What Do You See? Series

Mark 8:11-26

Do You See Anything?

This year you are studying: Questions Jesus Asked from Mark’s gospel.

Did you know that in Mark 8 in the NKJV, there are at least 16 questions asked by Jesus.

You could have gotten your entire Summer Series from just this chapter!

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1. How many loaves do you have?

2. Why does this generation seek a sign?

3. Why do you reason because you have no bread?

4. Do you not yet perceive or understand?

5. Is your heart still hardened?

6. Having eyes do you not see?

7. And having ears do you not hear?

8. And do you not remember?

9. When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?

10. Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?

11. How is it you do not understand?

12. Do you see anything?

13. Who do men say that I am?

14. But who do you say that I am?

15. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

16. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

There’s a power packed package of probing questions right there!

When Jack James called to talk with me about your summer series and said you were doing the questions of Jesus from Mark’s gospel, I was curious. Then when, he gave me the scripture reference and question he wanted me to share on, interestingly enough, I had just listened to a lesson on this very text! And I mean, was finishing it when the phone rang!

So I have a couple of questions for you. First, do you suppose that God had a hand in this? Or, second, was this just a matter of coincidence? What I am really asking is the same question Jesus asked this blind man that he was healing, * “When the Lord is working in your life, *do you see anything?” When Jesus begins to shine and that light comes upon you… do you see anything?

The subtitle of my lesson is: *Opening the Eyes of our Heart.

Wow! Now that’s a subject we can talk a long time about and still not scratch the surface of it. But let’s go back and look at our text to see where God wants us to go with this.

Our text for tonight is Mark 8:11-26 and in this text alone Jesus asks 10 of the 16 questions in the chapter. Look at the text with me and underline the questions on the handout.

This text naturally divides into three sections. In each case Jesus has questions.

First we see Jesus and the Pharisees. Now we generally don’t like the Pharisees, do we? Well, it is for good reason. Whenever we see them, we see blindness. We see the light of truth bouncing off them. These Pharisees were not just blind; they were upset that Jesus told them so. When Jesus was finally fed up to here with their opposition, he shouted, “You blind Pharisees! Well, let me just read what Jesus himself said in Matthew 23:15-26, this will give us just a taste…

Jesus never took the Dale Carnage course on winning friends and influencing people. But He didn’t start out so aggressively against them. He just would not bow to their hypocrisy, nor would he compromise with them when they tried to win him to their side.

Jesus told them the truth.

The eyes of their hearts were shut tight! If you asked them the question, “Do you see anything?” in reference to Jesus, they would declare him an enemy! They saw trouble. They saw Jesus as a huge threat. They saw Jesus from the perspective of spiritual blindness and heard heartedness, and all they could see made them angry and upset.

And so when they come to Jesus here in Mark 8, they were looking for an argument. They wanted to dispute with him. The text says they were seeking a sign from heaven, testing him, verse 11. Listen to Jesus response. I want you to see something here…

Open the eyes of your heart to Jesus here and look at his response carefully.

Sighing deeply in his spirit… Do you see anything? Can’t you just see Jesus shaking his head with heavenly longing for these blind men to see, but knowing they are deliberately choosing to close their eyes? Here they come… We want a sign from heaven! Show us a sign! How blind! The sign from heaven is right there before them! Jesus is the sign! These guys couldn’t see the brightest light of heaven shining right there in their faces!