to be in church today, and also if you're watching online, good day to do that as well. Thanks for joining us. We're going to be continuing our series on the gospel of Mark, lesson number 36. This will be our 36th installment, if you will, on this study as we move through Mark's gospel. And we'll be in Mark chapter 8 today. So Mark 8, we'll start in verse number 1. and do the first, hopefully, Lord willing, study that first passage. And what we will be studying is what's known as the feeding of the 4,000. And we've already studied what's called the feeding of the 5,000 earlier in Mark, and now we come to this other miracle of a massive amount of people being fed by the tiny amount of food And of course, Jesus himself performing that miracle. And we're going to look at this from the aspect of what does it take to be satisfied? The Satisfying Savior is our subtitle, but what does it take for you to feel satisfied? Songs have been written about those that cannot find any satisfaction with this life, and we see the world around us craving for everything to satisfy and trying to fill that satisfaction with all kinds of things. And who are they missing out when they're coming up empty? Who are they missing? Yeah, Jesus, God. You guys, we are gonna converse a little bit this morning, so try to wake up a little bit and interact. I need to know that you're alive. But what this world does need is Jesus. What Christians need is Jesus. Well, people everywhere, every person needs Jesus, and sometimes, We forget, even as Christians, we forget how much we need Him and how important He is in our daily life. So we've broken this into three sections. The Savior's statement, we're going to hear the statement that Jesus made. He doesn't ask a question. He doesn't give a command. He just makes a statement. And then we're gonna see the Savior's solution and finally the Savior's satisfaction. But let's pray and ask the Lord to bless our time together before we get into it. Father, thank you Lord so much for your word. I thank you for this really amazing miracle that you did and how you inspired Mark to record it for us. And Lord, as we look at this, I pray, Father, that you'd help us to be reminded of the satisfaction that's found in Christ alone. So please help us, Lord, to learn and grow as a result of interacting with your word today. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So first of all, Let's look at the Savior's statement. That's going to be verses 1, 2, and 3. So we're starting in on Mark 8. Finally, we got through 7. So many good lessons and truths there. And now we move into Mark chapter 8, about halfway through Mark's gospel. And we'll look at these first several verses. And this portion is the Savior's statement. in verses one, two, and three. So let's look at, first of all, verse number one. It says, in those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them, and we're gonna stop right there, because I just wanna pause for a minute, because I wanna get the context. So in the previous section that we looked at, that last portion of Mark 7, we see a miracle by Jesus healing a man who was deaf and mute. If you remember, he touched his ears and his tongue and he healed him. Well, Mark often chooses to focus on one individual when there were actually many others that were involved. We saw this with the demoniac. Mark focused on one demoniac there in the Decapolis region, but other gospel accounts tell us there were actually two men in the tombs that Jesus cast that horde of demons out of. And here, in Mark 7, that we looked at last time, we looked at one man who was deaf and mute and Jesus healed. But in Matthew's account, there were actually many that came to him that day that were in need of healing. You say, well, why didn't Mark talk about all the rest of them? Well, first of all, the Holy Spirit didn't inspire him to write about all the rest of them. Also, we know that Mark was a disciple of the Apostle Peter, and much of Mark is from Peter's perspective. And so, this may have been the one that was healed that had the most impact on Peter's life. And also because Mark didn't feel a need to tell the whole thing. He wanted to focus on the individual, and I find actually great comfort in that. There's so much in the Gospels about Jesus and what he did, but there's also many things that are not recorded. In fact, John, at the end of his Gospel, mentions that as a disclaimer, if you will, at the end of his Gospel. There were many other things. And the, is that back up? It was doing it yesterday at the men's breakfast. Let's try if I just put that there. Mark says, or rather John at the end of his gospel said, I don't even think the whole world could contain all the things that Jesus did and said. So there's so much that Jesus did and said that none of the gospels contain. And so we look at Mark and we see him focusing on individuals. But let's look at Matthew's account of the same passage. This is a parallel passage. In Matthew 15, 30, notice what it says. Then great multitudes came to him, having with them lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others, and they laid them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them. Now, did he heal them all the same way he healed the man that we looked at last week? I don't know. That was the one that Mark chose to tell us about. That doesn't contradict the fact that there were others there, right? And so if I say, you know, I saw Brad at church this morning, does that mean he was the only one at church? No, I'm just choosing to mention that I saw my friend Brad at church today. And so I mention this in passing kind of as a way to help us understand there are those that accuse the Bible of having contradictions, especially between the see things like what we're talking about and assume that there's a contradiction. It's no contradiction. It's just one has more information about the same event and one has less. So I hope that makes sense. But we see this crowd that has gathered, these great multitudes actually, and we find out it's actually thousands. And so Jesus calls his disciples to him, as we go back to Mark 8 verse 1, and when is this? It's in those days. So Mark is giving us, setting the tone, the context, if you will, and it's referring to Jesus' time in Decapolis. Remember, he's been to Tyre and Sidon, and we showed the map. He comes down. through Caesarea Philippi, and then comes all the way over to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, known as the Decapolis or the Ten Cities. And so he's still in that region. And so Mark is saying, in those days, while he was still there in a very heavily Gentile populated region, The multitude was very great, and the food had run out, and so Jesus calls his disciples to his side, and he wants to make his statement. So here's the Savior's statement, verse two. compassion on the multitude because they have now continued with me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way for some of them have come from afar. So he makes this statement. Did he ask them to do anything about this? Did he command them to do anything about this? He just makes the statement I have compassion. I have compassion. That's an interesting phrase. I have compassion on the multitude. I think he is trying to get the disciples to think like Jesus. I have compassion, and I'm calling you to have compassion as well. I have compassion. He is a rabbi. And in the culture there, in the Jewish culture, the rabbis had disciples. There were many rabbis in Israel at this time. And they all had disciples that traveled around with them just like Jesus' disciples did with him. It was not looked at as something strange or different. It was normal in the culture. And the purpose of a disciple is to imitate The teacher, the rabbi. So the way that the rabbi views life and the way that he understands the scriptures and the way that he interacts with people, it sets a pattern and the disciples are supposed to follow the pattern. And that's still true today as we apply scripture to ourselves. We're supposed to follow the pattern of our rabbi, who is the same rabbi as these men, Jesus Christ. So he's calling the men, have compassion with me. He's inviting them in to have this compassion just as he invites us in to have compassions on the people around us. So we have to understand this as we're looking at this. He's not asking them anything directly. He's not giving them a direct command. He's telling them about And unsparing is the command or the suggestion, if you will, I have compassion. If you're really gonna be my disciples, then you need to follow me and have compassion as well. Is it battery? Yes. All right, we're just gonna pause, commercial timeout. Okay, we'll try that. Batteries, gotta have fresh batteries. Thank you, Cameron. All right, so Jesus has made this statement, and he's invited them in. Notice also the attention to detail that Jesus has in this passage, his attention to detail. Why does he have compassion? He gives the reason. Because they have now continued with me three days. So he's aware of the timeline. He's not oblivious. And yes, they have nothing to eat. He's aware of the need. You see how he's calling the disciples? Are you guys aware of this? Are you aware that there's people around you, this massive crowd? And they've been here this long and they have nothing to eat. Are you aware of this? And He understood also the fact that they had come from a long distance. He knew how long they'd been there. He knew that they had no food. This means Jesus was, now as God, he would have known this omnisciently. But so often I see Jesus interacting with people on a human level. I believe he'd been interacting, it's been three days, he'd been interacting with people, he'd been understanding and asking them, where are you from? Where are you from, what town do you hail from? and connecting with them. Now, did he know that without asking? Yes. So I'm not saying he learned anything here. I'm merely pointing out that Jesus is pointing out the human element and helping his disciples, encouraging his disciples. Are you realizing the situation that we have here? I have compassion. Have compassion with me. It's likely that they had brought food. Once they heard about Jesus and the capitalists, I believe the crowd started coming, as they did almost everywhere that he went, and he was in this public ministry mode, if you will, and so they had probably brought food with them, but now he had been healing and healing, and it doesn't say teaching, but potentially, perhaps some teaching went on. And it had been three days and that food they had brought with them, not intending perhaps to stay three days, had run out. And so Jesus understood they've traveled a long ways. They're not going to be able to find food out here in the wilderness and they're not going to be able to get food between here and where they live. The distance is too great. There was not a McDonald's on every corner. There was not a fast food place, there was not restaurants. There were inns and different things, but it just, it would have been difficult. And notice, the reason is, he says, if I send them away, Notice he's still in charge of this, but he's making something clear to the disciples. If I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way. I have compassion for them. They have come a far distance. And so Jesus gives no command. He gives no instruction. except for what is implied in his statement about his compassion. I believe that Jesus was testing his men. I believe he's testing to see what they have learned because they've already been in the presence of a multitude that had no food. and needed to be fed. And they had already experienced the five loaves and the two fish, and how Jesus broke those and blessed those, and how there were, how many baskets left over from that one? 12 baskets left over. They had seen it, yet we're gonna see as we move through these passages in Mark 8, there was a heart issue that these disciples had that Jesus was trying to point out to them. So Jesus had cared for their medical needs, as we saw with the deaf mute man. He had cared, I believe, for their spiritual needs as being the son of God. And now he wants and desires to care for their physical needs as well. And he makes this statement. I have compassion on the multitude. He's calling us. Do we have compassion? Or are we blind, as I think the disciples had become? Next, we have the Savior's solution in verses four through seven, the Savior's solution. So let's start in verse number four. Jesus makes a statement, asking nothing, commanding nothing. The disciples answer him in verse four, how can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness? It's a rhetorical question. The implied answer was, there's no way that this can be accomplished, Jesus. This is impossible. This is impossible for this to happen. We are in the wilderness. There's not even fields of grain to pluck and eat. This is just wilderness, desert land. There's nothing growing out here that we can eat. Certainly not for this massive crowd. How could we provide bread for these people? Do you ever find yourself asking God those same rhetorical questions? God, this is impossible. How could this, how could anything good come out of this situation? Or how are you ever going to, or how is this ever gonna happen? How is this ever gonna work out? And we ask God these same questions about our lives, and we say there's just no way this can be accomplished. I think if we're honest, we've all been there at different times. And even within the church, we look at different ministries and ministry opportunities, and outreach events and even things like building programs, which there is a rumblings of here. And there's been a fund established for that. But it's like, man, how is that ever going to happen? How is it ever gonna be enough? And we just shake our heads at times in our weakness of our faith and say, well, that's just impossible. And why do we do this? I believe the same reason the disciples did. We don't believe in a big God. You say, well, I believe in Jesus because I'm saved. That's not what I mean. I mean that at times, our faith gets weak. And we need to be reminded how big a God we serve. We often find ourselves minimizing what God can do because we can't see the picture. Turn in your Bibles with me to 2 Kings. Just put a bookmark there in Mark 8. And let's go back into the Old Testament. We see a prime example of this, this attitude. 2 Kings, comes right after 1 Kings. Chapter six, 2 Kings chapter six. And we're gonna read verses eight through 13. It won't be on the screens, so you can follow along in your copy of the scriptures. 2 Kings 6, starting at verse eight. Now the king of Syria was making war against Israel, and he consulted with his servants, saying, my camp will be in such and such a place. And the man of God said to the king of Israel, saying, beware that you do not pass this place, for the Syrians are coming down there. Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place which the man of God had told him, thus he warned him, and he was watchful there, not just once or twice. This didn't just happen a couple of times. This happened over, and over, and over, and over again. So as the king of Syria, he's in his situation room, or whatever it was called, in his palace, or whatever, with his army, perhaps, in his tent, with his high-ranking officials, and his generals of his army, and he's got the map spread out, and they're standing around the table, and they're plotting how they're gonna attack Israel. How are we going to make war? How are we going to have our, what's our troop movement plan? What's our war strategy going to be? And they would have these secret meetings and secretly plan. Well, God would, of course, there's no secrets with God. He would reveal that to Elisha and Elisha would tell the king. And so over and over and over and over again, this happened. And the king of Syria, obviously he's not very happy about this. His plans are being thwarted. Verse 11, therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing. He was ticked off. And he called his servants and said to them, will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel? There's gotta be a spy in this camp. There's no way that Israel's king could know what we talk about in these meetings. We don't even tell the troops until it's right time to go. And then we march. How can this happen? There must be a spy. That's what he assumed. Verse 12, And one of his servants said, None, my lord. It's not us, O king. But Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom. How this servant of the king of Syria knew about this, unclear at this time, but he did. Verse 13, so he said, go and see where he is that I might send and get him. This is what the king of Syria said. And it was told him, saying, surely he is in Dothan. Therefore, he, the king of Syria, sent horses and chariots and a great army there. And they came by night and surrounded the city. Like, we're gonna snuff this guy out so he stops telling our strategies to the king of Israel. And when the servant of the man of God rose early and went out, there was an army surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, alas, my master, what shall we do? How can we feed the multitude? We're in the wilderness, there's no bread. Verse 16, so he, Elisha, answered, do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, strike this people, I pray, with blindness. And he struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha. Elisha's servant did not believe in a big God. Jesus' disciples were questioning the bigness of God, the power of God. God is always bigger than our problems. God is always stronger than our enemies. We must believe that by faith. In Mark 10.27, another issue had come up about who can go to heaven, and the disciples are questioning Jesus. And we'll get there in a while, whenever we get to Mark 10. But Jesus looked at them and said, with men it is impossible. It is impossible with men. It is impossible to defeat an army of chariots and horses surrounding a city. It is impossible to feed a multitude when you're in the wilderness and there's no bread. but not with God, for with God all things are what? Possible. So we come back into our passage now in Mark 8, and the disciples are questioning this. Now there's some other things to think about in this passage. So they had been through the feeding of the 5,000, right? They had seen what Jesus could do there. So at first it's like, well, why couldn't they just know that Jesus obviously is a big God? He did it before. Aren't they gonna just go like, hey, he did this before, he's gonna do it again? You would think so, you would think so. Two things stand out to me. One is that, notice they say these people. When Jesus fed the 5,000 with the five loaves and the fish, they were mostly Jews, if not all Jews. And if you remember, at the end of that miracle, what did they try to do to Jesus? To make him king, yeah. And Jesus has to stop them because that's not the plan. He's gotta go to the cross. So Gentiles wouldn't have done that. We know that it was mainly a Jewish area. Now, over in the Decapolis region, Is it mostly Jew or Gentile? Gentile, the disciples knew that. So I believe there's an element here of some ethnic division with these disciples, possibly. And then the other thing is, as we get into later in Mark, and we talked about this when we talked about the heart, and I don't remember exactly the passage that we looked at, but we talked about how their hearts were hardened. when they're in the boat, and he says, beware of the bread, you remember? Of the Pharisees, and they think, oh, it's because we didn't bring bread in the boat. And he asked them, he's like, weren't you guys there at the 5,000 and the 4,000? It's the hardness of your hearts, remember that? So we also have hard hearts, we have doubting faith, and potentially an ethnic boundary that the disciples were not willing to cross. And I believe this will come up again, by the way, and when we get to the next section, the Pharisees come out and start disputing with him. I really believe it's because he did this, what we're going to see, to Gentiles. I don't think the Pharisees were happy about that. So as we put all that together, we try to piece together what we're seeing in Scripture and try to understand, how is it that these men could have doubted? I think we've laid out some potential reasons, some likely reasons. But this is Jesus we're talking about. Remember, The disciples, at some level, I don't believe, really think that these people deserve this blessing. Perhaps that's the issue. But this is Jesus we're talking about. Hadn't he healed the Syrophoenician's daughter in an amazing exchange, that conversation that we studied a few weeks ago? Hadn't he touched the ears and the tongue of a Gentile man to heal his deafness and his muteness? Yes, his focus is the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He made that clear when he spoke to the mother. But now he's surrounded by these Gentiles. And although they aren't the primary focus of his mission, we see he has compassion and they should have taken that clue. Oh, he has compassion. We should have compassion as well. So this issue, as we think about this question of how can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness, it's not a how question. They're asking the wrong thing. It's not a how question. It's a who question. Who can do this? The answer is standing right in front of them, Jesus can. Let's go to verse five, Mark 8, five. He asked them, how many loaves do you have? And they said seven. One writer speculated that Jesus may have said this through gritted teeth. How many loaves do you have, guys? Like, get with the program. I don't know that he did that. I don't know that I agree with it. I see where he's coming from. Jesus did rebuke the disciples at times. What's wrong with your faith? Don't you have faith? Come on. Don't you know me? Don't you know who I am? How many loaves do you have? And so we come to Jesus' solution. What do you have? How many loaves do you have? And they said seven. This is Jesus' solution for the problem. What do you have? Now, sometimes Jesus does provide something out of nothing. That happens at times. But when I read the Bible, I believe the most common method that Jesus or that God, for that matter, uses to provide is taking what someone already has and blessing that and multiplying that for his use. It's his department to provide things that we don't have. What he does ask us to provide is what we currently do have. Remember, he did this at the feeding of the 5,000 as well. It's God's method for accomplishing his work. Let's take another little trip into the Old Testament, this time all the way back to Exodus. Chapter four, verse, yeah. Yes. How many do you have, right? Right, right. And maybe the disciples were keeping these seven loaves in reserve, because I don't know how big the loaves were, but potentially 12 guys maybe could have had at least a snack or a part of a meal, right? That's a great point, great point. And again, I think that speaks to how they may have been viewing this Gentile crowd through those jaded eyes. But in Exodus 4, We're just gonna read the first five verses. We're gonna see this exemplified, and then I'll touch on a couple of other examples from scripture, how God takes what we have and uses that to do his most amazing things. Exodus 4 verse 1, then Moses answered and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice. Suppose they say the Lord has not appeared to you. So Moses, again, he's talking to God in the burning bush. And God has told him, go get my people from Egypt. He's starting to ask some questions. He's having some doubts. What if they don't listen? Verse two, so the Lord said to him, what is that in your hand? He said, a rod. How many loaves do you have? What is that in your hand? I'm gonna use that. Verse three, and God said to Moses, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent. Moses fled from it. Then the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. And he reached out his hand and caught it and it became a rod in his hand. that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has appeared to you. What is in your hand? What do you already have? That's what I want to use. Will he provide things out of nothing sometimes? Yes. But over and over in scripture, we see him using what people already have. And I think he does the same thing with us. Barbara. The wedding in Cana, right, the water. Just put the water in those vessels. And he used that. Some other examples. He told Peter, when he brought in that massive catch, he didn't just kind of nod or speak to the water and the fish jumped on shore. He told Peter, you're gonna have a part in this. Take your net that you already have and put it in the water. And what happened? Then all the fish entered and just about sunk the ship. There were so many. When David faced Goliath, did God use Saul's armor and normal standard military technique to defeat the soldier? No. He said, I'm gonna use the thing David already has in his hand. I'm gonna use the sling. So as I look at this, I think about how this applies to us. Jesus could have created the food out of thin air. We all agree with that, correct? But he doesn't do that. He says, how many loaves do you have? What is in your hand? And I apply that to our life. That's what God wants to do in our lives more than not. He says, what do you have right now? What about your time? What about your treasure? What about your talents? I want to use those things. And this is where A word of warning, sometimes this is where comparison hurts us, because I look at what I'm holding in my hand, and I look over at what they have in their hand, or what's over here, like, well, I don't have as much as them, or they're bigger, stronger, wealthier, have more charisma, have more influence. God says, I don't want you to think about what the other people have in their hand. I've blessed them and given them, and they're responsible for that. I want you to take what's in your hands and steward it well. The parable of the talents comes to mind. He said, here, I'm going to put this in your hand. Use that. And God does the same for us. Mike. Perhaps, yes. Yes, that's possible. So Mike's question was back in, you're talking about Mark 8 verse 2, I have compassion on the multitude, they have nothing to eat. And yes, potentially prompting the disciples, what do you guys have? I know you guys got some loaves, you know, and they finally have to say, he has to just ask them plainly, well, how many loaves do you have? The answer to Jesus' statement should have been, well, Lord, we have seven loaves. Will you use these? Take these and use them. That's not what they say. You can't do this, this is impossible. We're in the wilderness, there's no bread. Shh, just keep those loaves hidden, you know. So what is in your hand right now? What is God placed in your hand? That's what he wants to use. That's what he wants to use. For the disciples, it was seven loaves for 4,000. We're gonna see probably at least double that amount. Probably closer to between eight and 10,000 people. So seven to 8,000 or 4,000 plus people, don't expect your odds to be much better. God loves to be the God of the impossible. He loves to take the weak things, as was mentioned in the message this morning, the weak things, the weak people of the world, and use them to confound the wise. Let's go on, verse six. So he, Jesus, commanded the multitude to sit on the ground. So Jesus, again, he's in charge, right? Mark loves to highlight his authority. And he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before them. And they set them before the multitude." So again, Mark likes this immediate action. There's no pause. Okay, we've got seven loaves. Everyone sit down. Give me the loaves. He goes right into it. And of course, Jesus' authority is there. Notice that Mark is careful to say, and he took the seven loaves. He didn't go around and ask the crowd for what they maybe had left over. He didn't try to turn the rocks into bread as Satan attempted him to do. He took those seven loaves, the seven loaves, the ones that the disciples had, and nothing more and nothing less. And the four things, notice that he does. He took them, he gave thanks for them, he broke them, and then he gave them. The disciples had to give up the few loaves they had. Jesus had to take them. Sometimes he's asking us to give up some of our resources to serve him and trust that he's gonna multiply them and bless them. Notice he thanks the Father for the loaves. Everything we have is God's anyway. Every good gift cometh down from the Father of lights. With him is no variables, no shadow of turning. Everything is from the Father. So Jesus is thanking God just as we should as an example. Notice he also broke the loaves. God takes what we have sometimes and he changes it. He alters it. to fit his plans. And so God might ask for our time to be invested in others' lives, and he might ask us to use our time in ways that we're not expecting, or to use our gifts and our talents and our treasures in ways that we might at first feel uncomfortable with. God specializes in pulling people out of their comfort zones, if you haven't noticed that yet, about how he works. He wants to use what we have, but he wants to be in control. If the disciples would have held the seven loaves back, this would not have happened in this way. I think Jesus would have fed them some other way, because he had compassion. He could do anything he wanted, but he took what they had, and he broke it, and they had to give him the authority to do that. They had to hand them over, so do we. We must hand it over to him, and then gave. Now Jesus gave the disciples the bread back, so that they could distribute them. He says, I just want you to trust me. I'm gonna do something amazing with what you have in your hands right now. Then I'm gonna give it back to you and you're gonna take it and you're gonna use it for something that you could never have imagined. Once God has broken us and shaped us and molded us, just as he broke that bread, Jesus invites us, now I want you to participate in this ministry. Just as the disciples, bread was broken and they were invited into participation. the process of spreading God's love and grace. So we get down to the end of the verse, and they set them before the multitude. So the disciples labor just as the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus multiplies the food, then he leaves it in their hands to do with what they need to do. He trusts them. Verse seven goes on and says, they also had a few small fish. We don't know where these came from. Were these being held in reserve also by the disciples? I don't know. Maybe someone from the crowd that had them, not sure, but they were given. They were given just as the loaves were given. And Jesus blessed them. And he said to them also, and he said to set them also before them. So the bread and the fish were both multiplied. Somebody should have pulled out a cheesecake, John said. I agree. I agree. Yes. Let's quickly get into our final section here. Now that we're all hungry, thanks. Number three, the Savior's satisfaction, verses 8 through 10. So let's look at verse 8. So, because of all that, the multitude ate and were what? Filled. Satisfied. satisfied, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. The crowd ate, they were filled, they were completely satisfied. It was an all-you-can-eat experience, just as the other feeding was. The people were completely satisfied. God always provides enough. and he often provides much more than enough. Ephesians 3, 20 and 21, now to him, to Christ, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think, beyond our wildest imagination, that's where Jesus works. We must not limit our God according to the what? Power that works in where? Us. It's us, just as he used the bread and the men to distribute it, he puts power and works in us, to him be the glory though, not us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. Verse eight again, they took up these seven large baskets, remember 12 baskets were taken up of leftovers, one for each disciple, at the feeding of the 5,000. Now the baskets, it's interesting because we're actually talking about two different kinds of baskets here and I think it's worth talking about. It's just an interesting fact. The word for baskets here is different than the word for baskets back in the feeding of the 5,000. And so the English translation here, large baskets is rightly translated there because these baskets, the baskets with the 5,000 were smaller, ones that you could carry to gather food, like they would gather figs or whatever it was. These baskets, though, were large, hamper-sized baskets. They were able to hold a man in them. And we know that, it's the same word used in Acts 9.25, then the disciples took him, speaking of Paul, by night and led him down through the wall in a large, what, basket. It's the same baskets used here to gather up these seven baskets of fragments or leftovers. Verse nine, now those who had eaten were about 4,000 and he sent them away. Matthew adds the details for us as often as the case. Mark is just very abrupt. Matthew says, speaking of the same event, now those who ate were 4,000 men besides women. children so if there's a woman for every man that was 8,000 plus the children we're getting into potentially even over 10,000 people all fed to the full to full satisfaction by seven loaves and a few fish actually they weren't fed by the seven loaves and few fish Who were they fed by? Jesus. Jesus. It's a picture and a parallel, and we won't go there because of time, but Exodus 16, one through 18 is the Old Testament parallel of this miracle. When Jesus fed, or when God, and of course Jesus being part of God was part of it, but when Yahweh fed his people in the wilderness with the quail in the evening and the manna in the morning, Yes, Exodus 16, 1 through 18. Exodus 16, 1 through 18 gives us the Old Testament parallel in many ways to what we just read about here in Mark 8. And so we go down to our final couple of verses here as we conclude. Now those who had eaten were about 4,000 and he sent them away. Verse 10, immediately, there's our word again from Mark, immediately got into the boat with his disciples and came to the region of Dalmanutha. Matthew's account reads Magdala, so there's a little debate on where this was. It's not really that critical to our lesson or even to Mark in general, but it is just an interesting there's different theories about where this was. But does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? No. As we conclude this morning, are you facing any situations that seem impossible? Are you struggling with being dissatisfied with life? What might God be asking you to give him? to trust him with so that he might do the work of satisfaction that is needed. We must remember that Jesus wants to use what is in our hands already. Don't count yourself out of the work of God due to what you see in your hand. If God can use a rod of wood, a leather sling, seven loaves, he can use whatever is in our hands to do just as amazing things. Don't underestimate what God can do to satisfy our deepest needs. Father, thank you for being such a great God. You are a big God, Lord. If we should try to understand you, Lord, it would just be a lifetime of learning and we would never fully grasp how awesome you are. And we see that demonstrated over and over and over again. Situations that are indeed humanly impossible. but are miraculously and abundantly provided for by your power. So please help us not to despise what you've placed in our hands. Help us to see it as a wonder, as a potential miracle in our own hearts and lives and the people around us. And Lord, that we would trust in you and we would have our faith strengthened as we read your word and read passages like this and be reminded, Lord, that you are the only one that will satisfy and you want to use what we have already. So help us go out, help us to live in faith with those things in mind. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you for being here, guys. Have a good day.