:19 to 20, where Jesus asked, "Do you remember how many basketfuls of leftovers you had when I fed the 5,000? Yes. 12."

"Do you remember how many basketfuls you had when I fed the 4,000? Yes. Seven." Jesus says, "Do you not yet understand?" He wants the disciples to think about the leftovers. And this is a lesson for those of us who are living a life on mission, those who are disciples and stretching themselves in service in the wilderness to people who are hard to serve. People who we often find are undeserving of God's mercy and grace, but we can keep serving them because we also are. He says, "Look at the leftovers. There a sign that I am always going to take care of those people. I'm going to satisfy them abundantly when they're stretching themselves on mission for you."

So the Lord is always going to provide. And Jesus, this is why Isaiah extend the invitation to come to the Jews and Gentiles, we're all invited to come eat, delight our soul and fatness in Jesus the Messiah. That's everything we could need. So to close, I ask, do you have it? Do you have the living bread? Are you feeding on Jesus Christ, the bread sent down from heaven? If not, he is offering you himself this morning, and if you have fed on him before and you know you're saved in him, you have been satisfied in him, but you've gone off and eaten a lot of junk food of the world that's just intoxicated your mind and body.

He's invited you, come back, feet on me, rest in me. Let me serve you and satisfy you. And all you need to do is obey, receive me and obey. And Jesus he sees your life. He sees the journey ahead of you. He sees that it's a long journey and he sees the difficulties ahead and he says, you need bread, you need sustenance. You need food. You need something that will keep satisfying you. And you don't just need bread. You need broken bread. If you want the bread to be good, to actually give you the power to keep going, you need it to be broken. He breaks the loaves in the feedings. That's what Jesus was on the cross. His body was broken in a desolate place on the cross so that he could invite us into a life of abundant satisfaction and feasting in him and the eternal feasting in his presence.

Jesus, he bought our redemption. He earned our redemption. He purchased our pardon. He gives us peace, forgiveness, eternity in his presence. So that when we look to him by faith and feed upon him, it gives us life. It gives us strength. It gives us hope for the journey that we'll make for him the rest of our lives. Let's trust in him and extend compassion like him. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your compassion toward us. For we are like those in the crowd. We are those who are famished, those who have come or are at the end of our capacities, and we need your saving food. We need your bread. We need your loaves, and we need you physically to provide for us, but deep down, we need you to spiritually provide for us. Save us, satisfy us. Continue to give us your power as we walk this journey home to you.

Lord, we just acknowledge that we often turn and consume things that are not good for us. Taste the fruit of the world that Satan tempts us with. And Lord, we just come back to you just trusting that you will satisfy. And Lord, we just pray as we turn to you and you politely involve us in your work. Just take our loaves, take these few loaves, take our little fish and use them, multiply them so that we might have an impact on a multitude of people. Please use us to save many in the rest on the rest of our journey. I pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.