Today we're going to talk about family. Now to some people that brings good thoughts, to some people not so good thoughts, but we want to talk about family and we want to use as a teaching tool Jesus's relationship with his earthly family and see what we can learn from that. We want to first talk about what was Jesus's earthly family, who it consisted of, and then talk about his relationship with that family. We want to talk about applications from that relationship. And then, as Paul Harvey used to say, we want to go to the rest of the story. But let's ask God for his help as we try to do this. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the way you teach and bless us through your word. And please help me as I try to teach from your word this day. Help us, Father, to learn because it is your word and your word never returns void. We pray for those that are not with us, for Pastor down doing his work in Arkansas and the others some because of illness, for whatever reason, we ask you to bless those people also. Now, Father, guide us as we look at your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. You know, quite often a pastor or preacher has a text. Well, we're going to go to many parts of scripture, but I don't have a specific text. But we want to talk about who was the family of Jesus when he was on this earth. We could go and read all of Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapters 1 and 2. We're not going to do that, but I want to give you a brief review of this story so we can get in mind who we're talking about when we talk about the family of Jesus. Luke tells us Mary's side of the story, how the angel Gabriel appeared to her. She was the betrothed wife of Joseph at the time, and was told that she would have a son without an earthly father. We're still mystified how that can be, and we know Mary was mystified. I find it interesting. Usually the New American Standard is pretty consistent how it translates things. But the Greek word that in Luke is translated engaged to Joseph, in Matthew it is betrothed to Joseph. I think betrothed is the better word. We have engagements today, but betrothal was more than what our engagement is today. It was like a contract. It was considered the first stage of marriage and usually lasted up to a year before the couple came together. It was more than our engagement, because to break up a betrothal was the same as having a divorce. So I think the new American standard should have used betrothal in both places. That's the relationship that existed between Joseph and Mary when the angel came. Matthew tells us Joseph's side of the story. It tells us in Luke that the angel Gabriel came to Mary, and it just says an angel came to Joseph, but I've always assumed that it was the same angel. But he told Joseph that the baby that Mary carried was from the Holy Spirit. Man, how that must have blown Joseph's mind, his thinking. But it tells us that after the Spirit gave this vision to Joseph, Joseph took Mary as his wife, it tells us that in Matthew 1.24, and it follows up in Matthew 1.25, and tells us, he kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a son and called his name Jesus. So when Jesus was actually born, he had a mother, Mary. And Mary was married to his father, Joseph. So Joseph was the legal father of Jesus. This kind of sounds strange to us. We like to think more of Jesus having a heavenly father. But he had, Joseph was his legal earthly father. So he had a legal and biological mother in Mary. And he had a father, a legal father, but not a biological father in Joseph. But they were a family in Luke. When they took Jesus to the temple, Mary and Joseph are referred to as his parents. And if we move further in Luke to when Jesus at age 12 went up to the temple, what does Mary say? Why have you treated this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you. So we tend to think of Jesus not having an earthly father, but he really did. It's kind of a strange situation, but he did have a father and a mother. He was thought of as the son of Mary and Joseph. And we can read in Matthew and in Mark and also in John, we learn that Jesus had brothers and sisters. In Matthew 13, it tells us in verse 54, he came to his hometown and began teaching them in their synagogues so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary and his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters? Are they not with us all? Where then did this man get all these things? Well, here we get four names. Jesus had four brothers. He had sisters. Always wondered why we don't get their names. And we know there was at least two because it's plural, right? So he had at least six siblings. Mark, in the same event, has a slightly different take. Mark 6.3, is this not the carpenter? And Matthew, he's the son of a carpenter, and Mark, he's the carpenter. The son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon are not his sisters here with us, and they took offense at him. So Jesus had a mother and a father, four brothers, at least two sisters. His father was a carpenter. He was a carpenter. And you ask, would that be all of his family? Well, no, that wasn't all. That would be his immediate family. But in those days in Israel, the Jewish people were a clannish people. You belonged to a clan. We could find that in Several places in the Old Testament it talks about the clans of Israel. So Jesus would have been part of a clan. One place that it talks about it is in this great prophecy in Micah 5, 2. But as for you, Bethlehem, Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel. His going forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. That's a great prophecy, but I just wanted to read it to point out that these were clannish people. In our country, we don't think too much of clans, though some of us have closer association with our extended family. But Jesus had an extended family, and he was part of one of the clans of Judah, even though he lived in Nazareth, because he was of the tribe of Judah. Who did this extended family include? We don't know. From sources, extra biblical sources, we know that Alpheus was Joseph's brother. And we can read about there being another Mary that was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Apparently, in Greek, there's more than one term that's translated Mary, Why would you have two sisters named Mary? But I think they were slight variations on that name. So we know a little bit about some other people, but we know that he was part of an immediate family, part of a bigger clan. Now we want to talk about his relationship with his family. The first thing we read in scriptures about his relationship has to do with his trip to Jerusalem for the Passover when he was 12. I mean this is the only scripture that tells us anything about him from his birth until he started his ministry. But I think we can get some insight there. You know they went up for the Passover and after it was over Mary and Joseph headed home and Jesus stayed behind. And we can read a little bit about that in Luke. Mary and Joseph came back looking for him and they finally found him. And I'll start reading in Luke 2, 48. When they saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him, son, why have you treated us this way? Behold, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you. And he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my father's house? But they did not understand the statement which he had made to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he continued in subjection to them. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." What's interesting, it says, he continued in subjection to them, which tells us Jesus was the perfect child. If there ever was a perfect sibling, that would have been in Jesus. He perfectly obeyed his parents. both before he went and after he went, because it says he continued in subjection to him. But then we read about this interchange between Mary and Jesus. Why have you done this? Like Jesus had done something wrong. But Jesus very respectfully asked back a question, didn't you understand that I needed to be about my father's business and my father's house, which is maybe, you know, sometimes here the child understood the situation better than the parent. Maybe we as parents, have we ever done that? Thought our children were doing something and there was a, they had a better understanding of a situation than we did, but it seems here This was not a rebellious son, this was simply a son doing something that he should have been doing and having to convey that message to his mother. We need to be careful with children, with grandchildren, that when they have a legitimate question to ask, that we receive that. This was, you know, Jesus was without sin. Now, none of us have had siblings that were without sin, right? What was it like to grow up in a house with a brother that was perfect? Never had a bad attitude, never yelled back at his parents, never got mad for the wrong reasons. Imagine growing up with someone like that. Think he would have noticed if he were his brother that there was something different about him? Especially in the Catholic Church, there's many stories about miracles that Jesus did as a child. They're all wrong. And if you want proof for that, why does John tell us in John 2.11? The beginning of his signs, Jesus did at Cana of Galilee, where he turned water into wine. He didn't grow up doing miracles, other than if you say living a perfect life is a miracle, but he didn't have any of these fanciful stories. But he did grow up this perfect sibling in his family. I don't know what that would have been like. But we know that even though Jesus' brothers grew up around this perfect brother, they didn't connect the dots and understand who he was. I want to read a fairly lengthy passage in Mark chapter 3. which I think is key. And after I read it, I can maybe understand why I want to read this whole passage. Mark 3, starting with verse 13, and it's Jesus. And Jesus went up on the mountains and summoned those whom he himself wanted to come to him. And he appointed 12 so that they would be with him. that he could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out demons. And he appointed to twelve Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James. To them he gave the name Bonandris, which means sons of thunder, and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus, and Simon the zealot. and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. And he came home, and the crowd gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When his own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of him. They were saying, he has lost his senses. Here we have a new group of people coming into Jesus' life, right? He had his family. And now there's a new group coming in, the disciples. And Jesus is ministering. He chooses these disciples. They believed in him. They believed him perfectly, but they believed he was the Son of God. His brothers did not. So we see two groups here. And excuse me. his clan, his people, his kinsmen, they come to take custody of him. There's a couple of reasons that are possible why they came to take custody of him, this extended family. One is it tells us here that They gathered again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. Maybe the clan, his extended family, thought they had to rescue this poor guy because he was working so hard and doing so much that he wasn't even taking care of himself. That's one possible reason they came to rescue him. The other, probably more likely, is they were reacting to Jesus' teaching. These people were not people that believed in Jesus. Perhaps the scribes and Pharisees had persuaded them to go and get Jesus and shut Him up like they tried with some other people later on in the Gospels. We don't know why, but this extended family didn't understand Jesus. They came to shut Him up. And when that didn't work, what did they do? After some discussion, Jesus had with the scribes and Pharisees there, his immediate family came. It seems to me like almost like his clan couldn't get Jesus to come out to him. And so then they sent his immediate family to come and help him. And we read on in Mark 3.31. Then his mother and his brothers arrived and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, behold, your mother and your brothers are outside looking for you. And answering them, he said, who are my mother and my brothers? Looking about at those who were sitting around him, he said, behold, my mother and my brothers, for whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. Excuse me. So here we have, seems to me, a very big moment in the life of Jesus. He had been with his family 30 years, and now he had these apostles that he had chosen, and he made the choice to be with the people of faith instead of his blood relatives. He made a big decision. He was going to be with the people of faith and not just his family. The bond of faith was stronger than the bond of blood. His disciples believed in him, as I said before, not perfectly, but they believed he was the son of God. His family did not. You would have thought that someone that saw him grow up and live a perfect life would have been more convinced than these disciples that he met along the way, but they were not. How do we know his brothers didn't believe? Well, John tells us that in John chapter seven. Scripture's kind of silent on what Mary believed, but it's not on what his brothers thought. Because we read in John chapter seven, after these things Jesus was walking in Galilee for he was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. Therefore his brother said to him, Leave here and go into Judea, so that your disciples also may see your works which you are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For not even his brothers were believing in him. So Jesus said to them, my time is not yet, but your time is always opportune. Now this seems beyond my comprehension that these brothers were so blinded. But then we know that only God can open your heart and open your mind to understand things. But here his brothers who lived with him didn't believe in him. This brother that always obeyed his parents, never had a temper fit, and yet they didn't believe in him. If the only information we had about Jesus' brothers were what we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we would come away with a very sad feeling towards them, because there's nothing in the Gospels that ever indicate any change among his brothers. In fact, the gospel ends with what? Jesus on the cross and what does Jesus say? In John 19, but standing by the cross of Jesus where his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene, When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to the woman, behold, your son. And he said to the disciple, behold, your mother. And from that hour, the disciple took him into her own household. Jesus, on the cross, entrusted his mother to the care of John, one of his disciples, and not to James and Joseph and Simon and Judas, his brothers? What does that tell us about his brothers if Jesus entrusts his mother to someone other than them? It was obviously the responsibility of the eldest son, who we assume was James, to take care of his mother if his father was gone, which we all believe happened sometime between sometime before Jesus' public ministry began. So here we have Jesus' family. We don't really know what his mother thought at this time, but we know his brothers didn't believe in him. And even to the extent that he took the care of his mother away from his brothers and gave it to John. So what does this tell us? What do all these things tell us about our relationships? What applications can we get from this? Well, I want to start that by telling you a story. It's a true story. About 11 years ago, Clarine and I went over to Ohio. Our son Dave lives there. And it was in February. and his church, they were having a Valentine's banquet for couples. So we happened to be there, so they invited us to come. And of course, we went along. When you go visit your kids, you go along, right? And they divided us into groups, and there were things we were supposed to share within the groups. In our table, there was a young couple. He was in the Air Force, and his bride was from Middle Eastern descent. I can't remember whether she was Syrian or from Iran. It was one of those two. And they were there, and part of the discussion was the bride was supposed to share what reaction she got from her parents when she told her parents who she was going to marry. Of course, my dear wife shared what happened when I went home with her to meet her parents. Her dad said, he's short and a Baptist to boot. Both were true. But then this young lady shared that when she told her parents that she wanted to marry this man, they told her that if she did that, they would disown her. They would never speak to her again. They would consider her as being dead. The young lady was a believer, and she chose to be with people of faith. than to be with her family. They were obviously Muslim. She married a young man, and her father had never had any contact whatsoever with her in the intervening years. She said she had had one or two very brief messages from her mother, but she had been totally disowned by her family. Well, most of us never have a this dramatic of a split when we choose Christ. Most of us don't have this family that says they're going to totally disown us. Some people do. This young lady did. She made a decision she was going to be with the people of faith and not with her family. But we have to make that kind of decision, whatever the results are. to be with people of faith as opposed to family. People of faith, our faith in God comes first. Most of us don't have this big dramatic rejection like that, but there can be difficulties. If you have parents that are unbelievers, they can undermine your relationship, undermine your relationship with your children. They can be like a constant dripping or discouragement or whatever. And some people have to live with that and choose to be with the people of faith rather than with family. Sometimes if you have Christian parents, you can still have some division where you think your parents are not going quite the way they should, quite the right direction, and you have to do decide you're going to stand for God and what he's teaching you, rather than be with your parents. The people following God, being with the people of faith, is to be a stronger bond than to be with your family. What did Jesus call his disciples? He said, those that believe in him, are his family, his mother and father and sisters. If we're believers, we have to remember that. That is the most important new family for us to be with. But then there's the rest of the story. We ended with John. the Gospel of John with Jesus on the cross, taking care of his mother away from his unbelieving brothers and giving it to his disciple. But that's not the end of the story. We find out more about Jesus' brothers if we read on into Acts and the rest of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 15.3, His brothers come up again, or at least one of them. Excuse me. In 1 Corinthians 15, three, for I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for us sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried. and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas, that would be one of the 12, then to the 12. After that, he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also. Paul tells us that the risen Lord appeared to who? And it seems like this was last, almost last on his list, James, his brother. Jesus had this unbelieving brother, but he didn't give up on this brother. One of the last things he did while he was on earth was to appear to that unbelieving brother. And when it says, until all the apostles, it seems that perhaps he appeared to maybe all his brothers. So we need to never give up on unbelieving family. As long as they have life and we have life, we should never give up on them. Jesus didn't give up on his brother, and one of the last acts that he did here on earth was to appear to his brother, and what happened to his brother? Well, in Acts, it tells us what happened after that, after Jesus went back up to heaven. Again, we have all these names. In Acts chapter one, verse 12, after Jesus gone up to heaven, it says, then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey away. When they had entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, that is, in the list of the disciples, Peter and John and James and Andrew and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas, the son of James. All these with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer along with the women. and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. His brothers became believers. His brothers that didn't believe in him when he walked here on earth were there with all the apostles when Jesus had gone back to heaven. His brothers were there with the apostles. They were part of the house of faith now. Jesus's physical family had become part of his spiritual family. When you notice it says brothers, he had four brothers. We know that two are, help write the New Testament, James and Jude. We know the two of them, but I'm assuming when it says brothers, it includes all four of his brothers. And I wanted to say, and sisters, but perhaps James and the brothers went and talked to their sisters too, that this really was the Son of God, the risen Savior. But Jesus didn't give up on his brothers. And James not only became a follower of God, he became the chief elder in the church in Jerusalem, a respected leader. In fact, even the non-Christians of the day called him James the Just, this brother that didn't believe. And when they had the first church council It was James that spoke up and helped decide the question. This unbelieving brother became one of the foremost leaders of the early church. So my point is, never, never give up with your unbelieving family. You have to have fellowship with the people of faith, but never give up on your unbelieving family. I know it's a struggle when parents or children are wandering away from the faith, are struggling. Never give up. Never give up with your family members. I mean, we've had two things that happened in our recent past. One was Randy's wife, Linda, came to faith after many years of witnessing, right? And our daughter-in-law, Renee's mother, came to faith in the very last days that she was on earth. So the idea is we need to have fellowship with the people of faith, but we never want to give up on unbelieving family members. And I'd like to end with one of my favorite scriptures. I turned 70 this year. Man, that's getting old. And my children made this plaque for me. It's on the wall. It's a verse from 3 John 4, and I want to read it for you. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth. There is no greater joy than knowing that your children, and you know, I think John may have been talking about spiritual children, but it's children. There's no greater joy than to know that your children are walking in the truth, that your spiritual family and your physical family are joined, and that your family is, your physical family is part of both. There is no greater joy than that. So, my last reminder is we need to have fellowship with the people of faith, but we never want to give up on trying to reach our unbelieving family. We want them to be one, our unbelieving family to be part of our spiritual family. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for these words from your holy word. These encouragements that you do sometimes bless us by making our physical family and our spiritual family one. Thank you, Father. And for those that have straying children or unbelieving parents, Father, give us wisdom how to deal with all these. Help us to never give up in trying to Encourage these unbelievers to become believers. Help us to do that, Father. And for those that have difficult relationships because their family are unbelievers, we ask you to give them strength and courage to continue on. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.