March 19, 2023

Isn't that just one of the ugliest and the most embarrassing things is when a family sort of squabbles with one another and then that squabble grows and other people outside the family hear about this and, and are watching from the outside. This internal family strife isn't that ugly and embarrassing, except of course it's, if it's the royal family of England, then the whole globe watches with interest.

But other than that, for the other 99.9% of family squabbles are embarrassing and ugly and to be avoided if possible. Our passage this morning is about a sort certain sort of family squabble among Jesus's earthly family. This will be the episode in which Jesus' family come to oppose him. We are working our way through this section of chapter three in which Mark is talking to us about the opposition against Jesus.

He's exploring this question of who is this man? Jesus Specifically, he is delving into the question of why is there such radically different reactions to Jesus? The crowds are so enthusiastic and so large and so intensive, and the Pharisees are so dead set against him that they have literally conspired with Israel's enemies.

To kill a fellow Israelite illegally. So, why just this drastically different reaction. And so Mark is taking us through this. We come this morning to the first of Mark's signature literary devices, which you could call it maybe sandwiching or bracketing, or, uh, whatever name you want to assign to.

It basically goes like this, mark likes to do this. This is the first time we've seen it, but it goes like this. He will start a. And then he'll interrupt that story with another story, and then he'll come back and finish the first story. And these things are not random. He's putting them together very intentionally because the point of both stories is ultimately the same.

Although what usually happens is that the center story is the climax. The center story is the most profound of the points, but all of them are pointing to the same. So, we'll see that in the story this morning. What we'll do first is we'll just read through the passage now. This morning we'll be, we'll be looking at verses 20 and verse 21, and then we'll be looking at verses 31 through 35.

Because although this is a very effective literary technique that Mark uses to interrupt himself, to interrupt his stories like this and, and to inject two stories with the same point together, although that's very effective for the. It's actually more difficult to preach because the story really should be looked at all together as one, but it's too much for one sitting.

So, what we'll do is we'll take the outer story, the first and the in parts of it, verse 20 and verse 21, and then we'll make maybe just a couple of brief comments about the, uh, the verses in between. , which we'll take a look at those next week. Those will be the accusations that come against Jesus, that he's possessed of demons.

And then Jesus will tell those parables and then we will wrestle with that thorny issue that were sometimes called the unpardonable sin, or what our text calls the eternal sin or the guilt of eternal sin. And then we'll turn return to that next week. And then we'll look at the final verses of verse 31 down through verse 35 this morning.

So, let's begin by reading these together now as we read. What I sometimes like to do is just sort of alert you for what to be on the lookout for, because if you sort of know ahead of a time what you're looking for, then you'll see it more clearly. So, as we read through this story, what you want to be on the lookout for is the theme of binding, of seizing and binding and holding against one's will, and you want to look.

Who is being bound and who is not being bound, and you want to look for the disparity there. So, that's what we're looking for. The, the, uh, theme of this passage really is going to be the nature of the relationship between Jesus and his people, and His people and Jesus. So, as we're thinking along those terms, let's read our text now together, starting from verse 20.

Then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for, they were saying he is out of his mind. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed of Beelzebul and by the prince of demons. He cast out the demons and he called him to him and he said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan?

If a demo, if a kingdom is divided against itself, the kingdom cannot. And if a house is divided against itself, that that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has ridden risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house.

Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven. The children of man and whatever blasphemies they may. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin for, they were saying he has an unclean spirit. And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent it to him and called it, and a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.

And he answered them, who are my mother and my brother? And looking at them, looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of God. He is my brother and sister and mother. So, Mark wants to take us here from one Betrayal story to another because we remember how the previous section ended.

It ended with those ominous words, Judas, who would betray him. So, he goes from the betrayal of Judas, which hasn't of course occurred yet, but is. Foretold for us. He goes from that betrayal to another betrayal of sorts. This is a betrayal, not of Judas, but this is a type of betrayal by his family. So, who is this man Jesus, that he is bringing to us this information about this man Jesus.

And why the, the radically different reactions to him. The section really is masterfully put together to help us to see not only who this man, Jesus. But also to see just how Mark has put together this wonderful theme of the binding, because you probably noticed as we read through there, the first, the story far starts first with this idea that Jesus' family want to come and bind him or seize him, and then it cuts from there to the story of how the religious leaders believe that Jesus Himself is.

And then Jesus will answer that with the parables that are saying that in in effect, no, I'm not the one bind bound. I'm the one that's here to do the binding. And then from that, it goes back to the story of the family that has come to bind him and take him away. So, in this unfolding of the story of the those who are bound and those who are not bound, we go from one betrayal to another.

And all of this is getting to the question of, who is this man? Jesus, this man, Jesus. That is gathering such a radically different reaction from the people is something for us to think about this morning. Cons, what comes to my mind are the words of CS Lewis. You may have, some of you may have read one of his more popular books called Mere Christianity.

In that book, he talks about. The tri of Jesus. Now, trilemma is not something that we often, we don't have to use that word, but trilemma. We know we know what a dilemma is or a dilemma. A dilemma is just a difficult choice that must be made between two options, usually two unpleasant options, but two, two options.

You have to make a choice between one of the two, and that's called a dilemma. Now, a tri is the same thing. You just throw in one more. So, Jesus's tri is this. Jesus forces us to choose between three options of who he is, who this man Jesus is. We only have three options to choose for. Lewis puts it this way, three L’s.

He is either liar, lunatic. Or Lord. And those are the only three options that are given to us. And the reason those are the only three options is because Jesus wanted it that way. So, Jesus has declared to us on a number of occasions already, we're just in Mark chapter three, but already in chapter three, Jesus has declared to us in multiple occasions that he is the son of God.

The gospel of course begins on that note. We hear the declaration of the Father from the heavens above to say, this is my beloved son. But Jesus himself has declared to us his identity as the son of God. He declared it to us when he said that he has the authority to forgive sins. He declared it to us when he cleansed the lepers.

We talked about in that passage, leprosy was a sentence from God upon the sinner. For a Jewish person to be a leper meant that they were under a sentence of condemnation from God for their sin, and so for Jesus to cleanse the leper is the same thing as him saying, I have the authority to remove this sentence.

Furthermore, Jesus has declared himself to be the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus will go on to say many other things. Put to us very plainly and very clearly his identity. He'll say things like, before Abraham was, I am, and no Jewish person would've misunderstood that before Abraham was, I am is a clear declarations of his identity as God.

Then he will say other things like Moses wrote about me, or he who has seen me, has seen the Father, and many other things. So, Jesus says to us very plainly and very clearly that he is God. Don't fall for this nonsense that you hear from history channel, discovery channel, that kind of thing that says that the Jesus never said that he was God.

It. The church that later on declared that he was God, don't fall for that. Jesus declared all over the place that he is God. You just know how to have to know how to look for it. So, declaring that he is God makes Jesus either one of three things. First of all, he's a liar. He knows he's not God. He's making this up.

He's just deceiving people. He is being deceptive. He's being despicably deceptive to deceive people into thinking that he's God. That's option one. Option two is he's a lun. He really does think he is God and he is trying to convince other people that he is too, because he himself believes it, so he's out of his mind.

He's insane. CS Lewis, when he writes about this in his sort of tongue in cheek, dry British humor kind of thing, says that it'd be tantamount to somebody believing that they're a poached egg. That would be sort of like Jesus thinking that he's God when he really isn't. So, he's either a liar or a lunatic, or of course, option three.

He really is who he says he. He's the Lord of creation. He's the Lord of Heaven, and he's the Lord of Earth. Those are the only three options. You do not have the option of thinking of Jesus as a highly respected teacher. Only He didn't leave that option open. When he declared himself to be God incarnate, he closed the option of just being a respected, insightful, wise teacher.

He's either a liar, a lunatic, or he's the Lord. And it's interesting how we see those three interactions take place in our text today. So, first of all, the lunatic reaction, that's what his family is kind of thinking right now, is we're going to get into the text in a few minutes. They come here thinking that he's out of his mind.

He's a few marbles, short of a full bag. You know, he is a few bricks, short of a full load. He's, he's out of his mind. He's this person who has lost touch with reality and they're going to come to rescue. Option two is liar. Those are who the scribes from Jerusalem that we'll look at next week. They come up from Jerusalem and they think that he is a demonically possessed liar here to deceive the people.

And then of course, there's the third reaction of Lord the disciples whom Jesus called last week unto himself. Those whom he desired. They're the ones who are at least in the process of beginning to see and believe him as Lord. So, those three, three. Views of Jesus. Those three understandings of Jesus are the only options available to us, and that's what Mark is wrestling with now.

And in doing so, he masterfully brings to us this story, these two stories into one. So, let's just begin with the first one here, from verse 20. Then he went home and the question will be to who's home? We don't know because we're not told he went to home. We assume that that means in Capernaum again, maybe it was back to Peter's home.

Maybe it was somebody else's home. Maybe it was none of the. Because there is no article there. So, literally Mark says he went into home that could also be translated from home to home. So, maybe he is going from home to home. Maybe he's staying here, staying here, preaching there, preaching over there maybe.

Or maybe he's staying with Peter or James or John or somebody else. It really doesn't matter. He is now inside another dwell. So, this takes us back to the beginning of chapter two when Jesus was in another dwelling, and that dwelling was also like, we're going to see today full of people in Jesus' teaching.

So, he went home and the crowd gathered again. So, here once again, we see the crowd gathering together. So, it seems that the crowd has sort of somewhat. So, last week we saw that Jesus was being mobbed by the crowd and he separates himself from the crowd and goes up the mountain and he calls up the mountain unto himself What Mark says, those whom he desire, that's the birth of the church right there.

He calls them those whom he desires to himself. They go up the mountain. Jesus then separates himself from them, and he creates the 12 a. And then Jesus gives that sermon on the Mount teaching, which Mark doesn't include. But that was the occasion for the Sermon on the Mount, uh, teaching, which probably I would, I would suspect, took the whole day.

So, then after this day on the mountain of teaching his new disciples, these are not the disciples that have just come to be healed. They're not just the ones who are enthusiastic about his miraculous. They are being drawn by the Lord unto Jesus. So, he calls those unto himself and they become his Now first followers.

He doesn't tell the larger crowd to go away. He's not done healing them, but he's nonetheless separated himself from them for a day. And he is given this teaching on the disciples or in discipleship, known as the Sermon on the Mount. And then he comes back down and the. Has maybe sort of dispersed somewhat.

Maybe some have gone into, into Capernaum to get some lunch or something to eat. Maybe some have gone and caught a few fish to get something to eat, but they're not far dispersed and they gather back together and once again, they are mobbing him again so that, so that they come together again so that we're told that he could not even eat.

Now that is the most intrusive the crowd has been to. So, imagine a crowd that's so intrusive, so close, so mob like, so chaotic that he and his and his now newly formed disciples are not able to even eat. What an interruption, what a staggering staggeringly full day Jesus had from day to day schedule, was staggeringly full.

So, he is being crowded by the mob. They're crowding around him once again to the point that he's not even able. Last week we saw that Jesus called the apostles unto himself, or he created the apostles. We were. For the purpose of being with him. So, now that we see the crowd is even interrupting Jesus' purpose for the apostles, because as Jesus formed them to be with him, a big part of being with someone is sharing table with him.

So, it's literally like the, the crowd is interrupting Jesus and his apostles now, so he's not even able to eat. You can just imagine the chaotic scene of the thing now, verse 21. And when his family heard, Now I know if you are in the King James this morning, your translation says, and his friends heard it.

So, which is it? Family or friends? Well, literally what Mark says, those who were beside him. So, it could be translated friends, it could be translated family. Uh, most of the time it's used to describe one who's one's blood relations or one's kin relations. It does, it could be translated friends, but we're going to go with family and here's why.

It becomes really clear that the same group in verse 21, Is the group in verse 31 through 35. That's going to be really obvious when we look at those verses that we're talking about. The same incident, the same house, the same occasion, the same group of people. Now in verses 31 through 35, it's clearly described as his mother and his brothers.

So, Jesus's friend, uh, family come and they hear, they come when they hear about it. Now, what it was it that they heard about that caused them to. Probably Nazareth still. What was it that they heard that caused them to drop what they're doing and come, mark doesn't tell us. He just uses the pronoun it when they heard about it.

So, we're left to wonder what the, it is something that they heard about was so inquisitive to them, so upsetting for them. So, disturbing for them. that they have now left to come as we're going to be told to seize Jesus or to take him literally by force. So, most commentators will take the view that what they heard about was the last thing that Mark said, which was that the crowd was so big and so, so cumbersome that they were not even able to able to eat.

so most will take that view. And indeed, I, when I preached through Mark, I think back in, uh, 2009, that's the view that I took there. But I don't think that that's what the, the it is that they heard about. As I really thought about this over the last couple of weeks, I, I think the it that they heard about, that they found so disturbing that they came to seize him over was not the size of the crowd and the imposition of the crowd, but just the previous.

Remember last week we talked about the creation of the apostles, and we talked about how this was an open rebuke against the leadership of Israel. The fact that Jesus created 12 apostles, Jesus was putting himself now in direct opposition to the leadership of Israel by choosing 12 apostles. Jesus is making a public state.

That the leadership, the religious leadership of Israel is apostate and it no longer works. And Jesus is now forming this new group of Apostles 12 in number to specifically replace the apo, the, uh, 12 tribes. So, I think that's the thing that they heard about, and that was the step. That was just one step.

That was the thing that as Jesus' family heard about, all this stuff was going on. They heard about the miracles. They heard about the healings. They heard about the teachings. They heard about him declaring himself to son or the, sorry, the Lord of the Sabbath. They heard about all these radical things that he was saying.

Maybe they were concerned about this. Were told in John chapter seven and verse five that Jesus' brothers are not believing in him at this. So, they're hearing about all this, and maybe they're sort of following it closely, not quite sure what to make of this. But then when they hear that he has set himself up in opposition to the leadership of Israel, that was a step too far, and that's what caused them to come and now attempted to take Jesus by force to seize him and to take him away.

There's a parallel here in John chapter nine. Think of John chapter nine with me, of the man born. The man born blind, Jesus heals him. The Pharisees are coming and they're questioning him. Who did this? Who did this? And they come and they question the man's parents. And they say, who is it that healed your son?

And you remember what they say. They say, ask him. He, he's, he's an adult, he can answer for himself. And John tells us the reason that they said that was because they didn't want to be put out of the synagogue. So, there's a parallel here I think. I think Mary and Jesus' brothers right now, when Jesus has taken this step, now they're in danger of being put out of the synagogue.

Now they're in danger of themselves because they're Jesus' family of now being at odds with the leadership of Israel. And this was a step too far. This is what has caused him to say, you know what? He has lost touch with reality. Now. He has had a nervous breakdown to use a phrase that we never. Remember when that was used to be a daily phrase.

Never hear that anymore. But he's had a nervous breakdown. He has lost grip of reality now. So, they're going to come and we told, we are told that they heard about it and they went out to seize him. So, when Mark says that they came to seize him, he means exactly what it sounds like he means, because he uses a word there that, uh, he's going to use quite frequent.

Throughout the rest of his gospel, you've got a sort of a splattering in your, in your hand out there of how he's going to use that to talk about Jesus's arrest by the soldiers, Jesus' arrest by Herod. So, clearly what he's saying here is that he came to seize, they came to seize Jesus by force. They came to take him against his will.

They came to do what we might call in our modern vernacular, uh, an involuntary. Committal. When someone today maybe is deemed to be harmful to themself or harmful to others because of an unstable mental condition, they may be committed against their will. This is the same sort of thing. They hear about this thing that Jesus has said and the forming of the 12 Apostles, and they have said to themself, we have got to go take control of him.

Bring him back here to Nazareth. Let him just maybe get out of the crowds, let the dust settle, and let's just regain a grasp on reality because we do not want to be seen in opposition to the religious, to the religious leadership reminds us of Jesus's words. That's going to come a little bit later, chapter eight and verse 30.

Which is that same passage in which Jesus says to his disciples, who do men say that I am? Well, they say, you're all kinds of people. Who do you say that I am you. You are the Christ. Right after that is when Jesus will say, whoever's ashamed of me and my gospel. The son, a man will be ashamed of them as well.

So, kind of a parallel for that as well. So, Jesus' family considered this a step too far. They come to seize him for, they were saying he is out of his mind. He is out of his mind. The word there is Criteo, and it literally means to be beside oneself or to be outside of one cell. And so we use, we see this word used elsewhere to describe, for example, in Acts chapter 20.

What Festus or what Felix is going to say about Paul. Paul, your, your learning has driven you out of your. So, this idea that Jesus literally outside of oneself or he's lost touch with the reality, he is now saying things that are going to get him killed, that are going to get him in trouble and also going to get us in trouble as well.

So, they come here thinking that they have now they've deemed him to be unstable, mentally unstable, and I would believe out, out of the best of intentions, I see nothing malignant. Nothing malicious of their intentions here. I think that they are honestly convinced that Jesus needs help and they're coming to give him as his family coming to give him the help that he needs.

And so the best of intentions out of the best of intentions, they come here to take him by force because they are now believing that he's out of his mind. Now, one thing for us to say here. As a follower of Jesus Christ. Sometimes we are con, we're, uh, also accused of being sort of out of our mind. We know how the world works today, right?

We, we know how this culture around us works, and you may know what it's like to have those who know you to say or to imply or to think, you know, they're not being very wise with their devotion to their faith or their following of their. , you may also have been, have had people in your life to think of you just a little over the edge or, or a little bit unwise in what you are devoting to your faith, because that's how our world works.

And you know this to be true. Who doesn't know this to be true, that for example, you could have in your closet at home, 50% of your clothes could be Carolina. You could have bumper stickers all over your car. You could fly a Carolina blue flag in your front yard. You can take time away from whatever's going on to watch every single game.

You can go to games and you can have pictures on the wall. You can have autographed memorabilia and what will people call you? A big fan, or you know this also to be true. You could work 70 or 80 hours a week on a job or for your business. And you could skip out on family holidays and family vacations.

You could take time away from your family to give to your business or to your job, and what are you called? Dedicated, devoted. Or you could spend six days a week out on the ball for you practicing. You could hire personal trainers. You could spend beyond your means for all the best gear, go to all the best sports camps, and what do you call?

Dedicated, or you could practice five hours a day, whatever the instrument of your choice is, and you could give yourself over to the best teachers and the best instructions. And you were called devoted, but spend half of that time on your faith and what are you called? All of a sudden it's no longer a fan.

Now it's a fanatic. No longer is it dedicated. It's delusional because that's how our world. If you give half the energy and half the focus and half the time to your Lord, then you're called a fanatic. You're called unwise. You are called someone who is, we all know the phrase Jesus freak or nut. So, the question really for us to ask is this, if you have never had someone in your life, particularly a believer or a nominal believer, Think of you or call you or, or imply that you are at least unwise, if not outright crazy, and your devotion to Christ.

Then the question to ask is why not? Because they said, uh, that about our Lord. They said that about Paul because our world follows a different ruler, the prince of the power of this. And any true, serious devotion to the true Lord is considered by the prince of the power of the heir to be lunacy. So, that's the question to ask ourself.

If others, at least someone in our life, doesn't think that about us, then why not? So, we see here that they question his sanity. They are ashamed, so to speak, and so they come for, they're saying he is out of his mind. Now, we're going to have this sort of a break here from verse 22 down through verse 30.

In that break, we'll look at that next week, but in that is going to come the accusations, the scribes are now coming up from Jerusalem and they're coming for the purpose that they believe that this man is harmful. He's demon possessed, and he needs to be taken care. So, they come up and they're saying that he's casting out demons by the power of Beelzebul.

We'll look at all that next week. Jesus will answer those accusations with the parables that he's going to tell about the strong man. We've been talking about the strong man for some time now because that's what Mark has been building us up to. And then it's going to come that passage on what we, what we think of sometimes as the unforgivable sin or the unpardonable sin.

We'll look at all that next week. But now we come down to verse 31 and we pick up back again with the same story. And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside. So, clearly this is the same incident. So, they're, they're now here and they're standing outside. The logical question to ask is standing outside.

Well, they're standing outside the house that we were introduced to back in verse 20, so clearly this is the same day, the same episode, and so now his family has come. They have come. His mother and his brothers came and standing outside. Now, Luke tells us in Luke chapter eight in verse 19, that the reason that they're standing outside is because they can't get in.

There's not enough room to get inside. Again, hearkening us back to chapter two, the story of the paralytic, when they couldn't get the paralytic inside, so they made the hole in the. In a similar sort of way, the inside of the house is now so full of people and Jesus is inside that they can't get in. Now we're told that there's a crowd inside.

This is an instance in which Mark is going to use that word crowd, and he's not going to mean the larger crowd, the crowd that's just there for the healings. That's just there for the miracles. Instead, the ones that are inside are the ones that Jesus called up the mountain to himself in the previous incident.

We know that because they're inside, the crowds that Mark was describing before would not have fit inside a dwelling. And so this is the smaller crowd. This is the crowd that Jesus has called unto himself. And so his mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent to him. So, the question to ask.

Well, there's many questions to ask, isn't it? But one of the questions to ask is, what about Mary?

Is she believing? Is she disbelieving? She's here with these brothers and possibly sisters of Jesus, or half-brothers and half sisters of Jesus, and they are here for the purpose of stopping Jesus. Of putting him forcefully into bindings and, and taking him away. So, where is Mary with all of this? Has Mary lost faith?

I mean, after all, she was the one who experienced such unspeakable things. The birth narrative of Luke two, the visit of the Angel and book one, the visit of the Wise Men, Matthew one, the visit of the Shepherds, the Star, all those. . How could Mary have experienced these things and still not be a person at this point that is solidly believing in Jesus, her son as the Messiah?

How can I be? Well, it's actually not hard to figure out as long as we make sure we are thinking properly about Mary. None of us in the room are, we're not Roman Catholic. And so we know the, the faulty Roman Catholic view that, that views Mary as sort of a co-ed redeemer on par with Jesus. We, we know that's wrong, but knowing that's wrong, don't we still tend to give Mary a category of her own?

Don't we tend to do that as the mother of God? Don't we maybe unconsciously tend to give her a category all her. . Yeah. She's a human and and a simple human and she needed the redemption of her son, but she was the mother of God too. As long as we're careful to think properly about Mary, this offers no problem for us because Mary was a weak human just like us.

Make no mistake, no woman. In fact, no person, no human has ever experienced the grace and the favor of God. Like her to have her womb used to have her dna, n a used for the incarnate Christ. Nothing can compare to that. Nevertheless, she is a weak human, just like. Think of where John the Baptizer is going to go near the end of his life.

How even his faith is going to weaken as he's in prison and he himself is going to struggle. Did I believe in the right person? And he was John The Baptizer, anointed by the spirit from the womb, and even his faith grew weak. We are weak, feeble people. That regardless of how many signs and wonders we may experience in our life, our faith will still tend to grow weak.

Without the spirit keeping us believing, we will all stop believing immediately. And it doesn't matter how many miracles you may experience in your life. Miracles will not sustain your faith until you see the. Only the spirit will sustain your faith. And so Mary has seen some incredible things. Things that no other human ever saw or ever will see.

Nevertheless, even her faith is weak. Now, you know, we're told that Mary is here, or the mother of Jesus is here with his half-brother. , we all are probably familiar with the fact that, that after Matthew won and Luke two, we, we never hear of Joseph, Joseph again. So, what happened to Joseph? Well, the assumption is he's probably dead by this point.

He probably died in Jesus's childhood or, or his early teen years or something of that nature. And so, so Joseph is no longer here. Let's put ourself in Mary's position. Can't you just hear. Her heart, can't you just hear what she's struggling with? Jesus has all these brothers and sisters too, half brothers and half sisters that are probably saying to her, Jesus, you know, he always was different.

He always was a wild card. He always was different from us. And now do you hear what he's saying? Mom, do you hear what he's saying? We, he is going to bring re repute upon this family. We need to go collect and then can't you hear? . Oh, if just your father were here. If your father were here, Jesus, this wouldn't have happened.

If your father was here. He would've kept this all straight. But here I am, single mom raising all these kids by myself, and look at the position that we're now in now. Now I've got this son. He's got thousands of people, and he's telling 'em all that he's the son of God and he's taken the place of Israel, him.

If Joseph was here, this wouldn't happen. So, they come here and can you just hear the agony in her heart as she comes Now she comes here and they're standing outside and they send to him and they call to him. So, Mark now draws a stark contrast for us, and the contrast is between those who are standing outside.

And those who are sitting inside, look at what he says. And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent to him and called him, and a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside. You see the contrast there? The contrast is between those inside sitting around Jesus and those outside who can't get.

Now, why are the ones inside? Inside? Because the ones that are inside are the ones that Jesus called to himself in the previous episode. They're the ones who are in, they're inside by the grace of the Lord calling them unto him. And so now as there's this contrast between those who are without and those who are within, those who are standing.

and those who are sitting, those who are calling, and those who are hearing the teaching. So, the stark, the starkest of contrast comes here. Now, again, they, they are coming here with the best of intentions. I, I feel like that there is nothing malicious of their intentions whatsoever. Misunderstanding, yes, disbelieving, yes.

Malicious, no. But nevertheless, the best of intentions won't get them. Metaphorically speaking, the best of intentions won't get them inside. Nowhere did Jesus say, come unto me all ye who have good intentions and I'll give you rest. I will make your good intentions to be salivic for you. Nowhere did Jesus say that the best of intentions are just that, and so coming with the best of intentions.

Nevertheless, they are still. and so we are told your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you, is what Jesus has told now, verse 33. And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? So, what Jesus did there call it what it is. He just played dumb. That's what Jesus did. Who are my mother and my brothers?

As if he didn't know, as if they didn't know. He's asking this rhetorical question, who are my mother and who are my brother? Verse 34 and looking about at those who sat around him, Mar, I'm sorry, Matthew. And Matthew 12 says that Jesus also took his hand and pointed with his hand at those around him. So, the picture here is of Jesus in the middle of the dwelling, in the middle of the room, and all around him are those who are sitting around him receiving his teaching.

And we're told that Jesus looks all around Perry. BPO is the word. Only reason I say that is because I like to say that word, periblepo. Isn't that a cool word? Periblepo. So, he looks all around, just looks into their eyes. Very, very different look than when Jesus looked at the Pharisees in the synagogue who were waiting for him to heal the man with a withered hand, and he looked at them with anger.

Here. He looks all around and, and Matthew says with his hand, he gestures around at each one of them, making eye contact with all of them. Verse 34, looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of God. He is my brother and my sister and my mother.

So, what Jesus just. Without one ounce of lowering the bar of love and devotion and care for earthly family without lowering that whatsoever. Jesus just raised the standard for spiritual relationships. Jesus just set for us a very clear hierarchy of earthly relationships. And eternal relationships. All of you, if you are a child of the king, you have both earthly relationships and relationships that are both earthly and eternal.

And so what Jesus just did for us is say to us, here is the proper hierarchy of those relationships without one bit of lowering the standard for earthly relationships, specifically earthly family relationships. Jesus says there's a higher one, and that's eternal family relationships. We said not too long ago that Jesus never lowered any of the standards of God's moral commands.

Not a single one, not a single command of God, of a moral command of God to Jesus. Lessen it or reduce it in any way. And if anything, he sharpened it or intensifies. The same thing is true for the fifth commandment. Honor your father and your mother. Jesus did not lower that one bit. And in fact, in Mark chapter seven, he's going to rebuke the Pharisees for finding their little loopholes around caring for their parents.

Remember the story of when, uh, the episode, when Jesus is on the way to the cross and he's passing by this group of ladies and they shout out. Blessed be the, the wound that bore you and the breasts that nurtured, in other words, to bless his earthly mother. And Jesus stops and says, well, there's another relationship that's far more important than that.

Blessed instead be those who hear the will of God and do it. So, Jesus very plainly here, is giving us a hierarchy without saying to us, no, no, no. You can sort of let your pedal off the gas, let your foot off the gas of your love and your devotion and your care. Earthly family relationships without saying that at all.

Jesus says there's a more important one, there's a higher one. Here are my mother, and my brothers and my sisters. These are the ones who do the will of God. Their relationship takes precedence. So, Jesus just did a couple things here. First of all, he just defined for us a new kingdom that is momentously. I.

Think about just how inclusive this new kingdom is. Those who are Jesus', mother and brothers and sisters. One stipulation that Jesus puts on that, those who do the will of God. So, every other dividing line is removed. Every race, every skin color, ethnicity, background, education, what you've done in your past, what you haven't done in your...

Everything else is erased. Jesus says, here is a new kingdom and this is how inclusive it is. There is one descriptor I'm going to give you. And that descriptor is they do the will of God. And by this, what Jesus means is not, oh, they perfectly obey the will of God because think of who's in the room with them.

I mean, they just, just maybe yesterday. Heard the sermon on the mountain, which is the initial, sort of the first message on discipleship. And so here they are now, and Jesus is saying these are the ones who do the will of God, those whose heart delights in doing his will. Those whose heart, like, uh, one John five, three, that, that this is the love of God.

That, that we keep his commands and his commands are not burdensome. That's the heart that he's talking about. The heart that delights in keeping the word of God, the heart that finds delight in his commands, not the heart. That makes no mistake, that never fails to keep any of his commands or doesn't find some of his commands harder than others to.

That's not what Jesus is talking about. What he's saying though is those who are my mother and my brothers are those who delight in keeping the word of God, the will of God, the commands of God. So, incredibly inclusive, but at the same time, just think of how exclusive this is, because all of those outside of that descriptor are not who Jesus claims.

those whose heart would not say his will is my delight, are excluded regardless of background, regardless of past, regardless of human efforts, regardless of any other category. Incredibly inclusive, incredibly exclusive. So, I need to hasten to make one very, very important clarification here because if we miss this clarification, we're going to get all sideways.

And here's the clarification. Listen carefully to this. When Jesus says, the ones who are my brothers and sisters and mother are the ones who do the will of God, Jesus is not giving a prescription for how you get into the. Jesus is providing a description of those who are in the family. If you miss that clarification, you've missed a lot and you'll get really sideways.

If you miss that, then what it sounds like is what Jesus is saying is this is how you get into the family by doing the will of God, and that would be contrary to. Everything Jesus is going to say that's going to be contrary to what the scriptures say. That'll be contrary to, for example, Ephesians Fi, uh, two and verse eight.

For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It's the gift of God. So, Jesus is not saying, this is how you come inside the house. Remember the contrast, those inside versus those outside. Jesus is not saying, this is how you get in the house. Jesus is saying, this is how I describe the ones who are in the house, because how did they get in the.

They got in the house because Jesus called them to himself. They got inside, not because they fought their way in, they didn't get inside because they're, they obeyed their way in. They got inside because Jesus called them to himself. So, he's describing, he's giving a descriptor. This is a description of those who are my brothers and my, my sisters and my mother.

They are the ones who do the will of God, similar to what he'll say in Matthew seven, verse 21. Those who say to me, Lord, Lord, they, they don't want all enter the kingdom of heaven, but the ones who will are the ones who do the will of my father who is in heaven. Jesus is not saying, this is how you enter.

By doing the will of the father. He's describing those who will, they have the heart that delights in doing the will of God. So, now finally, let's look at one last thing, and this is how Mark is going to beautifully tie together the two of these passage, the two of these passages. It's, it's brilliant how Mark has put this together.

So, we began talking about this theme of binding and who's bound and who's not bound. Okay? So, Jesus' family comes, they hear about all these things going on and they come to bind. thinking that he's lost his mind. Meanwhile, mark interrupts that story to another story of those who think that Jesus has been bound by demons.

Jesus's answer is, again, no, I'm not bound by demons. In fact, I'm here to do the binding. And then it goes from that to once again, back to the family who's there to bind him, and the family who's there to bind him finds that. And here's the kick. , he has already bound himself to his people, and that is the most beautiful aspect of the story, is the reality that Jesus has in grace and in love, and in mercy bound himself to his people.

That's what he says. Here are my mother and my brothers. And my sisters, the Greek requires their a, an article. And in fact, if you notice all of those verses, verse 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, all of them have the phrase mother and brothers. So, that kind of clues you in, right? You don't need me to tell you. That's sort of the theme because every single verse has it.

Well, the Greek requires an article, and so every time that phrase appears, literally, if we were to translate it literal. It would be my, the mother, my, the brothers. That's the way the Greek language works until verse 35 when Jesus drops the articles. So, four times we hear, we read my, the mother, my, the brothers, my, the mother, my, the brothers.

Until verse 35 when Jesus says, here are, and here he, he drops the article. Here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters. In other words, what Jesus is saying is these are representative. These are are metaphors. These are symbolic. These here are symbolic of all of those, not these specific people only.

They're symbolic. Of all of those to whom I now call mother, brothers and sisters. In other words, I am bound to them. , his biological mother and his half biological brothers come thinking that they have authority over him and that they're going to bind him and take him aw him away. And he says to them, in essence, no, I'm bound to them, not you.

I have bound myself to my people, and that is brothers and sisters. That is one of the most beautiful and the most glorious truth. That the scriptures have for the New Testament Church is that God has bound himself to his weak failing people because who is in the room when Jesus says, I've bound myself to these people?

Who is he talking about? Well, Peter, whom we know will call down curses upon him. Rather than be seen by a slave girl as knowing Jesus g uh, Peter would rather curse himself than be thought of as somebody that knows him. James and John, who among others, will fight between themselves about who's going to be the greatest one.

And you know, I think it's extremely like, That in that room of people. There are also some people that in about a year and a half on the streets of Jerusalem, they're going to cry. Give us Barabbas.

As for him, crucify him. That's who Jesus bound himself to.

Frances, I don't know what could be more encouraging than that than to hear from the Messiah. These are my brothers. These are my sisters. Knowing how they'll fail him, knowing how pathetically weak their faith will be, knowing how pathetically weak their obedience will be. Nonetheless, I have bound myself to them.

I will not leave. You will not take me away by force because these are my people and I will not be taken from them.

Ephesians chapter one tells us that in love, he predestined us unto adoption as sons. Before the foundation of the world, we were his brothers and sisters. Before the foundation of the world, he put his, his love upon us, thereby forever making our eternal happiness and his eternal happiness parallel.

There's no truth that I know of from the New Testament that is more earth shattering than the God of the universe. Has bound himself eternally to his people. These are my mothers and my brothers and my sisters. Jesus will not be bound by the bonds of creation, but instead he will graciously and internally give himself.

Into the bonds of his recreation, of his new creation.