Sermon Tone Analysis

It has been said that we have so much less these days

Phones ...Wireless Cooking..Fireless

Cars........Keyless Food........Fatless

Tyres.......Tubeless Tools.......Cordless

Dress......Sleeveless Youth......Jobless

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Leaders...Shameless Attitude...Careless

Feeling....Heartless Education... Valueless

Kids........Mannerless Government ....Useless

Parliament ...Clueless MASSES.... HELPLESS

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Of course this is a pun just to highlight a progress in society that is both helpful & unhelpful; good & evil

With new advancements comes new expectations & new attitudes

It should be plain to everyone that the more conveniences we have, the more we come to expect & the more we fail to appreciate the difficulties of the past

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One of the truism’s of discipleship is that it is both countercultural & uncomfortable

The attitudes we have alongside our faith turn out to become very important as they become signs of our discipleship

For example, if we are in too deep with the world & it’s thinking, then we may find that our discipleship is starting to get displaced by the world

In other words, we will start to withdraw from the rigours & disciplines of the faith

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What might that look like?

Prayer gets too often replaced with “me time”

Family commitments - as good as they may be - may start to take precedent over our commitment& service to Christ

Time - which is a commodity nowadays & that we seem to have so little of - is ordered wrongly

Time is a necessary commodity in being a disciple

Time must be assigned to living for Jesus & in serving Him, otherwise, that truism of discipleship is left compromised

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In this passage today, we see an angle of what discipleship is all about

At the end of this passage of Scripture, we see who the true family of Jesus is & what that means in regard to being a learner/disciple of Jesus

We see, once again, the distinction between the outsiders & insiders

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This passage has 2 sections: The accusations of Jesus’ family & the accusations of the Scribes from Jerusalem

Initially, you would think there are 3 sections, but there is only 2

The family have left home to seize or “take custody” of Jesus because they think He has lost His mind

Towards the end of this reading today, they have turned up now & are there outside waiting to see Him

Mark 3:21–31 (NASB95)

21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”

31 Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him.

Then you have His statement & the main point of this passage:

1.

The True Family Is Not Embarrassed over Jesus

Here Jesus’ family, who live in Nazareth, have heard some wild & disturbing reports about Jesus & His movement

Jesus had been brought up in Nazareth but is now living in Capernaum

we commence in our passage with...

His family had heard that so many people had crowded into His home at Capernaum that they couldn’t even manage to prepare, nor to eat, a meal

In fact, Jesus had become somewhat of a celebrity where people were almost in a state of frenzy around Him

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Jesus’ family decide that, for His sake & the family’s sake, it is time to “reel Him in” since He seems to have lost His senses or is “out of His mind”

The Gk. word existemi literally means, “change of place” where the mind is seen to have left the body

We get from this ancient word, the English word, ecstasy

When people are carried away in ecstasy, we tend to think they are rather deranged

A good saying that illustrates this is when people say that so & so is “beside themselves” with amazement or with grief

The mind is beside them & not operating correctly is the sense

This is the first accusation here & it comes from Jesus’ family - His own kin

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It seems His family are rather embarrassed by the whole thing & are to a certain degree upset about the family’s reputation, especially with their religious leaders

They came to seize Him or take custody of Him

This same word is used of the soldiers who came into the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Him

Of course, His family are not arresting Him, but have come to restrain, or to take charge of Him for His seems to have “flipped His wig”

So what we have here is that His own family thinks He is out of His mind

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The Scribes that come from Jerusalem who are hardly coming for a neutral fact-finding visit, go a step further, & say that He is out of His mind because He is possessed by Satan

Q.

Both these groups are, you think, outsiders or insiders?

They are outsiders - yes, His family are outsiders!!!

That is scandalous to suggest that even His mother Mary, at this point, is an outsider as far as the kingdom is concerned

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This is one important aspect of discipleship that is difficult to come to terms with

That your most dearest & closest loved ones in the world can be outsiders to the kingdom of God

It even becomes a greater struggle when your family is hostile to Jesus to then make the deliberate choice to side with Jesus over family

But this is the very thing this passage is making clear

His family are outsiders & are not with Him nor supportive of Him

2. The True Family Discerns the True Actions of God

The family’s attempt to “arrest” Him from His situation is not going to prevail as we see in the verses at the end of this passage

But what does eventuate is an even more damaging accusation than “one flew over the cuckoo's nest”

The Scribes that come from Jerusalem are spreading the allegation that He is possessed by Beelzebul - possessed by Satan himself

This is probably what the family is desperately wanting to avert

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The whole idea of the Scribes accusation is to try & damage the popularity of Jesus - that He is not a messenger of God, but of Satan, & that His power is not divine power but occultic power

It seems that politics once again gets involved when it comes to the truth

Here in this text is a blatant admission from the Jerusalem council in acknowledging the miraculous power of God in Jesus name through the apostles, but then denying it

Jesus has become a formidable challenge to their power & how they were able to exercise that over the people

To drive a wedge between Jesus & the people, you need a propaganda campaign that will do Him damage

What better way than to slander Him with the accusation that He is in league with the devil &, at other times, that He is a purveyor of misinformation

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Sometimes, when a accusation is made at you, you may “let it go through to the keeper” - a cricket saying, that means you don’t have a swipe at the ball since it is no where near the mark - the wicket - so you just let it go through to the wicket-keeper to catch it

This accusation, however, is not going to be let through to the keeper by Jesus - it is an allegation that is damaging to His ministry & it cannot be left unchallenged, so Jesus comes out swinging

He considers this a crucial allegation that needs a response, so He goes on the offensive & in Mk. 3:23 it says “He called them to Himself...”

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The accusation is that those whom He freed of demon-possession were made free by the use of sorcery - specifically because Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul

Beelzebul or, in some Bibles, Beelzebub is not just any demon but the prince or ruler of demons

Hence, by the use of the prince of demons, Jesus is driving out the lesser demons

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We see this name come up in the OT where Beelzebul or Baal-zebub is associated with the god of Ekron

Ekron is an old Philistine city - 80-100 klms by road from Samaria

Baal-zebub was one of the Baal gods of the coastal strip since the Philistines (to the south) & the Phoneticians (to the north) inhabited the coast

Tyre & Sidon to the north is Phonetician territory & we know that that is where Jezebel came from

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Baal-zebub means “lord of the flies” & the idea is that flies are the things that frequent dead bodies – hence, Baal as the one who supposedly brings death or life

So we see why Ahaziah sent messengers to the priests of Baal to see if he would recover from his wounds – perhaps, whether Baal would look favourably upon him & restore him

Beelzebul is, as Mk uses it, simply an alternative spelling for the ancient deity known as Baal, but as understood to stand for Satan

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What a horrible accusation to level at Jesus who is bringing healing to those physically ill & spiritually ill

Of course, the whole accusation, like many false accusations eventually falter on the truth

Q. Can a church stand when it is divided down the middle?

Q. Can any nation stand if it is divided?

We all know that divided nations end in civil war & divided churches end in church splits

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Jesus makes the point here that if He is using sorcery or occult powers to drive out demons, then, Satan’s kingdom cannot survive

Q.

But this should be common sense, right?

The strength of a church depends on unity & the strength of a nation depends on unity

Any attack on the church from within, cannot be a sign of collusion with God but of Satan

When the church is divided against itself, it cannot prosper

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Likewise, if Jesus is actually colluding with Satan, then He is both destroying Satan’s work & has become a threat to his power

For Satan to act this way would be suicidal, therefore, Jesus’ exorcisms show that Satan’s kingdom is under attack & if not from within, then he is facing a formidable external enemy

It’s not by civil strife within Satan’s kingdom, but through conquest by a greater power

As R. T. France has said... “It is not a matter of a kingdom divided, but of two rival kingdoms in conflict”.