6-27-21 Family Feud: Mark 3:20-35

I’ve called this message ‘Family Feud’ today because Jesus is going to get into a little conflict with His family. And He gets into this conflict because of His relentless pursuit of the will of God and the ministry God has given Him. As a very brief recap for some context; last week we read about how Jesus went up onto Mount Sinai and called his disciples to Himself; then He sent them out on mission and gave them power to fulfill the mission He sent them on, which was to preach the gospel, heal people, and cast out demons. In a similar way, Jesus calls us, as His disciples, up to the mountain with Him to experience His love, peace, forgiveness, and care. And then, after we receive His new life and power, He sends us out on His mission to reach others with the good news that in Jesus, we now have everything we need for eternal life and godliness. But the good times on the mountaintop, unfortunately, don’t last long. We live life in the valley, not on the mountain. It doesn’t take very long after Jesus and His disciples return from their mountaintop experience that there’s conflict. In this case it has to do with His own family. Many times, it is our own families that get into conflict with us as we grow in following Jesus and move forward with Him. And this next story in Mark is actually framed in the context of family and relationships. The scholars call it a Markan sandwich - that just means the writer, Mark, is telling a story about Jesus' family and what happens with them, but right in the middle of that story he puts in another story that has to do with the scribes and their opinion of Jesus’ work and ministry. Basically, the gist is that Jesus’ family calls Him crazy, then the scribes call Him demon-possessed, and Jesus responds to them. The passage is a little longer today, about 15 verses; it will take us to the end of Mark chapter 3. Let’s read the passage, pray, and then unpack it together. 1 Mark 3:20-35 NLT One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. 21 When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. “He’s out of his mind,” they said. 22 But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said, “He’s possessed by Satan, the prince of demons. That’s where he gets the power to cast out demons.” 23 Jesus called them over and responded with an illustration. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” he asked. 24 “A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse. 25 Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart. 26 And if Satan is divided and fights against himself, how can he stand? He would never survive. 27 Let me illustrate this further. Who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods? Only someone even stronger—someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house. 28 “I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, 29 but anyone who blasphemes the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. This is a sin with eternal consequences.” 30 He told them this because they were saying, “He’s possessed by an evil spirit.” 31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. They stood outside and sent word for him to come out and talk with them. 32 There was a crowd sitting around Jesus, and someone said, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.” 33 Jesus replied, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” 34 Then he looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. 35 Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” Let’s pray. Father in Heaven, thank you for who You are and all You do. Thank you for sustaining us by Your power, by bringing us into relationship with You through Jesus, and for growing us in maturity by Your Spirit. Thank You for placing us in Your family by Your blood, for giving us grace, mercy, and power to 2 overcome whatever difficulties we face as we lean on You. Jesus, open our ears to hear what You would say to us today. Bring Your healing, Your conviction, Your love and care, and Your new life and vitality to each of us in this place today. We give You all of the glory and honor in this place today. In Jesus’ Name, amen. Of all the problems we might face in life, few are more disturbing and distressing than being misunderstood and rejected. When you try to explain your perspective or where you’re coming from, or try to defend yourself, often things just get worse. Opinions can be set like concrete, and no matter what you say or do, nothing can alter that other person’s perspective. That sad, frustrating difficulty becomes even more painful and grievous when it’s someone in your own family. If you’ve ever had an experience like that—if that approaches any place of deep pain for you—then this segment of Mark’s Gospel will resonate and connect with you today. Jesus experienced this same pain and anguish.1 At this time in his ministry, Jesus’ family thought he was completely nuts, out of his mind, or crazy. His family eventually did get saved, but at this time they were less than supportive of what Jesus was doing. Mark 3:25 NKJV “But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.” Just so you know, if you have decided to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, there are going to be people out there who will think you’re crazy, too. If you’re experiencing that now, or you have in the past, it can be painful. But it’s also a very normal part of the Christian life, of following Jesus. Jesus tells us in John 15:20 AMP “Remember [and continue to remember] that I told you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” 1 Swindoll, Charles R. Insights on Mark, P163. Carol Stream, Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers, 2016. Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/read/329277748/Insights-on-Mark#. 3 In other words, Jesus says ‘remember, it happened to me, so it’s going to happen to you.’ The word in the Amplified Bible for ‘remember’ adds the verb tense in there - it means that we should, ‘continue to remember’ that we, the servants, aren’t greater than our Master, Jesus. To say that differently, it’s important to keep in mind each day that you’ll probably be persecuted for your faith in God the same way Jesus was when He walked the earth. Unfortunately, a lot of damage is done to the witness of the church when we forget this unpleasant fact that being attacked in some way because we follow Jesus is very normal and is actually an important part of becoming a disciple, of looking more like Jesus. Hebrews 5:8 NLT Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.” The persecution, or the suffering we face for Christ’s sake helps us learn how to obey God no matter what the circumstance. Now, the damage done to the church when we forget this fact is sometimes referred to as ‘prosperity gospel’ and it says that if you come to Jesus, you’ll be rich, fat, and happy your entire life because that’s God’s plan for everyone. That’s a false doctrine. Why? Well, because the gospel, or the good news of the cross, isn’t ultimately about being blessed on earth in physical ways or about having an easy, pampered life because we’ve followed all the cosmic rules. The gospel is simply about obedience to God and following Him, and as we do that we receive eternal life in Christ, which we can start now as we act and operate more like Jesus. It’s simply about doing what Jesus tells us to do, because we know He loves us, he’s died for our sins, He reconciled us to God (and to Himself, for He is God). He, as God, also knows what’s in our best interests at all times and for both the short and long term. Please don’t mis-hear me today; I’m not saying that the blessings we have don’t come from God, or that God doesn’t bless His followers in various and 4 different ways. Salvation itself is a blessing. Clearly, God does bless us in many ways as we follow Him; I’m just saying that we have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, and those spiritual blessings don’t always mean physical, material blessings. Ephesians 1:3 ESV Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” There is also an equal and opposite error that says God only wants His people living painful, horrible, defeated lives until they go to heaven. No one likes to say that out loud, but the idea is one that thinks, “I’m a miserable sinner so I deserve to be beat down, poor, stepped on, cold, hungry and tired all my life until I get to heaven. God should punish me on earth so I’ll be able to get to heaven.” No, that’s really just a works-based legalistic mentality; it’s not one that actually accepts the grace of God and His work on the cross. So I’m not saying God doesn’t bless us in many, many ways as we follow Him. I’m just saying that we need to normalize suffering for the gospel, normalize going through trials that test our faith and cause us to dive deeper into our relationship with Christ and seek His will, and normalize the fact that “in this world you will have trouble.” John 16:33b ICB. And even though you will have some trouble in this world because you follow Jesus, you don’t need to worry, because Jesus has given us a way to avoid trouble even in the trouble. To say this another way, there may be trouble around us or directed towards us, but our spirits can always stay rested in Christ at all times because of the power and hope of His resurrection! Jesus said John 14:27 NLT “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” In other words, there may be times of trouble or persecution, but don’t be afraid. Don’t let it get to you because Jesus has 5 a gift for you, peace of mind and heart - no internal trouble of heart even when we have trouble from the outside world and circumstances. Does that make sense? And so my ultimate point here is that Jesus’ family were the ones calling Him crazy, causing Him trouble, trying to go into the middle of the crowd and yank Him out of there and take Him home. We don’t know why they did that - the Bible doesn’t say. I tend to think it was because Jesus was causing their reputation to suffer. Is it possible his family said something like this: “Hey, is that our older brother Jesus over there? What’s he doing? Why isn’t he working for a carpentry company? I hear those weird city people because He’s healed some people, but He’s gone too far! He’s crazy standing in the middle of that mob! He didn’t even eat lunch today, and this has been going on for days! He’s going to get Himself killed hanging out in the middle of the mob - it’s a dangerous crowd; we don’t know those people! Plus everyone at church is mad at us now because we’re associated with Him! Our local pastor doesn’t approve of what He is doing; He is totally upsetting the status quo; things were going good for us before this - our family has a good reputation and it’s being ruined because He’s too controversial; we need an intervention; let’s go stop Him! It’s kind of strange and sad that we often can't see greatness in the people we know best, yet are most impressed by people we know little or nothing about. Maybe, like most people of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, Jesus’ family members were unable to embrace Him as God and Savior after having known Him so long and so well as just “Jesus the oldest brother.” Mark doesn’t go into it, so all we know is that His family came to Capernaum to “lay hold,” or “take custody” of Him. The word means “to seize or take control of someone or something.” This is a family intervention! Jesus’ family thinks He’s totally crazy at this point. To be fair, Jesus’ movement had all the marks of a personality cult. He gathered around Himself the outcasts and disenfranchised. He challenged the 6 accepted norms of religious and cultural tradition and called Himself the ultimate authority, the Son of God. He set up headquarters in Capernaum instead of Jerusalem. People were leaving their occupations to follow Him; some even sold all their possessions! From a distance, it might be fair to say that Jesus showed all the signs of a manic disorder. Unfortunately, at this point, His family was neither close enough to Jesus’ intentions nor discerning enough to know better.2 God, help us stay close enough to you to know what you’re doing, to know your heart, to know the difference between becoming a crazy religious person and a someone who simply walks by the Spirit, listens to the voice of God and does His will no matter how it looks to others or how it might affect our reputation, even with our closest friends and family. To make things worse, Jesus' family called in the scribes (they were kind of a combination of a college professor, lawyer, and Bible teacher) to go give Jesus a talking to. The Bible doesn’t say that the family called them in, but I imagine it that way because it’s so similar to the way things often happen to us today. Can you imagine hearing something like this: “You’re following Jesus? That’s too narrow minded and difficult. Here, go listen to this media personality or that self-help guru or that spiritual advisor. Go watch this video by this guy or that guy, read this book by this musician or that actor. They’ll give you some nice, easy rules to follow that won’t affect your standing in the community or your reputation with others or anything else that's comfortable in your life.” But the problem is that following those other, random people isn’t following the One, True God or lead to eternal life. So that’s a problem. I’m not putting down good bible teachers, speakers, education, or any of that; there can be some good principles we can learn even from secular methods of doing things. I’m just saying 2 Swindoll, Charles R. Insights on Mark, P165. Carol Stream, Illinois, Tyndale House Publishers, 2016. Scribd, https://www.scribd.com/read/329277748/Insights-on-Mark#. 7 that those things, no matter how good or helpful they may be, can never substitute for following Jesus and doing what He says to do. And the Scribes, these big city Bible lawyers, so to speak, come to take a quick look at Jesus and make a quick diagnosis. Mark 3:22 NLT But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said, “He’s possessed by Satan, the prince of demons. That’s where he gets the power to cast out demons.” That’s not good. These religious leaders take it one step farther than Jesus’ family did. They didn’t just think Jesus was crazy, they said He was actually possessed by the devil and everything He was doing was evil and of satan. That’s a dark statement to make. Jesus has a response. And there are two topics He brings up in His response that are important for us to take a look at (of course you might find more topics if you read over this passage more this week). The first topic is unity. I’ll actually talk about that second; but the next topic is the unpardonable sin. I want to start with the unpardonable sin, or the one the Bible says won’t ever be forgiven. First, I want to tell you that if you’re worried about whether or not you’ve ever committed the unpardonable sin, then you haven’t, ok? Jesus says Mark 3:28-30 NKJV “Assuredly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they may utter; 29 but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation”— 30 because they said, “He has an unclean spirit.” I think verse 28 is very encouraging. All sins will be forgiven for any who choose to come to Christ. They’re covered by the blood. If you’ve accepted Jesus, all the sins from your past are forgiven, the ones you might commit now are forgiven, and wherever you fail, fall, or stumble in the future will be forgiven by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ that washes us white as snow and makes us holy and acceptable in God’s sight. It’s finished, it’s 8 done. Even if you utter blasphemy. In other words if a curse word comes out of your mouth in anger or when you go through a rough time; it will be forgiven! I want you to try to understand how amazing and life-changing this is; by the cross of Jesus we have total and complete forgiveness of our sins - thank you Lord! For now, 1 John 1:9 ESV “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” However, Jesus says if a person blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, they can’t ever be forgiven. Like I said, if you’re worried about doing this, you probably won’t ever do it. The unpardonable sin is not so much one act as it is a process of moving away from God; a state of wanting to live in continual sin, perpetual rebellion against God, and self-rule, or a settled attitude that regards good as evil and evil as good. The scribes here had seen, over, over, and over again the miracles, deeds, and actions of Jesus and they had heard His teaching; but their willful blindness to who God was and what He was doing resulted in such spiritual insensitivity and insensibility that they couldn’t recognize truth any more and were totally immune to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.3 The scribes condemned themselves in this way because, even after Jesus conclusively disproved their allegations of being from and of the devil, they kept on saying ‘He has an unclean spirit.” In the greek, the imperfect tense indicates continuing action - he is continually working in and through the demonic; in other words, against all logic, reason, and facts, the scribes persisted in their blasphemy in calling Jesus and His works demonic, evil, and of satan. Hopefully that helps put your mind at ease a little bit about the unpardonable sin. And Jesus responds to the scribes' accusations by talking about the unpardonable sin. He also talks about unity in His response to them. Jesus is 3 Hayford, Jack W., editor. Spirit-Filled Life Bible, P1418; footnote on Mark 3:28-30. 3rd Edition ed., Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Nelson, 2018. 9 actually hitting two birds with one stone here; He’s starting His response to His family while also answering the scribes' accusation. Mark 3:23-24 NKJV So He called them to Himself and said to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 And if a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” Notice, he uses the word ‘house.’ If a house is divided, or in disunity with itself, it’s going to fall, it can’t move forward. In the greek, ‘a house’ literally implies a family. The house of Campbell, the house of Dawson, for example. And though Jesus is speaking in parables, He’s responding to his family. My paraphrase is that Jesus is saying, “to respond to my family and friends no, I’m not crazy. But I am moving forward in building my life totally on God and what He wants me to do and how He wants me to do it. It might look crazy to you right now, but following God is the only way to have abundant life, peace, and rest from all of the external troubles of this world, even if it’s causing conflict with you right now. You won’t actually find peace in just ‘getting along’ with blood relatives or staying respectable based on your worldly reputation. You’ll have to follow God with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your strength if you want true, lasting peace.” Jesus actually reiterates this point to His family in another parable; Luke 6:47-49 NKJV Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” 10 Many of you know this parable, and yes, it totally means that we should build our life foundation on Jesus Christ and what He says. But if we take the metaphor of house as family, then we can take it as a commentary on living in the family of God; as living in unity with the body of Christ. And Jesus repeats his point about doing the will of God in both this story of the houses and in our passage in Mark when He is describing His family. Mark 3:33-35 NKJV But He answered them, saying, “Who is My mother, or My brothers?” 34 And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.” Do you see it? Whoever does what God wants is in the family of God. and whoever hears what Jesus says and does it is a person with a foundation of solid rock. To paraphrase, Jesus is saying, ‘I might look crazy, but I’m doing the will of God! I’m following Him! And you can, too! Come, be my family! Be a part of what I’m doing, a part of God’s amazing plan of redemption for humankind! I love my biological family, but the followers of God share a deeper bond than that because we’re all on mission together to see the works of evil pushed back and torn down! To bring God’s healing, light, and freedom to lost and broken people. And to do it, we’re all going to need to be in unity; to be together in doing what God says. That’s why it’s so important to do what God says in Hebrews 12:15 CEV “Make sure that no one misses out on God’s wonderful kindness. Don’t let anyone become bitter and cause trouble for the rest of you.” There’s that pesky word again - trouble. You see, the trouble that causes us real problems is heart issues, not persecution from the world or temptation by our flesh or the devil. Those cause problems too, of course, but not in the same way. Evil heart attitudes cause trouble that breaks unity and hamstrings the ability of the church family to minister to one another and those outside in need of Jesus. In 11 Hebrews, the heart attitude causing problems is bitterness. For the scribes who committed the unpardonable sin, it was rebellion. For Balaam it was greed, for Cain it was anger, for Saul it was pride. You can find many, many examples. Matthew 15:19 AMP “For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders (verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming).” And so today, I simply want us to do a heart check. It’s possible for us to be in the family of God, saved, and still have hidden heart attitudes that make us think what Jesus wants to do in us is crazy. I’m not saying we always even know about what’s in our hearts. Psalm 19:13 NABRE “Who can detect trespasses? Cleanse me from my inadvertent sins.” Many of us are so busy in our day-to-day lives we don’t have much time to sit and ask the Holy Spirit to air out our souls and do a heart attitude check. But today I want us to take a little time and be intentional about it. And, as we close, before Pastor Autumn shares an exhortation, I want us to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal anything in our hearts that isn’t of Him. and then, as He reveals those things to us, I want us to simply repent, or tell the Lord we’re sorry, and receive His forgiveness, grace, and mercy, and recommit to being doers of the word and not hearers only. Because unity in the family can only be built on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ and, as He said, a commitment to do the will of God. And as we do that, we’ll find our love or one another, our love for our spiritual family, will grow; and God will continue to pour out His Holy Spirit on us individually and corporately to bring restoration, redemption, and healing by the power of the blood of Jesus. Let’s pray. 12