Good morning.  Today we are going to continue our look at some of the powerful questions that Jesus asked people in His day.  So far we have taken a look at when Jesus asked the guy that was unable to walk for 38 years, “Do you want to get well?”  And then last week, we took a look at when Jesus asked His own disciples, “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?”  And this morning, we are going to take a look at another of Jesus’ questions.

But before we go any further, let’s begin with a word of prayer.  Let’s Pray!

According to the president of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 1.2 million crashes a year are caused by drivers being distracted.  Of course we all know that with the way cell phones have taken over in our society that cell phones are definitely a distraction for many drivers.  But to my surprise there are other distractions that are higher up on that list than what I would think.

According to one study done by the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center the biggest distraction was simply reaching or leaning for something that was in another seat or on the floor board.  That was followed by fiddling with the Radio, talking to someone, eating and drinking, grooming, dealing with passengers, and reading and writing.  And the list goes on.  Now if we are all honest we have all allowed ourselves to be distracted in our driving with one or more of those things, and some of us have been distracted by all of those things.

And technology just adds to the distractions.  We have radar detectors to help us watch out for cops, we have navigation systems to tell us where we are and how to get to the places we want to go, and we even have built in TV’s for our viewing pleasure.  We as people are easily distracted by many things.  Even when it comes to our own spiritual lives, we allow ourselves to get distracted.  Today in our series on the Questions That Jesus Asked, we see Jesus and the disciples in a boat together, and the disciples allowed themselves to get distracted by unimportant things.  Their distraction was causing them some major problems.  In the same way when we get spiritually distracted we tend to run into some major problems ourselves.

Go ahead and turn with me to Mark 8:13-21.  Here in this passage, we see Jesus question His disciples about the things that were distracting them.  I want you to take a look at this passage with me, but in order to get the full impact of these verses, we need to read what had just happened.  So if you will, take a look at Mark 8:1-12 with me please.  Mark 8:1-12 says, “1”

There in that text, we see Jesus perform a miracle and feed a group of over 4 thousand with just seven loaves and a few small fish.  Then He leaves and is tested by the Pharisees.  Then, the same day as all of this took place, Jesus gets back into the boat with His disciples, and we have the text that we are looking at today.  Take a look at that passage with me.  Mark 8:13-21 goes on to says, “1”

Now Jesus and the disciples had gotten into the boat.  At some point after they had gotten into the boat Jesus told them, “Be careful, watch out for the yeast of the Pharisee’s and that of Herod.”  It was obvious that Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees was still fresh on His mind.  Right before they had gotten into their boat the Pharisees had tried to test Him and ask Him for a sign from Heaven.  But when Jesus said yeast, He was not talking about bread, He was referring to evil.  Just as a little yeast would work its way through and saturate the whole loaf of bread, so would the hard heart and wickedness of these religious leaders.  They would spread throughout all people and they would have an affect on everyone in a negative way.

But when Jesus used the word yeast, the disciples realized that they had forgotten to bring any bread with them.  They had one loaf and that was it.  They assumed that Jesus was talking about physical bread, and it sparked a discussion about their situation.  Meanwhile, while they were focused on their inventory and stock of bread they missed the message that Christ was trying to give them.  Hence, the question that Jesus asked, “Why are you talking about having no bread?”

But in many ways doesn’t the same thing happen to us when we have allowed ourselves to get distracted spiritually.  We miss the message that God has for us.  The disciples just totally missed it here.  Instead of getting the message to beware of being influenced by these Pharisees and their evil ways, they were talking about bread for their stomach.

Instead of listening to what it was that Jesus really wanted to tell them, they were worried about themselves and the food that they had failed to bring along with them.  Food was important, but not as important as the message that Jesus was trying to share with them.

As I think about this story, I’m reminded of another person in scripture who had allowed themselves to become distracted and was missing the very words of Jesus.  Do you remember when Jesus went to the home of Mary and Martha?  Martha was making all of these preparations that she thought had to be done.  Maybe she was making a wonderful dinner and cooking up a storm in the kitchen.  Maybe she was trying to clean house at the same time embarrassed at the mess.  She was trying to make everything go good while Jesus was in her home.  Meanwhile, she had the Son of God sitting in her house, and she was not paying any attention to what He was saying.  Now listen to what the scriptures said in Luke 10:39-40.  It says, “She had a sister Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said.  But Martha was DISTRACTED by all the preparations that had to be made…”

It’s not that what Martha was doing was so bad, but she had allowed it to distract her from what she should have really been more concerned with.  And that was doing what her sister was doing.  She should have been sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to what He had to say.  There was so much more value in listening to the words of Jesus then there ever was doing housework or cooking or whatever it was that she was doing.

If you remember the story, Martha got upset at her sister for sitting there listening to Jesus when she was having to do all the work by herself.  And Jesus’ response to Martha was, “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken from her.”

In the same way, so many times if we aren’t careful we are so busy making these preparations in our life, that we neglect to do what we really need to do, and that is to just sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to what He has to say.  Sometimes we get so busy doing things that are not really bad things, we just give them the wrong priority in our lives.  And when we do that we often times miss the message that God wants to give us because we have allowed ourselves to become distracted.

Many of us have filled up our schedule so much that we haven’t given ourselves the time to just sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.  Or maybe we are so distracted with other things that when we do come to our time with God our minds are still filled with things that we need to do or concerns that we have that we really aren’t giving God our full attention and we are missing the message that He is trying to communicate to us.  Just as the disciples were so preoccupied dealing with physical bread that they were missing the real message of what Jesus was trying to say, sometimes we act the same way.

We as Christians need to make sure that we don’t allow ourselves to be so distracted that we don‘t hear the message Christ has for us.

I know so many times I’ve been guilty of being distracted by a ball game or some other distraction, and Nellie will say something to me and I will shake my head and act like I knew exactly what she said.  But then I’m in trouble when she asks me to repeat it.  And you know what, sometimes that’s what we try and do to God.  We allow ourselves to get so distracted by something, but then we play along and act like we are all ears to God.  But the truth is that we are distracted, and He knows that.

Sometimes, we even have this kind of thought process.  We have our ears and minds open to God during our devotion time with Him, but then we close our ears and our minds to Him for the rest of the day.  Once we have that 15 minutes of our day devoted to Him, we get distracted and think that He is not going to try and bother us any more that day.  But the truth is, we need to be open to Him all day long.  Throughout our day, we need to make sure that we are aware of God’s presence and have our spiritual ears open to what He might try to say to us.

But you see something else happens when we allow ourselves to get spiritually distracted.  After Jesus asked them what they were doing talking about having no bread, He then said to them, “Do you still not see and understand?  Are your hearts hardened?”  And then shortly after that He goes on to say, “Don’t you remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”  Jesus’ disciples answered 12.  Then Jesus continued, “And when I broke up the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?”  The disciples responded with 7.  Then Jesus said, “Do you still not understand?”

In other words, “Why in the world would physical bread even be an issue with you?  Why are you even concerned about the lack of bread?  Hello!  Don’t you remember what we fed five thousand people with?  Don’t you remember what we fed four thousand with?”  Now the disciples not only missed the message when they started focusing on the physical bread, but they forgot about the lessons that they had learned from their past experiences wit Jesus.  They should have learned from those experiences that a lack of food would never be an issue with Jesus around.  They should have learned that when they put their trust in Jesus that He supplies their every need.  But they were so distracted that they simply forgot what they had already learned.

And the truth is, we at times have been guilty of the same thing.  When we get spiritually distracted in our life we fail to remember the lessons from our past experiences.  You see, when difficult times come up when we are on top of our spiritual game we seem to take it differently.  We just have that faith and that confidence that God will come through in the clutch because He always has in the past.  And we have no problem remembering that.  But when we have allowed ourselves to get spiritually distracted from where we need to be and then we get hit with a situation, it’s amazing how much we worry.  It’s amazing, it’s like we have all of a sudden developed amnesia just like the disciples did and we forget how God has helped us out of problems in the past.

It’s funny, we criticize the Israelites so much for what they did at times.  Yet there are many times that we aren’t any better.

We are amazed that after God could bring them out of Egypt, after He could part the Red Sea for them and deliver them from Pharaoh and provide for their food needs that there were still times that they just thought that things couldn’t get any worse and that God had brought them out into the dessert just to kill them.  They seem to forget all that God had already done for them.  God had not abandoned them.

Yet, how many times have we done the same things.  Maybe He hasn’t parted the Red Sea but He has delivered us in some miraculous ways and we seem to forget that He has done amazing things in the past.  But when we are spiritually distracted, not only to we miss messages that He is trying to teach us, but we also forget past experiences and past lessons that He has already taught us.

Now, when we go back and look at verse 16, in the NIV it says “They discussed this with one another and said, “It is because we have no bread.””  And in the King James it is very similar using the word reasoned instead of discussed.  But now there are several scholars, including Matthew Henry, who writes many commentaries about the Bible, who seem to think that their discussion also turned into a blame game about why they had no bread.  One scholar’s translation of the Greek said, “They kept discussing the situation among themselves and saying, “We have no loaves.”  Another translation went, “They discussed with one another why they had no bread.”

You could see it now, when Jesus made His statement about beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod, the disciples started discussing it, and saying among themselves, “He’s talking about the bread, because we only have one loaf.”  Then you can see the discussion begin about why they only had one loaf and whose fault that it must be.  What’s ironic, is that it was only earlier that very same day that Jesus fed the four thousand with 7 loaves and collected 7 basketfuls, not a month ago, not even a week ago, but earlier that same day.  That makes their memory lapse of what Christ can do even worse.

So you can get the picture of these men beginning to say, “I thought you were going to get the leftover bread,” and the other person shooting back, “Well I thought it was his job to do it.”  Then you can see Jesus overhearing them and break in and say, “Why are you talking about having no bread?”  They had become so distracted that not only did they miss the message that Jesus was trying to give them, and not only did they fail to remember the lessons from past experiences, but now they were getting into useless arguments with one another.

And that is another thing that is more likely to happen when we get sidetracked spiritually.  When we get spiritually distracted, we get in useless quarrels with one another.  When you are focused spiritually you don’t get into useless quarrels and arguments because you know that it is silly and unproductive.

But when you are distracted spiritually, it’s easier to lose perspective of that and all of a sudden you get into a quarrel and refuse to yield your position or realize that it’s not all that important to begin with.

There was an amusing news story from Wales that told of a feud in a church while they were looking for a new pastor.  It read: “Yesterday the 2 opposition groups both sent ministers to the pulpit.  Both spoke simultaneously, each trying to shout above the other.  Both called for hymns, and the congregation sang 2, each trying to drown out the other.  Then the groups began shouting at each other.  Bibles were raised in anger.  The Sunday morning service turned into chaos.  Through it all, the 2 preachers continued trying to out shout each other with their sermons.  Eventually a deacon called a policeman.  2 came in shouting for the congregation to be quiet.  They advised the 40 people in the church to return to their homes.  The rivals filed out, still arguing with one another.  Last night one of the groups called a “let’s be friends” meeting.  It too broke out in an argument.”

Now that was a church with a bunch of spiritually distracted people in it.  If that church was filled with people who were focused spiritually it would have never even came close to getting that far out of hand.  But when we are distracted spiritually we allow those kinds of silly things to happen.  But it certainly can damage our witness when we allow those things to happen.

You hear of churches who get into arguments over all kinds of things these days.  Things like: what color the new carpet should be, do we use pews or chairs, do we sing hymns or choruses, and it goes on and on.  The devil has to laugh his head off sometimes at the way Christians and churches can act when He has managed to get them spiritually distracted.

So let me ask you this morning, “Is your life spiritually focused right now?  Are you focusing on God and what He might be saying to you?  Or have you allowed problems that have come your way to distract you and maybe even cause you to forget how God has always got you through in the past.  Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve been so distracted that you have gotten into useless disagreements.  Let’s put our focus back on Christ and not allow ourselves to get distracted from what’s important.

Jesus’ question to His disciples was simple, “Why are you talking about having no bread?”  This question was brought on by them be distracted from what He was trying to teach them.  As a result, they missed the message, they forgot about past experiences and lessons, and then they got into arguments with one another.  Why?  All because they had lost their focus.  So the question that I ask you this morning is even easier to understand:

“Are you spiritually focused today? Or have you allowed yourself to be distracted?”

Let’s Pray!