You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Welcome back to another episode of the Vice Chancellor's Hour. We are working our way through the Book of Mark, and the purpose of this really is to understand Jesus better as we look at his life as told in the Gospel of Mark. And specifically today, we have an episode in Jesus's life that runs against what you may have been taught about Jesus and his family. I don't know if you've ever thought about Jesus having a family, but he absolutely had a family. He had a mother, Mary. He had brothers and Sisters the Scripture teaches us. He had an earthly father, not a biological father, but a father, Joseph, who raised him, and he had a family. And it's really important for us to really take Jesus as the Gospels give him to us, and in this case, as a real person who has a real family. I don't know if you've ever had challenges dealing with your family, but believe it or not, Jesus had challenges with his family. We're going to look at that a little bit today. We're in Mark chapter 3, beginning in verse 20. Then they went home, and the crowd gathered again, so they could not even eat. 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 for Jerusalem were saying, He is possessed by Beelzebub and by the prince of demons. He cast out the demons. And he called to him and said to him in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan if a kingdom is divided against itself? That kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has 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 shall be forgiven. The children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter, 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 to him and called him, and a crowd were 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 brothers? And 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." Jesus had become more and more popular and with his popularity had come great danger. You see, as his popularity grew, there were people who did not want him to succeed. We've spoken of those people. In fact, in my last episode, I mentioned how you had some people who would crush him out of ignorance. You had Pharisees and Herodians who were seeking to destroy him, and you had evil forces, unclean spirits, who even by their truthful proclamations were hoping to disrupt his ministry. Jesus was under, humanly speaking, increasing pressures. And to add to that great weight, that burden of all of the people, he found that those who were against him in this story were his own family. Maybe you guys know what that feels like. You can imagine how hard it would be if you had someone who was a well-known figure to have their own family members publicly saying bad things. Here we hear them saying that he was crazy. That's exactly what they said. A room of people gathered together, packed so tightly, that the family couldn't even enter in. And his family apparently had traveled some distance to come see him because they were saying he's out of his mind. Now, some commentators will tell you that perhaps they made this accusation hoping to save his life. You may remember the story of David. that David found himself among the Philistines and he feared for his own life because he couldn't go back to Judah and he pretended to be crazy because they thought, well, if he was crazy, there's really no point in killing a crazy man, is there? There's nothing to be learned from killing a crazy man, is there? He's just crazy. And so there are people who think that Jesus' family may have just thought that, well, he's in so much danger they needed to defend him. But I don't think that's what the passage is saying. I think they really were afraid that he had gone too far, that he had done too much, that he was drawing the wrong attention, and that while they had some idea of his aspirations and supported him in some sense prior to this, that they began to question. In a way not unlike how John the Baptist questioned where Jesus was, whether he was matching their own expectations of what Jesus should be. Isn't that precisely what we talked about in another sermon or in another episode about John the Baptist? That John the Baptist came to believe at some point that possibly Jesus didn't match his expectations. Now, you may remember how Jesus corrected John. He used the Bible, and he used what he was doing to correct John the Baptist's expectations. He said all of the things in the sense the scriptures had said would be true of Messiah. You see, I'm doing those very things. His disciples went back and responded on his behalf. Jesus here takes a very different tactic. In fact, he demonstrates something greater to us about who he is and what it means to be his disciples. You see, when his mother and his brothers came, because there were people watching, what were they thinking? They had to be wondering, how is Jesus going to respond to pressure like that coming from his own family? How is he going to respond to the fact that he has this strong family presence working against him here? Jesus asked them, who were his mother and who were his brothers? and pointing around to the people who were there, the people who were sitting and listening to the words he was telling them, he said, here are my brothers, here is my mother. Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother, my sister, my mother. Jesus is telling us two things about discipleship. The first is this, that if you're a disciple, you're family. That is, if you're His disciple, you are His family. We have many promises of God that resound with this theme, that talk about being great heirs with Him, and to Him being a type of brother to us. But I want you to really consider the fact that Jesus is telling you that you can be his family. And for him, family was not a small thing. Just like for you, just like for me. For us, it's not a small thing, is it? I moved around a bit growing up, and I've got two brothers. I've got an older brother and a younger brother, and of course I have parents. And everywhere that we moved, those people went with me. And of course, you make new friends if you move. I mean, you're in a new situation. There's new people. And if you're willing to be a bit friendly, then you will find friends. But I also learned a very important lesson. And the lesson that I learned was that friends tend to come and go. Even good friends in the right circumstances, they come and go. But there's a bond to family that's so strong that it can transcend time and place so that you can be together. You sort of, I think, instinctively know this because the best comparisons of friendship always point towards relationships stronger than friendship itself. When you say someone is a good friend, you will say, he's like a brother, she's like a sister to me. Imagine then Jesus is feeling, and he's feeling that way about family, saying that disciples, his disciples are his family. That's the bond I feel with my mother and with my father and with my brothers that I now feel with my wife and with my children. that feeling that I have towards those people who are such a close bond, who have gone through life with me, who have helped me when I needed help, who've encouraged me when I needed encouragement. Yes, who have corrected me when I needed correction. That's a love, isn't it? It's a bond that holds us together. And so when Jesus calls upon the relationship with his disciples, he likens it, he compares it to that type of bond so that you and I can say that the type of bond we have with those family members that we love and who love us in turn, that that is our relationship with our Lord. We are His family. So that no matter where I find myself or what circumstances that I'm in, my Lord is there with me. That I never have to worry whose side He's on. that the Lord, as we say together, is on our side in that wonderful hymn. Because He is our family. He's my family. Because I'm a disciple of His, and as He causes me to persevere, I shall be His until I die. And then I will be with him forever. And the same thing is promised to you. I know some of your stories. I know some of my listeners' stories. I know some of my students' stories. My surprise the first time I heard that many of you having lost parents at very young ages, early 20s, mid 20s, Some much younger than that, even early age. And after I talked to person after person, I heard, this one's lost a parent, that one's lost a brother, a sister. It was surprising how often it was true. As some of you know, my wife, you know, she's lost her mother. I've seen what that looks like. It's not easy to see. I've seen up close the feeling of losing someone you love so much. The promise of scripture is that I have a God that will never leave me, who is always there, and that death itself cannot wrench him from me. In fact, he came, and he lived, and he died, so that though I die, I will be with him forever, that there will be no separation between us, Because I am his, I am bought with a price. And as surely as he inherited life everlasting in the heavenlies, we are there with him and will be with him forever. I'm never going to be on my own. I can't tell you some days, of course, like anyone else, it feels like I am. There are days when that happens. Our mind plays those tricks on us, doesn't it? And I'm sure you feel the same way some days too. Isn't it true that some days when you carry your burden, you are experiencing it, is feeling as though you're the only one who ever carries it? Yes, it feels that way some days, but I'm telling you the truth. The truth is our Christ is with us. We are never alone. That's what discipleship means, that he will never leave us, nor will he ever forsake us. The second thing that he teaches us about discipleship is our bond to him is closer than any other bond. Now, the same scriptures that tell us we are to honor our father and mother and that children are to obey our parents, that's the same scriptures, isn't it? The same Lord who told us to honor our father and mother and children obey our parents, it is the same Lord right here telling us that Jesus didn't listen to his mother. He didn't come out when she told him to. And a Christian needs to think about that, don't they? They need to wrestle with that a bit, don't they? We have to think about how could Jesus do this? How can we have these two things in our mind at once? That I am to honor my father and mother, and the children are to obey their parents, but also that the same Lord who gave us that command in Christ Jesus, who never did anything wrong, himself refused to obey. Of course, I don't have to come up with an answer for this, do I? The answer to this is as old as the passage itself. It's as old as Christianity itself as well. And that is this, I honor my mother most when I obey my Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. That's the greatest honor I can bring my mother as someone who honors and cherishes the one that she serves. Now for me, as a person, this is very easy. My mom is a Christian. My dad is a Christian. And so in many ways, it's been very easy for me to obey my Lord, because I was taught from a very young age, from the very beginning, really, that I ought to always do what the Bible says. And even as my parents, Perhaps we've had some small, small theological differences over the years, not anything that matters in the end. But we've had our disagreements. But they understand, I think, and believe that I want to honor them, that I wouldn't believe differently from them if I didn't believe it's what the Scriptures teach, even in these matters of disagreement. Now, I recognize for some of you that that's not the case. For some of you, you come from families that are not Christian families, and they don't understand. Some of you come from Christian families, but they're still somehow steeped in other views, other ways of thinking, and they're not submitting themselves to the Word of God. Perhaps they have some of the bit of the old religion or the idea of the ancestors. Perhaps they're just in secularism, or perhaps they've come from another faith altogether, but haven't completely been able to leave it all behind. There's a bit too much of the world in them yet. And so when you say you want to follow after God, you want to do God's will, perhaps even your own family resists you. I've known people I love, people who are close to me that this has happened to. They try to obey God's word. Their own families are the ones who resist them. There was a man in seminary I knew very well, and he was a doctor, and he was in charge of the entire emergency room for one of the biggest hospitals in one of the biggest cities in the country. He was a very, very prominent doctor, and he came to the Lord. He became a Christian, and he was married already. He had two teenage daughters, and his wife and his daughters were not Christians. They were not believers. And that they were okay with him that he wasn't living the same lifestyle that he had before, and that his priorities had shifted in some way. They were okay with him doing fewer lavish vacations, you might say. They were okay with a lot of changes in life, and if he wanted to spend Sundays in church, they couldn't care less. But when his wife found out he was going to tithe 10% to the church, she divorced him. I promise you, they were rich enough. She was not going to miss the 10%. But the very idea that he would tithe, that he would give away money to the church, something she didn't value at all, that was a bridge too far for her. She was saying, that's my money. You're giving away my money. And so I tell you, discipleship can have a cost. I know you know this. I know that as you do what's right, as you do what the Lord says, don't be surprised that it's not just far away people, people outside your group somewhere who resist you. But sometimes it's people who are very close to you, who resist you as well, who want you to do something else. Peter talks about people who used to be our friends who say, why don't you join us in our parties anymore? Why don't you do these revelries? That's what he's talking about. They're very fine for you to believe whatever you say you want to believe, as long as you don't do what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to, in their minds, be with them and do what they do. It can be the ones in our very own homes who do that. And I tell you this, Honor the Lord, keep his commandments. The Lord has promised to you that you will have a family. In fact, he says that even if his disciples are deprived of these things, if they're taken from him, they'll find they have far more that he's provided for them when it comes to family. And in fact, I would encourage you to do what Christ did. and to look to your left and to your right and you say, who really are my brothers and my sisters? Our brothers and sisters in the kingdom of heaven, most closely tied are those with whom we have the same faith. And those on your left and on your right, if they are Christians, I pray they are Christians, these are your brothers and your sisters in Christ. That's why we call them brothers and sisters. I know that's a hard lesson. I know it is. Perhaps like me, probably like me. You love your family. I'm sure you do. But I am called to love Christ more. It's a terrible cost to lose family. That's a terrible cost to pay. And yet some of you, I know for sure, will have to pay that cost if you are to follow Jesus. And our Lord paid that cost as well that day when he drew a line and said, the ones on this side are with me. The ones on that side, it doesn't matter if they're Kith or Kin, doesn't matter if they're relatives or not, he'll say no even to his mother. And even this day, his physical mother, his physical brothers, as he was saying, have to decide which side of the line they're on. They had to decide whether they would count themselves among his disciples like everyone else, or whether they would be working against him. Even Mary, even Jesus' brothers and sisters needed a Savior. They needed Jesus to be Lord. He drew a line in the sand. Would they cross over to be his disciples? Now, let me give you some good news. Perhaps you already know the story of Mary and what happens that Mary herself finds herself at the foot of the cross and our very Christ himself encourages his own disciple to take care of his mother as he's dying. What a wonderful son. Can you imagine? That's the love of a son that in his own suffering he's considering, what will happen to my mother's future? But perhaps you don't know what happened to the brothers, Jesus's brothers. Did you know his brothers came to see him as the true Christ? that Jesus put that line before them and they found themselves on the right side of the line. Someday, we don't know which day, they crossed over. 1 Corinthians 9, it's an unusual passage for sure. Paul there is describing who does get to be paid and who doesn't get to be paid as a minister. But he mentioned some categories of people who get to bring families along with them when they go on missionary journeys. And he mentions Jesus' brothers. Paul mentions Jesus' brothers, the brothers of Jesus. And of course, you probably know the book of Jude, that wonderful testimony to a triumphant Christ against all of his adversaries, was written by none other than Jesus' own brother. who in that letter doesn't name himself first and foremost as Jesus's brother at all, although there certainly would have been so much honor in that. But seeing Christ for who he is, instead chooses to use other titles and out of respect. He viewed himself as someone who first and foremost had to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Do you pray for your family members? I hope that you do. Maybe you have someone in your family that you love who doesn't know the Lord. Know that you have to pray. Know that you have to live as a Christian before him. Know that you have to share the gospel with them. Know that you have to offer them a true hope. And if you're a true disciple of Christ, you have to live like a disciple of Christ first and like a relative second. and in doing so that there is some hope that the Spirit will work, work in an amazing way, and perhaps bring even to faith your own relative. And so I ask you to pray and to live like disciples of Christ. Don't count the bonds of family so tight that you lose your grip on your Lord, but instead hold fast to Him. and you may find that they follow along with you and they become true brothers and sisters in Christ as well. I hope this for you and for you, for all of you, everyone who is truly my brother and sister in Christ. Amen and Amen. You've been listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. We hope this has been beneficial to your Christian walk and understanding. If it has, you can support the ministry of Radio ABC by going to AfricanBibleColleges.com and clicking on the donate button. Don't forget to let them know it's going to the Uganda station. If you have questions about this or any other episode, please feel free to contact us at vchourofficial at gmail.com. We're also available through Instagram and Twitter as vchourofficial. We may answer your question on a future episode. Until next time, may the peace of God and the fellowship of God's people encourage your hearts.