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. 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. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your blessings. We pray that you would speak to us through this passage, give us understanding of what Jesus was teaching here, and help us to know how to apply it to our lives, that we might better glorify you. We thank you for what you've given us. We thank you for the Holy Spirit. We thank you for Christ Jesus. Relationship we have with you through him. And so bless us today, I pray. And help us in Jesus name, Amen. Well, we're looking at this passage here in Mark Chapter 3. This is not the first time, but Jesus is family. Long story short, they think he's crazy. They think he's really gone off the deep end, maybe had a nervous breakdown. Something is not right with Jesus. It's easy to look at his life and see why you might think something's terribly wrong because he's doing these horrible things like healing people who are sick and feeding people who are hungry. Man, you have to put a stop to that, right? He needs to be locked up. I'm obviously being sarcastic. He's the son of God, he's divine, he's the God-man, he's beginning his earthly ministry and it's really kind of weirding them out. They don't know what to make of it. As you examine this whole passage here, you've got Mary and you've got the brothers, and they have very different views of Jesus. I mean, you wouldn't be surprised, I don't think, if I were to tell you that Mary loved Jesus, right? That's her oldest son, a very unique situation in terms of his conception. and the childbirth, and Mary knows these things. Angels told her these things about who he is. And so, you know, you have a bond with your son anyway, but when you have the son of God, you're raising as your son, the bond, I would think, would be even stronger. And so, you know, it's an interesting situation in that regard. But at the same time, she's a woman just like anybody else, and she gets worried about her son sometimes, you know? And he goes off to another town, and there's talk that he's got a mass of people coming around, and what is this all about? And it creates tension, as we shall see today. She loves him. His brothers, I would argue, his brothers hate him. And so they're there to try to put a stop to this, but it's not because they're concerned about him, it's because they're embarrassed by him. And I think that's where all this leads. Certainly, as you look at a couple other passages, that's the indication we get all through the scriptures. Prior to their conversion, they hated Jesus. They were embarrassed by him. They literally wanted him to die. In John 7, they encourage him to go to a place where they know that the Jews there want to kill Jesus. And they say, oh, go show yourself to the world. Go there. That's a setup. I mean, can you imagine doing that to your worst enemy? Can you imagine doing that to your best brother? And trust me, he was the best brother they had. Okay, so leading up to this passage, and I think we'll get it all done today, hopefully. Leading up to this passage, what we've talked about, you know, up to now, Jesus chooses the twelve, the twelve apostles. One of them's the devil, he knows that, but he chooses the twelve, and he comes home to such a massive crowd that he can't even eat. And verse 21 in here, Mark chapter three tells us, this is when it began with his family. Verse 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. Okay, so a crowd wants to see him, and that means he's crazy. Now that's a stretch, perhaps, but that's the conclusion that they drew. The scribes start accusing him of casting out demons by Beelzebul, which is to say the prince of the demons. You're not holy, you work for Satan. That's how you're able to cast out them demons because the prince of the demons and maybe Satan himself is the one who empowers you. Now Jesus counters that with a logical argument first, which logic is lost on people like this. He argues logically, he says, well, how can Satan defeat Satan? I mean, if I'm working for Satan and I'm going out there doing bad things to Satan's kingdom, I'm casting demons out, I'm throwing them into pigs, I mean, that doesn't help Satan. Why? Explain to me your logic of how I can destroy Satan's kingdom and you say we're working together. Well, they don't have an answer, because there is no answer. Jesus just presents that logical argument, to no avail. Then he moves into a spiritual argument. Boy, they understand this one, and they don't like it. Because his spiritual argument is, you are attributing the work of the spirits through me. You're attributing that to Satan, all right? And if you just lock, stock, and barrel have said, you're a fraud, Jesus Christ, The Holy Spirit is satanic, and he's the one doing it. Guess what? You have officially gone off the deep end and blasphemed the Holy Spirit, and you will never be forgiven. Now, the argument there might be, well, what if he repents later on? He's not going to repent. That's the point. How does repentance come about? Not because you wake up with a funny feeling one morning and say, oh, I think I'll repent today. That's not how it works according to the Bible. The Bible says God grants repentance just as he does faith. And these guys who have trashed the Holy Spirit, trashed Jesus, trashed everything holy, and see themselves as religious zealots, Jesus says, you boys aren't going to the kingdom. You're not going to heaven. There's no way you're going to heaven. You've done the worst thing you can do and there will be no repentance because repentance is granted by God and he's not granting it to you. Now, modern day 21st century Americans begin to weep and say, oh, these poor babies, they just made a mistake. But you know what those men did? We don't want your God anyway. We don't believe any of that stuff. You're a satanic cult leader. I mean, that's the type of people that commit the unpardonable sin. They don't regret it as far as that goes. Okay, so we looked at all that. That's what kind of led up and last week was really over the unpardonable sin or an eternal sin and explaining all of that and what all that means. No, you probably haven't committed it. Just because you've lost your temper and said something you shouldn't have said doesn't mean you've committed the unpardonable sin. It's a willful thing. It's a malicious, You choose to do it, it's not a spur of the moment, you know, kind of sin. I thought it was interesting as I was studying that last week, and of course this blasphemy of the Holy Spirit that's considered the unpardonable sin. You think about the cuss words people use. They'll use Jesus Christ as a cuss word, and not bad and I, and they'll use the name of God the Father, and not bad and I. Have you ever heard someone use the Holy Spirit as a cuss word? Maybe you have, it's Louisiana, but I'm just saying that's a rare one. No one ever gets mad and says something against the Holy Spirit. I wonder if it's kind of woven even into the culture outside of the church that, oh, no, no, no, you don't say Holy Spirit because you'll go straight to hell. Well, there may be some truth in that. So I just find that observation kind of interesting. But that's what we talked about last time, and now we bring it back. Kind of verse 21, it ends with his family wanting to see him because they thought he was losing his senses. And then you have this whole argument over Jesus, Satan versus Satan, and this sort of thing. And now we kind of come back, picking it up from verse 21, back into the argument of his family showing up. And so let's examine that and see what we can take out of it in verse 31, where it begins. All right. Verse 31, then his mother, his brothers arrived and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. Mother and brothers arrived. And they're wanting to talk to him. Now, why are they there? That's the first question. What are they doing there? They don't live there. They live in Nazareth. He's in Capernaum. They're not that far away, but why are they there? Well, the text tells us in verse 21, back a little bit past, they felt he had lost his senses. So they're thinking nervous breakdown, insanity of some sort, he's too stressed, he's not thinking clearly, we're going to take care of him. Now, that is a noble cause, I would say. Jesus hasn't lost his mind, but a lot of people in this world have. And if that's your family or your friends and there's something you can do to help, then by all means do it. And I think, I don't know what all the motivations are, I think Mary's motivation is she's concerned about her son and wants to help him. What mother wouldn't be? The brothers, I'm not so sure. I think they're just embarrassed for themselves and want to get him out of the scene. But, you know, that's life. A mother's love, when you look at Mary and Joseph, you know, that's, Mothers and sons can be a very complex relationship anyway. If any of you are mothers who have sons, mothers and daughters can be a train wreck, but mothers and sons have a unique relationship. I have two daughters and a son, so I've got every dynamic possible, you know? I've got a son, I've got two daughters, and my wife has the same thing, and so, yeah, it's different. But mothers and sons, there's always a deep love there. No matter what the brat does, mama will always take care of him. And right at the last minute when dad's almost got the throat of the boy, and mother is, I don't think that's a good idea. Okay, you're right, dear. Anyway, of course I'm joking. None of this would ever happen in my household, but. Yeah. But at any rate, there's a certain bond, and that's not to say mothers don't get frustrated with their boys and take a switch to them, because they do. But imagine this, Jesus and Mary, wow. What a situation they had. And when you think about that, I mean, first of all, in our world, and particularly where we live, you have to point out real fast, Mary is a godly woman. She should be revered. She should not be idolized. She's not a god. Her nature is not divine. She was not without sin. And aside from Jesus, she did not have any more babies. by way of virginity. That is a very rare occurrence. So yeah, we should honor her, but we don't need to idolize her other than anything of she gave birth to Jesus. And that's a huge honor, when you think about it, for a young girl to be asked to do that. When you think about this, all right, the whole point driving this is they think Jesus is crazy. Mama, brothers, whoever. Why? What's he done that makes them think this? Okay, he left home. Well, that's not necessarily what makes him crazy. He's amassed a following, okay? And you kind of get nervous, particularly in this high religious culture that they live in. Jesus is kind of doing some religious stuff, and now he's got a following. He's got people, thousands, starting to swoop around him. Well, that's odd. He's a carpenter. What's the deal? uh... then he starts to organize the following he's not just out there teaching they just come and go he's organizing he makes twelve apostles and they're going to help him and he's structuring this thing and then he's actually doing stuff you know he's casting out demons and healing and and things of that nature, and it starts to make people, I think the people that are following him, it excites them, but his family, it's like, what is he doing? This is odd behavior. Why can't he just come back to Nazareth and build houses or something? That's a good life. What is he doing? And it's interesting. I think his brothers think he's a fraud. Mary knows better, at least she should. But you know, sometimes when somebody has the ability to think in ways that are beyond what you and I can do, they may be a genius, and the world would call them a fool, you know? That's happened numerous times over the course of history. I read of one, and when we talk of Jesus, is he a genius? I would argue Jesus is a genius and then some. He's way beyond a genius. Being divine in nature, I mean, he can He knows things that no PhD in the world could know, and he had no education. It's because he's the son of God. But here's an example I came across from the secular world, Nikola Tesla. Some of you that have studied electronics and electricity will be familiar with him. The AC current versus the DC current, which was Thomas Edison. There's a movie just came out about it, by the way, not playing in Lake Charles, but the current war. But anyway, the two of them were rivals. Edison was DC. And Tesla was AC, and they were going to power, you know, light up the world. And who's going to win? Edison won. He was a much better politician. I think that's a short story of it. But here's a quote from Tesla I came across just recently. From 1894, he's talking to a reporter. He said, you may think me a dreamer and very far gone if I should tell you what I really hope for. But I can tell you what I look forward to with absolute confidence, to sending messages through the air without any wires. Concerning the transmission of messages throughout all the earth like this, I have no hesitation in predicting success. 1894. He's talking about basically the technology for cell phones, radio, satellite, Wi-Fi, things we do today. He's talking about it back then. What are you talking about? How are you going to have sound transmitting through thin air? You got to have a wire hook to it. That's the only way it's going to work. Oh, no, no, no. I think it'll work this way. What did people say about him? It's a lunatic. He's a lunatic. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see you have to have some way of connecting those two devices. Now you can do it through the air. Hey, listen, this is 2019. I still can't explain to you how you do that through the air. But he was explaining it in 1894. He just hadn't got there yet, but he knew the technology was there. What's the point? Crazy. The world thought he was crazy. The world thought Jesus was crazy. He was telling them things and this is what people like Tesla and Edison and famous inventors do. It clearly was the case with Jesus. They have the ability to conceptualize things that the rest of us can't. They can't even envision that product happening and they can make it happen and make it happen on grand scale. And when you can do that, you have that kind of skill, the world thinks you're crazy. I'll give you a biblical example. The apostle Paul, they thought he was crazy too. Acts 26, he's before Festus. Paul's been imprisoned and he says in verse 24, while Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice, Paul, you are out of your mind. Your great learning is driving you mad. But Paul said, I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, by utter words of sober truth. Paul was talking about the resurrection, that was part of what caused Festus to become unhinged. He thought Paul was crazy. Paul, you've studied so much, we all know you're smart, you've got 15 degrees, but you've studied too much, you've lost your mind. Paul says, no, I haven't. You're gonna find out, I'm right, one of these days, be too late. And the same thing happened at Morrow's Hill. You remember in Acts 17, Paul's talking to the pagan philosophers, and what does he do? He doesn't play their game, other than the fact that they invite him to speak, and he speaks. But he's not trying to kiss up to whatever their goofy belief is, he just presents Christianity. He goes all the way back to Genesis, presents Christianity, and when he starts speaking about, guess what? Same thing. The resurrection. What do they do? How do they treat him? They laugh at him. They laugh at him. They think he's a fool now. He was a genius 10 minutes ago, now he's a fool. Okay. Who's the fool now? That was 2,000 years ago. None of those people are alive today. Tell me who's the fool now. Is it Paul or is it the guys who were laughing at him? They're not laughing now, I promise. And so you see that, you know, if you're different, if you have, if you understand things even in a secular world that the rest of the world can't understand, they're going to think you're crazy. But even more so in a religious context, if you understand the Bible and you know things and you can see things and you explain it, even other Christians, they think you're crazy. Explain Calvinism to an Armenian who's never heard of Calvinism. They will think you are crazy. Not just misguided, not just, well, we'll agree to disagree. You are a nut. You really believe that? Yeah, me and Paul and Jesus and Peter and James and John, we all believe it. How about that? Who's on your team? Now, all those guys that are still alive writing crummy books, congratulations. You go with them. I'll stick over here with the apostles. and God. Sorry, I'm usually much more sweet in how I present it. No, I'm not, I do it just like that, I'm sorry. Okay. So Paul is an example where you can see they thought he was mad, they thought he was crazy because he spoke of the resurrection. And getting back to the idea here of Mary and Joseph, the situation with Mary and Joseph. She was, as I said, they had a very unique relationship. Fathers and sons often do. And here's just a couple of the things, passages that point out this unique relationship. First of all, she knew he was divine at conception. Wouldn't you agree with that? She knew. So she was this wasn't some you know in the movies it's like he's 17 years old and figures out he can snap a tree into. You have special powers. No no no I don't like that. From the very beginning she knew what she had. The angels told her point blank by the way. Luke chapter one, behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great, he will be called son of the most high God. Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I am a virgin? The angel answered and said to her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you and for that reason the holy child shall be called the son of God. She knew, right? No question as to who this boy was. She also learned that she would suffer because of him. She would suffer. Luke 2, 35, she was told that a sword will pierce your soul. A sword will pierce your soul. I take that to mean you will suffer greatly because of Jesus. She loves him. She's going to watch him get publicly executed. That sounds like a sword piercing your soul would be my guess. So she learned that was going to happen. And then on top of all that, she treasured the thoughts of Jesus. It's recorded in Luke chapter two, verse 19, when the shepherds came and reported all the things the angel said about Jesus, which were really good things. Mary treasured them in her heart and pondered them in her heart. And you'd think, oh, she's never going to get mad at this boy. He's the son of God. He's sinless. This is going to be a perfect relationship, right? Wrong, because even though Jesus is sinless, guess who's not? Mary, Mary's not sinless. And so sometimes there's tension. There always is tension, even in Jesus's relationship with his mother. In Luke chapter two, she gets really irritated with him. Can you believe that? Women, put yourselves in that place. Your little 12 year old's been gone for three days. Are you starting to get irritated? Okay, you're the son of God and all, but could you at least tell us where you're going? All right, son of God, no television for one week for this one. Are you awake out there today? Is everybody? I just gotta take a look. It's like, man, I must have nodded them all off about 10 minutes into this message. I guess they're staying up too late watching the Astros or something. Ah, that's it, everybody's laughing. Knew I'd catch you. Anyway, okay. Yeah, 12 years old, Jesus, they can't find him, right? What are they gonna do? I mean, they're looking all over, going back to Jerusalem. They finally found him in the temple where he's 12 years old and he is schooling the rabbis. He knows more than they do. And it says, verse 48, when they saw him, they were astonished. 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 would be in my father's house? That's a little play on words because she said, your father and I have been looking everywhere for you. He said, I've been in my father's house. Different fathers you get. Get the gist there. She didn't get it, not at first. She didn't know what he was talking about. She's a little too rattled. 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. Even things she didn't understand, she said, I don't understand why he said that and did that, but man, he's something special. And so she's treasuring things. He got irritated with her on one occasion. The water in the wine, right? John chapter 2. Jesus, they're out of wine. And Jesus says, what is that to me? It's not my wedding. And then she tells the helpers, do whatever he tells you to do. She's not letting go of this. Okay, go fill them up with water. So Jesus ends up doing it, but he's irritated. He's irritated with it. My time has not yet come. The precursor of it had, and he did it. And then finally at the very end, Jesus provides for her. You remember this, when he's on the cross, John is nearby, and Jesus says in John chapter 19, verse 26, when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son, pointing at John. Then he said to the disciple, John, behold your mother. From that hour on, the disciple took her into his own household. And so Jesus provides for Mary at the very last minute there on the cross. He provides for her in terms of her household, where she's going to live. Her oldest son is gone now. He's dying. You might say, well, she had four other sons, right? Right. None of which Jesus felt like would take care of their mother. That tells you what kind of guys they were. He's going to place her into the custody of John, one of his Christian, close Christian friends, disciples. So Jesus takes care of her at the cross in that regard. Jesus takes care of her at the cross in one other way, too. You know what that is? It's an easy one. How else does Jesus take care of Mary at the cross? What's that? Same way he took care of us, right? Paid for her sins. Oh yeah, she had sins. He paid for her sins on the cross. And perhaps that moment when she chewed into him for not being in the caravan was maybe a little sign of her sin nature. But he paid for his sins. Now when you think about this, at the cross he does two things where he pays for his sins and he also provides for her temporal life by placing her in John's household. And that's a real good transition to the situation with his brothers. because Jesus appoints John to care for Mary because the four brothers couldn't be trusted. Now, you ever stop and think about that? You think, man, my family, it's kind of messed up in some ways, and I wish it was perfect, but it's not, and it's a little dysfunctional. Guess who else had a dysfunctional family? How about this guy you've maybe never heard of named Jesus? His own brothers are such lowlifes that he's not gonna trust mom in their house? I mean, seriously, think about that. I mean, that's the way it was done in that culture. Our culture, you might, you know, you got different options. We'll put it that way. In that culture, the sons took care of their mothers. If dad died, then it's your job to take care of your mother. Okay, well, Joseph's undoubtedly dead. He's not mentioned ever again after the 12-year-old episode. So who's gonna take care of Mary? Not Jesus, because he's dying. Okay, well then the next pecking order there, James, Joseph, Simon, Jude, which one of those? Jesus, which one of those are you gonna put in charge? He says, John, I'll pick John. Why would you not pick one of your brothers? And Jesus would say, have you met my brothers? You wouldn't pick my brothers either. John will take care of her. And that's what happens. The brothers are a mess. but they end up being a redeemed mess. Are you familiar with a redeemed mess? You might be a redeemed mess. I hope many of you are redeemed messes, because I promise you you're a mess, or at least have been at some point. And I think I'll go off on that next time, talk about them brothers. It's really interesting, because here's the deal, just to plant a little something in your seed there, I'll plant a little seed in there for next week. The brothers hated Jesus with a passion, seriously, to the point of wanting him dead. I think if they had had an opportunity to kill him, they'd have killed him. But they didn't. But they wanted him to get killed on his own, so they tried to encourage him to go to a place where they know people want to kill him. Bad fellows. They're embarrassed of him, they hate him, they don't want anything to do with him. After his death and resurrection, it seems pretty clear that they are converted pretty fast. We know for a fact that James and Jude are converted. James becomes the head of the Jerusalem church. Jude writes the book you know as Jude. They describe themselves as, for example, Paul calls James the brother of the Lord. Things like that. So we know those two got saved. Now I think there's a verse I'll present next week that seems to indicate all four brothers got saved. Because it speaks of the upper room early on, right after these events. And in the upper room there, it describes as Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the brothers of Jesus were there also. These are believers gathering together. I know two of them are believers, are the other two? When you say brothers, do you mean two or four? Depends on how you read it, but it seems to me like it would indicate four. It doesn't say some of the brothers, it says Jesus' brothers are numbered in the church, so. Interesting, a lot of speculation, but point being, Jesus saves and the question for you is, did he save you? Are you saved? The Bible speaks of repentance and faith. We're called to turn from our sin, our sin nature. You don't have to make a list of every sin you've ever committed, just realize you're eaten up with sin. And I need to turn from this and I want to give my life to Christ. And the Bible says that he will take you in as one who is repentant and change your life, change your heart, change the course of where you're going. He's your Lord, and so if you've never trusted in Him, I would encourage you to spend some time in prayer and seek the Lord while He may be found. Next week, we'll talk more about these brothers, and we'll hear a pretty dramatic example on a couple of them who hated Jesus and then loved Him even unto death. All right, let us pray.