Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: I would venture to say that each and every single one of you have things going on in your life that you've been given that you're probably neglecting for something that you don't have. Here is the information I want to give you right now, and I think it's really important for you to have it. Whatever you're neglecting for the hope of what you don't have, you will never get what you don't have if you don't learn to ignore that only to focus on that which is in front of you. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Guest (Male): It's time once again for Light on the Hill. We're glad you've joined us as we get right back into Pastor James Kaddis's new series in Mark's gospel. To review, Jesus has just fed 4,000 people with a few fish and little bread. He then is approached by the Pharisees asking for a sign. They messed up, but we can stand to benefit from it if we'll grasp what Jesus is about to communicate here in Mark chapter eight. Here is Pastor James.

James Kaddis: Jesus, after having just dealt with the Pharisees and telling them I'm not going to give this generation any sign, chooses to take a moment and to minister to his disciples, saying, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod." That's a pretty powerful statement, by the way. "Take heed, beware." What does that mean? The leaven of the Pharisees, the leaven of Herod? Well, the first thing that happens is automatically the place that the disciples gravitate to is Jesus is making a very spiritual symbol because we forgot to take the bread.

But what they didn't realize is that Jesus just finished rebuking the Pharisees, and they should know about the connection of Herod because Jesus was with them when they had a confrontation with Herod or were talking about Herod. What's the one thing that Herod and the Pharisees had in common? They were constantly asking Jesus for a sign. They wanted Jesus to put on a show. They wanted a sign. They failed to embrace and acknowledge what was before them and instead, they wanted something that was going to end up becoming worthless, vain.

Give me the fleeting, momentary entertainment that I want instead of embracing the creator of the universe. They had an incredible opportunity in front of them, and instead of taking advantage of the incredible opportunity put in front of them, what they chose to do was use him in perhaps one of the most nominal ways possible and give them some kind of an appeasing or entertaining sign that would only last for moments.

Think about that. You think about the possibility of how all of that works and what that all means. When you're given the opportunity of a lifetime, why in the world would you want to throw it away just so you can be entertained for ten minutes? It doesn't make sense. Jesus sees this quality within the Pharisees. He sees this quality within Herod, the generation that he's talking about. They all have this in common. They're sign seekers.

Jesus tells his Pharisees, beware. Beware of the decay that this will bring. Beware of the destruction. Beware of the sin that will decay the society that you find in the Pharisees and in Herod, the ones who will so desperately seek to sensationalize the very things that they don't have that they will do it at the expense of what is in essence intrinsically valuable. They'll throw away the precious gift and tool that's in their hand so that they can experience some momentary, fleeting thing that they've never had or have never seen or won't see.

That's what he's telling the disciples. He's saying, don't be sensationalists. Don't be the type of people that are seeking a thrill when you have what you need to do what you're going to do. But the disciples start freaking out. The disciples think first of all, they ignore what Jesus is saying. They're not even paying attention to the principle that Jesus was trying to communicate with them. What they were actually doing was they were beginning to speculate why Jesus used the word leaven, and now they're beginning to believe that Jesus is rebuking them because they forgot to bring the bread, some kind of a hidden spiritual thing.

What were the disciples doing at this point? The disciples were doing the exact same thing that the Pharisees and Herod did. They were focusing in on what wasn't instead of understanding what substantively was. They were not considering the substance of what Jesus was saying for one second. Look at what ends up happening. This gets even more interesting.

And when Jesus knew it, he said unto them, "Why reason you because you have no bread? Perceive you not yet, neither understand? Have you your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see you not? Having ears, hear you not? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took you up?" They say unto him, "Twelve." "And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took you up?" and they said, "Seven." And he said unto them, "How is it that you do not understand?"

Now, some people might look at that line of questioning and think, well, that's a little confusing. What is Jesus saying here? Well, think about it. Jesus is giving them spiritual counsel. He's warning them about something that could destroy them. And if they were to listen to his warning, it would be something that would sustain them and cause them to be blessed in ways they never thought possible.

But instead, what they were focusing on was something that was selfishly motivated by a very element that they did not have in their possession. When Jesus said what he said, they chose to ignore the value in the words that he shared. And instead, they actually thought that Jesus was rebuking them because they forgot the bread. Jesus in modern-day vernacular is saying, what's wrong with you guys?

Did you see me take the loaves that were given to me in front of the five thousand and feed them? Well, we did. How many baskets of food were left over? Twelve. Did you not see what I did in front of the four thousand? Did you not see what happened there? How many baskets were left over? Well, seven. What's wrong with you guys? You have eyes to see, you have ears to hear. You're not people that are incapable of looking at the obvious.

In other words, what he's doing by asking this series of rhetorical questions, pay attention to this folks, this is important. What he's telling them is how in the world could you possibly think that I'm mad at you over forgetting bread when you just saw me turn a little bit of bread into enough for thousands and thousands and thousands of people? You think I'm going to be mad at you over forgetting bread when I can speak bread into existence? You think I'm going to be mad at you over the fact that you forgot to bring bread when I am the one who provides it for you every day? Like, literally, are you out of your minds?

That's what he's telling them. He's basically saying you're doing the same thing that I've been teaching you not to do. You are literally falling according to the same path that I've been asking you not to follow. You're spending so much time focusing on what you don't have and allowing what you don't have to be the thing that blocks you from seeing what you do.

You've become so preoccupied with why I use the term leaven, per se, that now you think I'm mad at you when in reality what I told you had nothing to do with that. What I told you was something that was designed to save you. It was designed to bless you. It was designed to disciple you. It was designed to build you up, to teach you a lesson. How in the world could you think that I would be mad at you? I can make the bread. I did that.

You didn't see the five thousand, the four thousand? Come on. I was trying to warn you. I was trying to warn you to not fall into the trap of choosing to ignore what you have in front of you for the hope or the sake of something you don't have. This is a hard principle to drill down on with folks. It's a hard principle to drill down on with myself. It's a difficult thing because human nature is always seeking to want more of something that they don't have rather than strengthen the little of what they do have.

This principle, by the way, accentuates itself on so many different levels. It's not even funny. When you sit down and you talk to a marriage in trouble, often times a marriage in trouble centers around issues that they continue to focus on not having while completely neglecting the issues that they do have in front of them. Every single time, it's almost always the case.

I can sit down with a husband and wife and I can ask them, hey, what's going on? Why are you guys so... "Well, you know what, she never cleans. She never does the things I expect her to do. I feel like she disrespects me all the time. She never does this, she never does that." "Oh yeah, well, he never does this and he never does that." And every single time, I have to go back and ask the same questions. Is "never" an appropriate term? Is "always" an appropriate term?

Are there times where they do the things that you say they don't do? "Well, yes. But it's just not enough." That's exactly right. That's what you're talking about. You see, you spend so much time focusing on where they lack that you're not paying attention to where they're strong. You're not paying attention to what they're actually doing and why it actually means something. And you're certainly not taking the time to strengthen what is.

Instead, what you're actually doing is you're beating the snot out of your spouse in trying to make something happen while completely discounting what they've worked hard to put in front. It happens every time. It's human nature. Some of the biggest mistakes, some of the biggest issues, the discipline issues that I see coming up on a regular basis, so many of the things that come up, they all relate to that exact same thing.

I'm focusing on what I don't have rather than understanding what's been given to me. Again, it's the same principle. In this particular case, folks, the disciples were more focused on the fact that they failed to bring bread than they were focused on the fact that God was bringing them something very special. Because when they warned them about the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod, they took what may have been one of the most valuable pieces of information given to them in a long time and they completely threw it away because they latched on to one word, and that was the word that caused them to think about the bread that they had forgotten to bring.

I would venture to say for each and every single one of us, we've got to break our minds and our hearts of thinking that way. We've got to learn how to think completely differently about how we do these things, about how we approach things, and about how we carry our walk with the Lord. I would venture to say that each and every single one of you have things going on in your life that you've been given that you're probably neglecting for something that you don't have.

And here is the information I want to give you right now, and I think it's really important for you to have it. Whatever you're neglecting for the hope of what you don't have, you will never get what you don't have if you don't learn to ignore that only to focus on that which is in front of you. I cannot emphasize this enough. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus taught us that focusing on the fish and focusing on the loaves is what gave the key to multiplying it for the people that needed it.

When the disciples did not focus on it, they would have probably been still stuck by the seaside looking for a way to feed the four thousand. When we get into the discussion that Jesus is having with his people here, it's the same thing. He says here, I want to give you some advice. Don't be like the Pharisees, don't be like Herod, don't be like this generation whose desire for a sign instead of the decision to hold fast to what they have will destroy like a cancer. It will spread like leaven. It will decay like yeast.

I would venture to say that the disease right now that's cooking this society to death centers around that very principle. You sit down and you talk to somebody who was born a woman and now they think they're a man. The core of that issue is not going to actually be the mental illness that they're continuing to experience. The core of that issue is always going to be I'm not satisfied with who I am, what I have, so I'm looking for something I don't have.

When the center of their focus is on what they do not have, then what they do have becomes perverted in a way that it actually destroys them. You don't need to look any further. You see that happening in every aspect of society that is wrong that we're seeing happening right now. I think about this. I caught wind of a couple that recently said they don't ever want to be burdened with kids. They don't ever want to have children. They just want to be married and be free as a couple and that kind of thing.

And I'm just thinking in my mind, what was the purpose of you getting married then? You can tell me that you're happy until you're blue in the face being married people, but you haven't really experienced the joy of the call that God's given to the two of you unless you bring into fruition what God has asked you to bring in. And that might... well, James, that's kind of harsh and judgmental and so on and so forth. Is it really? Is it really?

Isn't that what got us to the world of abortion in the first place, viewing kids as burdens, viewing babies as a problem? I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that learning to value the things that have been set forth in front of you will always be and provide a greater benefit than focusing or thinking about what you don't have. I can, by the way, I can take this illustration to a million different places.

You know what every single salesman that hopes to get rich has in common? They all focus on what they don't have so that they can make a lot of money instead of mastering what they do have. They don't spend a lot of time mastering what's in front of them because they're so hopeful of becoming wealthy. And in the process of their hope of becoming wealthy, they squander what little they have to get something they're never going to have.

You can pick any subject. We can literally for the next ten minutes, you can pick any subject out there that's problematic in this world and I can show you the pattern. It's a very, very powerful principle that carries itself through and it's one that I want to caution you guys to think about. You see, their mistake was huge and the error that they made would have eternal ramifications.

But if you pay attention to the mistake and learn from it, you will benefit from their mistake in a significant and consequential way. And the way that I want you to learn and to benefit from that mistake is I want you to go home and take inventory of all that God has blessed you with. Take inventory of the things that you've been given and spend some time focusing on how to build that. How to make that work to the fullest as God intended for it to work.

And stop looking for affirmation in places outside of what God's already given you. The spirit of God lives inside of you because you've chosen to put your faith and trust in him. Let him be the only affirmation that you need. Why? Because God works in supernatural ways using natural means. And until you recognize the value, the intrinsic value of what sits in your possession in this moment, you will never be able to take full advantage of the many things, the many, many things that are awaiting for you in the future.

By the way, in my opinion, one of the greatest areas that this is done in, the place that most people do this in and do it in a very grievous way, especially in this society, is in the subject of time. Everybody thinks they have more of it than they actually have. Everybody hopes for the benefit of what comes from more of it than they actually have.

And every single time, they destroy their lives trying to pursue what they could never get because they never took advantage of what was put in front of them. God's given you another day, he's given you another hour, he's given you another minute. Stop focusing on the ten more you can gain or the hundred more you can gain or the two hundred more you can gain and ask yourself this question, or ask God this question: what can I do with what you've given me today?

What can I do with the time that I have in the current moment? And when you begin to think at that level, you'll begin to see God do a work that you could never possibly imagine. By the way, here's the greatest reason for that. Maybe I can provide some perspective. Time is the one variable that you'll never be able to get back. It's the one thing that goes by that you can never get more back of. We used to say brain cells were that way. That's not the case. We know better than that now.

Time is the one thing that goes by that you can never get back. So what if you were to say I'm going to trust in the person who created the dimension of time, who sits outside of that realm and sees what's going to happen in my timeline from beginning to end? What do you suppose that person would do if I focused on him to help me manage what I don't have?

I think things would change pretty radically, wouldn't they? If God said I want you to do this with your time and you go, no, no, but I think I could do this, who loses? The one who wins is the one who listens to God. And the one who denies God for what they think they can get that they don't have and will never get, big difference between the two, right?

When you have a moment, go home and write down the questions that Jesus asks his disciples. I'll read them to you, okay? Put it on a flashcard or think about it in your head or maybe put it on your phone, some of you younger folks, I don't know. Okay, write down these questions. "Why reason you because you have no bread?" By the way, that question would apply to you today. Did you know that?

Are you going to allow the fact that you think you don't have enough to eat to be your distraction? Did you not see God providing for you in the past? He's always provided for you miraculously and he's not going to let you down. Clearly you're not hungry, clearly you're not starving, clearly you have enough food to eat. Don't worry about what you're going to eat or drink. Well, where have we heard that before?

"Perceive you not yet, neither understand?" Are you not seeing this? Are you not understanding this? Write those questions down. "Have you your heart yet hardened? Having eyes see you not? Having ears hear you not? Do you not remember?" How many people here have eyes? Quick show of hands please. Everybody should be raising their hand. How many of you have ears? Quick show of hands, please. Again, you have eyes, you have ears, you have a mind. You've been given the Spirit of God, you have discernment, but you're not using them.

You have eyes, you see not? You have ears, you hear not? You get it? The theme. You're not focusing on what you have. You're not using what you have. Ask those questions. Look at the last part. And by the way, in the question where he talks about break the food for the five thousand, broke the food for the four thousand, you can substitute those questions.

Do you remember the time I saved your life in that car accident? Do you remember the time that I did this? You remember that? You can just substitute those questions and then at the last question, ask yourself this: "How is it that you do not understand?" If you see me do it all, if I've been there for you, if I've provided for you, if I've cared for you, how is it you still don't understand?

That's the most important question you're going to ask yourself, because the moment you answer that question accurately, hopefully will be the moment that you decide to destroy the very thing that's keeping you from understanding, that you might be able to take advantage to the fullest what God has for you in the days, years, months, weeks to come.

God wants to do that work. The question that I would ask you is this: do you recognize that he's already in front of you? Do you recognize that he is there, present for you, that he's already done the work? If you do, take full advantage of it instead of looking for the next sign. By the way, I think it is so cool to hear Jesus say this generation gets no more signs.

People think that that's him being punitive. People think that this is a retaliatory statement when in reality all Jesus is doing is basically eliminating any hope they have for the very thing that they could never get. So that it might possibly force them to say this isn't working, what is? Right? That's a good place to be. It's a really, really good place to be.

I would encourage you guys to think at that level and don't fall in the same trap that this generation has fallen into, because this generation is exactly seeking that very same thing. Don't allow yourself to be affected by the leaven that that generation is beginning to spread. And say, God, I will do what you've asked me to do for your glory. Amen?

Guest (Male): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, and we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at lightonthehillradio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at oneplace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing.

There's a place to contact us at our website, lightonthehillradio.com. We've been blessed by the feedback we've received thus far regarding Pastor James's new book, The Last Book. If you haven't ordered a copy yet, we'd encourage you to do so. This guide to Revelation covers the first half of the book, giving you what you need to know about the Rapture and the end times in a clear and concise manner. Request your copy today at lightonthehillradio.com or through Amazon.

If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at lightonthehillradio.com. Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events with a biblical worldview. Look for these at jameskaddis.com. Now, let's close our time together in prayer.

Father in heaven, we just thank you, Lord, for your word and we thank you, Lord, for the insight that we can gain from it. Lord, this is clearly important stuff. It's really, really heavy stuff, Lord, and we thank you, Father, for the insight that we gain, Lord, as a result of it. And we just pray, God, that you would help us, Lord, to take full advantage of all that you've put in front of us, Lord. That for your glory, we would experience to the fullest all that you've designed. So Lord, we love you and thank you, we look to you, and we ask these things now in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Guest (Male): That's all for today, but come back next time when Pastor James Kaddis will go further into Mark chapter eight. Don't miss his next message on Light on the Hill, a listener-supported ministry of Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.