Hungry? - Wild Heart: Mark’s Portraits of a Radical Messiah

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After a month’s hiatus we’re continuing our series Wild Heart: Mark’s Portrait of a Radical Messiah this morning.

Last time we looked at how Jesus created a ‘holy’ tension in people by challenging them to search their hearts by showing them how they were relying on traditions and religious rules to keep them ‘holy’ instead of a living and dynamic relationship with God.

That’s easy for us to do too if we’re not careful. It seems much easier to create a list of “do’s” and “don’t’s” to keep us on the straight and narrow, but in the end if those ‘rules and traditions’ aren’t grounded in our relationship with Jesus and guided by biblical truth we’re no better than the religious leaders that Jesus was so critical of.

Today we’re going to look at 5 ‘snapshots’ from the gospel of Mark that reveal an insight connected to living in a dynamic relationship with Jesus.

I’ll admit that this ‘connection’ came to me while we were sharing this past Wednesday evening.

So let’s read Mark 7:24-8:30….

Other than the fact that Jesus spit on two men there’s a underlying theme that connects all of these events. They all wanted something from Jesus.

The gentile woman kept asking Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter.

The deaf mute man’s friends begged Jesus to heal their friend.

The 4,000 were hungry.

The Pharisees sought a sign from Him.

The disciples wanted bread.

The blind man’s friends begged Jesus to touch their friend.

I thought it was interesting that:

Those who recognized that Jesus was their only hope were the ones who went away having received what they desired.

I also thought it was interesting that the people who had been blessed with the most insight and understanding of God, the religious leaders and the disciples came away empty handed.

What this suggests is that:

We have to be careful not to become overly confident in our own ability to provide what we think we need.

The Pharisees were seeking a sign to compare Jesus to their traditional ideas of who the Messiah would be. As we know Jesus did plenty of things that were clear evidence that He was the Messiah, but those things didn’t match up with what the Pharisees were expecting and they were content to stay with what they knew and controlled.

The disciples were another story. Even after seeing what Jesus could do they became distracted by their failure to bring bread for their trip. Jesus then took the opportunity to sneak in a little lesson to show them that their emptiness for lack of bread was the spiritual equivalent of the emptiness of the Pharisees who trusted in their knowledge instead of looking to Jesus for help.

But the disciples missed the point and figured that Jesus was mad at them for forgetting the bread. That’s when Jesus got mad because the disciples were missing the forest for the trees. They had seen Jesus provide for multitudes with only a few loaves of bread but they were sure Jesus was mad because they only had 1 loaf.

The disciples were trusting in their own ability to provide for themselves then they assumed that Jesus would be mad at them because they didn’t do enough for Him.

Jesus doesn’t need to defend Himself or do anything to prove Himself to us. What we think about Him doesn’t change Him. If He never did anything for us it doesn’t change who He is.

Jesus doesn’t need us to do anything for Him either. He’s gotten along just fine for eternity without our help, thank you very much, but He sure wants us to do things with Him. Remember Jesus said in John 15:5 “without Me you can do Nothing.” He really means that.

So those who are content to have things their way come away empty because inside they don’t really think they need anything.

The people who came away full were the ones who fell on the mercy of Jesus. They came in humility knowing that they couldn’t do anything about their circumstance without Him.

They came with faith because they heard that Jesus could help them.

They came hungry because they knew Jesus could fill their need.

Are you really hungry for what Jesus can do in your life today?

Is there something burning inside that’s telling you there’s more for you than what you’ve settled for?

Only Jesus can satisfy the emptiness we feel inside. We try to fill it with everything but Him sometimes, but deep down we know it won’t last.

I want to invite you to search your heart and see if you’ve become content with less than the fullness of the Spirit that Jesus offers. What have we substituted for our relationship with Him?

Here’s the truth if you’re not hungry enough to seek Jesus then you’re full of something else. You’ve allowed your soul to become hostage to something that will leave you empty, battered, and separated from the only One who can help you.

There’s only one problem you can’t create this hunger. When you’re full you can’t make yourself hungry. Something you can’t control has to happen. When it comes to things of God you can’t make yourself hungry the only thing you can do is be honest with yourself and confess that you’re really satisfied, and ask God to create a hunger in your soul that only He can fill.

Are you hungry?