Sunday Sermon - Sunday July 5, 2026 - Gospel of Mark 8:1-10 Feeding and More

Last week we have the deaf and mute man given the ability to hear, speak and understand, and while Jesus had asked him not to say anything, that of course did not happen, so now Jesus is seeing the crowds in Decapolis that he was seeing in Judah. But these people are different, they are not Jews, they do not have the same theological system that Jesus has, Jesus does not need to teach the Jews certain concepts, they understand that there is but One God, not many gods. The Jews understands that God created all things, these Gentiles think that the earth and the universe are eternal, so there is a lot of stuff that Jesus needs to teach these people, and because they are Greeks mainly they are going to want details, lots and lots of details. This is why Luke’s Gospel is much longer than Mark’s. While Jesus was teaching the Jews how to properly interpret the Old Testament, Jesus here to these Gentile is giving an introduction to the Old Testament. And as we read this account we see the time Jesus spends with them as compared to the Jews.

Mark 8:1 In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them,

Mark 8:2 “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

Three days these people have been listening to Jesus teach, imagine you spending three days here listening to me teach and preach, some of you right now are having an awaking nightmare, but nevertheless these people are hungry for the truth. But had they nothing to eat for 3 days, well not nothing, but nothing of substance, and not much more than they brought with them, and that was not much because most of them had not planned to spend three days listening to this Jewish Rabbi. But they had, and they did spend three days listening to Him. What does that say for them, and their want for something real. Their pagan gods needed to be appeased so that they would not torment humans. Humans were just toys to the Greek gods they offered nothing in the life to come and in this life nothing more than pain and suffering. What the Jewish Rabbi was teaching was something they had never heard of before, or at least not in this much detail. This God was not a God of chaos like their gods, this God was a God of order and purpose.

Mark 8:3 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.”

Mark 8:4 And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” Have the disciples forgot that Jesus had feed the 5,000+ just a while ago? Maybe, but not likely, those people were Jews, these are Gentiles, let’s remember what Jesus had said to the Syrophoenician woman, it is not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs, and while Jesus had healed that woman’s child because of their faith, using His power to feed a bunch of pagan Gentiles was an entirely different matter. The disciples would already have been confused by Jesus teaching these pagans the ways of God, why? These people are not worthy, they are not God’s chosen people. Why is Jesus wasting his time with them? Three days, and now Jesus wants to feed these people. Hence their question, how do you expect us to feed all of these people out in the middle of nowhere, that nowhere meaning a place they know little to nothing about. They are not from there, they do not associate with these people, so Jesus you are asking us to do the impossible.

Mark 8:5 And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.”

Mark 8:6 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 his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.

Mark 8:7 And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them.

Mark 8:8 And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

Mark 8:9 And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

Mark 8:10 And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

Notice that there are slightly differences between the feeding of the 5,000 and this feeding, one of course that the crowd is smaller, not by much, but still smaller. It would have mostly men, since this was a local event, these men would have no brought their wives and children. Many of these men came as we have stated many times before, they came for the show, and they ended up staying to hear what Jesus had to say, so the crowd is not nearly as large as the Jewish crowd.

There is something more important here, Jesus is fully opening the door to ministry to the Gentile. Let’s remember that Jesus did not send his disciples to the Gentile in fact He had forbidden them into going in to the Gentile regions. They were only to go to the Jews. Why, because they the disciples were not prepared to go to the Gentiles yet, and it would be a very long time before they would be ready.

But Jesus went to them. Jesus did not wait for the Gentiles to come looking for Him, why, because frankly most of them did not know they needed to hear what he had to say, until they heard about what was said, and some of what was said, might not have been completely true. So because Jesus knew that word had gotten to the Gentiles, he went to them, and to get their attention, Jesus healed the woman’s daughter He gave hearing, wisdom and speech to the deaf and mute man, so now that I have your attention, allow me to teach you the things of God. None of this happened by accident, this was a plan, there was a purpose behind all of this. Our Roman reader we hope is starting to see that Jesus has not only a purpose, but a plan. You can have a purpose for your life, but if you don’t have a plan to bring that purpose to life, then it is just wish. Jesus had a purpose and a plan. The purpose was to glorify God, to bring the Gospel to the people, He did this first to his own people, some accepted what he had to say, some did not, most of them who did not accept were the people closes to him, his family His own community, but that did not stop Him. The purpose was given by the Father, that the Son could redeem mankind to them, to restore the relationship that was broken in the garden. That was the purpose. The plan was that the Son would come to earth as a man, walk as a man, and yet being fully God, He did not find equality of God something that He needed to hold onto, but took on flesh came as a servant, to preach the Good News, to teach and preach the Word of God, and then to go to the cross as the perfect sacrifice, so that the wrath of God may be appeased, that justice is done, and He rose on the third day.

Jesus had a purpose and a plan, and we see this playing out first with the Jews, correcting their false interpretations of the Old Testament, and then coming to the Gentiles, doing the same for the them as He did for the Jews, casting out demons, healing the sick, giving hearing to the deaf, wisdom and speech to the mute, and giving them the most important things which is the knowledge of the One True God. That is the plan playing out.

Now, we have always seen these stories in the Mark and other books in the Bible as nice stories of Jesus doing great things, but people you need to look deeper at the text. See what Jesus is doing.

Jesus is going to them.

Jesus is helping them.

Jesus is teaching them.

Guess what, that is the same ministry that Jesus gave to all of us, You have to go to them, you cannot not sit around and think that God is just going to fill this church. You have a active roll, Go to them and tell them about Jesus. Second you have to show them the love of Christ by helping them, it shows that you are truly invested in them, and are not just seeing them as convert, a mark in your belt, there is an earnest want to see these people come to faith. Finally Jesus taught them scripture, he taught them theology, he started them on a path of the knowledge of God. Most of the people we interact with today as just as much pagan as these Gentiles that Jesus was dealing with in Decapolis.

The feeding of the 4,000 is not just another story of Jesus doing miracles. It is the story of Jesus carrying through with His purpose given to Him by the Father, and having a plan, that required Him to go to those people and show them He is the Messiah, the one who has come to restore our relationship with God. See the purpose, see the plan, He gave you this story, so that you will share in his purpose and plan, you have it now.

What are you going to do?

Darin Bracy is the pastor at Yorktown Baptist Church in Yorktown Virginia. He is a graduate of Veritas Baptist College with a BA in Ministry and a minor in History. He has a wife Stacy, two daughters, Ashlynne and her husband Justin, their daughter Harper Darin's other daughter Aftyn, and her two dogs, Eddie and Lulubelle.

You can reach Darin at his email address, Darinbracy@gmail.com and you can see his video content on YouTube – Basic Baptist Guy