(Mark 8:14-21)--"HOW IS IT THAT YE DO NOT UNDERSTAND?"(They just didn't get it!)
Intro:   Let's take a moment to reconsider the events that bring us to this scripture:· In verses 1-8 of this chapter, Jesus takes seven small loaves of bread and a few small fish and He feeds 4,000 people!  · In verse 8 the disciples collect the leftovers and they amount to seven baskets full. That is, the leftovers fill seven baskets (large enough to hold a full grown man!)  · In verses 11-12 Jesus is attacked by the Pharisees. They clearly proclaim their rejection of Him and demand that He perform some miracle in the heavens above to prove to them that He is really the Messiah.   Jesus refuses to play their game, verse 13, and He simply leaves them standing there while He and His men get into a boat and sail away.
That brings us to our text. Verse 14 finds Jesus and His disciples on a boat sailing across the Sea of Galilee. While they are crossing the lake, the disciples still have their minds on bread. They realize that they have forgotten to bring along any bread for themselves. I can imagine their thoughts, “Oh brother! We had seven huge baskets full of bread back there and we forgot to bring any with us! Now we are hungry and we don’t even have enough bread to feed even one of us!”   Jesus knows what they are thinking; and he uses their forgetfulness as an opportunity to teach them a few much needed lessons....and these lessons apply to us today!  Their problem is our problem; they had a lack of faith and a failure to understand His power in their midst. I want to take the Lord’s words in verse 21 and preach on “How Is It That Ye Do Not Understand?” We need this, because we are just like the disciples. Sometimes we just don’t get it. 
I. v. 15 THE LORD’S COMMAND--· Jesus knew what they were thinking about, as I have already said. When He perceives their thoughts, He uses the thought of bread to speak to their hearts.
He warns them to beware of the “leaven” of the “Pharisees” and of “Herod”. Our Lord’s warning needs a little explanation.   Leaven is another world for yeast. Yeast is added to dough to make it rise. Yeast is a bacteria that feeds on the dough and these bacteria give off a gas that causes bread to rise. Yeast can lie dormant for many months, and then, at the first hint of moisture, it comes to life and begins its work. The yeast will completely fill the whole lump of dough, and it will ferment!  Fermentation is the first step in decomposition. The only thing that can stop the leaven is extreme heat. When yeast is exposed to the fire, it dies.
In the Bible, leaven is a picture of sin, evil and wickedness. It is used as a picture of corruption. Believers are commanded to “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened,” 1 Cor. 5:7.  We are also warned that “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” 1 Cor. 5:6. The idea here is that a little sin is like yeast or leaven in our lives. When we tolerate sin in our lives, it will soon infiltrate every part of our lives.   So, Jesus warns them about the “leaven” or “the evil influences” of the Pharisees and of Herod. What is the leaven of the Pharisees?  The leaven of the Pharisees is defined in Luke 12:1, “…beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy”. The Pharisees were religious men, but their religion was external; it did not change their hearts.  In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said it like this, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves”.
What is the “leaven of Herod”? In Matthew 16:6, in Matthew’s account of these same events, Jesus calls it the leaven of “the Sadducees”. The Pharisees were the religious conservatives of the day while the Sadducees were the religious liberals. They were worldly and secular and they joined forces with King Herod in compromising with the Romans. These people, both the Sadducees and the followers of Herod, are often called “Herodians”. The leaven that infiltrated their lives and teaching was materialism, worldliness and compromise with the world.
Jesus is simply telling us that regardless of the age in which you live, beware of hypocrisy, worldliness and compromise. He tells us that if we allow just a little of those things to exist in our lives, they will infiltrate every area of life, just like yeast infiltrates an entire lump of dough. It is a simple command for the people of the Lord to be clean, holy and different. 
II. v. 16 THE DISCIPLES’ CONFUSION
· The disciples hear the Lord’s warning and they immediately misunderstand what He is trying to say. Their minds are so focused on the material, physical world that they cannot see the spiritual side of anything.  They hear the Lord’s word and immediately they start trying to figure it out.  But Jesus wasn’t talking about real bread at all. He is merely using the leaven found in bread as a metaphor, as a symbol of evil.   Like these disciples, we are so quick to dismiss what we see and hear without ever realizing that God is trying to grow and develop us for His glory.   Let’s take a church service for example. We always come in and do the very same things. We pray at the start, the choir sings, we receive an offering, someone preaches and we all go home. It’s the same formula Sunday after Sunday. We have gotten used to it and it’s just what we do. We have become so accustomed to the routine of doing “the church thing” that we fail to even consider God, or to even look for God in what we are doing.
Have you ever stopped to think that every message you hear is an encounter with eternity? That preacher has spent time with the Lord. He has gotten a word from God and He is sharing that word with you!   Have you ever stopped to consider that every song and every service is an opportunity to offer praises to the King? We may sing the same songs and do the same things, but we are privileged to be here. Some may think, “Oh No! Not that song again!” It doesn’t matter if we have sung it thousands of times. Look at what the song is saying to God!
Often that which you see as routine, accidental or coincidental is really Him at work! All I am saying that we need to learn to see beyond the obvious and look for the unseen hand of God working in us and around us.  The disciples never seemed to get it. They were so focused on the material world that they failed to see the spiritual work of God in their midst. 
III. v. 17-21 THE LORD’S CHALLENGE
· Remember, Jesus started out trying to warn them about the evils of the Pharisees and the Herodians. They totally missed the message and are focused on physical bread. In a sense, they are no different that the Pharisees that rejected Jesus in verse 11. The Pharisees saw what Jesus could do and they refused to believe. The disciples were with Jesus when He performed many of His miracles, and they even saw Him multiply miniscule amounts of bread to feed multitudes. They still couldn’t understand that He could take care of them.  They were worried about bread to eat when they had one loaf....If five loaves could feed 5000, surely the Lord could feed a dozen men with ONE LOAF!
· Now, it’s one thing for unbelievers like the Pharisees to fail to see and believe. It’s another thing altogether when those who claim to know and love the Lord to fail to see His power and believe Him for their needs.
When Jesus senses their thoughts, He asks them a series of questions, v. 17-20, that are designed to awaken faith in their hearts. Jesus questions them about their memories. Didn’t they see Him feed 5,000? Didn’t they see Him feed 4,000? Didn’t they hear His words and response of the people? Have they forgotten His mighty creative power? Are their hearts so hard that they cannot be penetrated by the things that they themselves have experienced?When Jesus asks them specifically about how many baskets of fragments were left over in the two feeding miracles, they answered "twelve in the first and seven in the second". Our Lord’s point in this is to get them to see Who they are dealing with.
Stop and think about all the mountains He has moved in your life. Set up a memorial!   Stop and remember when God answered your prayers and set up a memorial.   Stop and think about the answered prayers, the peace of God; the sense of His presence; the times when He blessed you for no apparent reason and set up a memorial.  Stop and think about how He saved you. Set up a memorial!  Realize that if He can do those great things, then there is nothing in your life that He cannot handle.  What Jesus is really trying to teach His disciples is that it isn’t what you have or what you can do that matters. Everything in your spiritual life comes down to Who you know!