Bible it is Mark chapter three starting at verse 20 or you can follow along in your order of worship there should be it printed there as well. So from Mark chapter three I say to you hear the word of God. Then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that 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 from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by belesable by the Prince of demons he casts out demons and he called them and said to them 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 will 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 had said he has an unclean spirit and his mother and brothers came standing outside they sent him and called him and a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him your mother and 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 here are my mother and brothers whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother let us pray. Father I pray that you would come and open the eyes of the blind in the ears of the death Holy Spirit I pray that you would make Jesus clear and prominent in the only thing that matters in this sermon I pray also that you be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking in Christ name we pray these things amen and amen. Well besides the sermon text that I just read you other events this week really got me thinking about family particularly my family my extended family what really got it started was I think it was earlier in the week mercy our youngest daughter came to me and she's junior high and said dad do you have do we have anything that I could that is 50 years older older that I could take to school to show for presentation we're giving. And I said oh come with me honey and of course I took her straight to the wood shop and the first thing I pulled out for her was a Bayley number eight made in 1901 that's 109 years old I said honey this thing it's about 30 inches long and weighs about 12 pounds I said this is beauty is going to impress everyone in your class you know I don't think it sort of needs to fit my backpack and that didn't work and I said how about the number six that'll fit and not really five now four no I was really thinking something other than tools I said all right you know I went and we went back to my bedroom and I rummaged through a drawer an old drawer and I found a watch that my grandmother had given me in fact if you remember a year two ago my grandmother called me when they thought she was going to die and one of the reasons she wanted me to come see her was she wanted to give me this watch it's a big gold pocket watch that was owned by my grandfather and my or my great-grandfather my great-grandfather and grandmother came from Serbia through Ellis Island and the whole family moved to Stubenville Ohio and they worked in the steel mills and they had a whole mess of kids and all them they and all of their kids at some point moved down to South Florida and believe it or not despite my outward appearance my lack of melanin that's a joke I'm a white guy I grew up in an extremely ethnic household an extremely ethnic environment in fact if you've ever been in a Serbian household you can realize why they have been in combat situations for the past thousand years over there and it just made me as I was thinking about the watch and mercy was asking me questions it made me think about what it was like being raised by this big extended family remember my parents divorced when I was about five and so my grandmother and all her brothers and sisters basically took over at some point and the craziness of just my family was amazed me as I thought back you know you think back and say was was that a good thing or bad thing they aren't uncle Danny who he did the same trick to every kid anytime you had spaghetti he tell the kid go get him go get him something when you came back he would have shoved spaghetti in his ears and the little kids would the eyes bug out what happened to Danny so I ate so much spaghetti coming out of my ears every time he do that my favorite aunt well in in Serbian you call him Teti in fact my children called their aunt Teti Teti Fegs she used to eat onions the way most people eat apples and members of South Florida so they're not wall of wall of sweet onions they're the big bitter onions that make the normal person cry not her and as a kid there's really one person who you never wanted to have to kiss a night at bedtime a fact and the person that that interested me the most the person that was really an enigma to me I only got to see him about once a year was Uncle Nikki and what made Uncle Nikki so interesting to me is on one hand you were as a pretty poor kid is Uncle Nikki would always come down from Ohio around Christmas time and he always gave every kid a crisp $5 bill now in the early 70s for a poor kid five bucks was a lot of money the problem is is Uncle Nikki as well as many of my other uncles they've worked in the steel mills their whole life and at some point Uncle Nikki had all of his fingers cut off down to the bottom knuckle he basically had a knob at the end of his right arm and in the gateway between you and that $5 bill was Uncle Nikki's nub in other words he'd say he'd come to eat hold that bill out and he'd say put it there pal and I remember his little kids being horrified grabbing that thing he go come on put it there he reached out and shake that nub he'd give you the five bucks and you would just run I could tell stories like that all day long now it's interesting that in 1984 I did two things that catapulted me to the top of the family crazy list I mean catapulted me into to the stratosphere that no one else will ever catch up to me the first thing I did was join the army the reason that was so crazy in the Montsellovich family was because every able-bodied male from the time they had come to the United States had either gone to the naval academy or enlisted in the Navy I was the first one to join the army what are you crazy maybe a couple months after enlisting the army I did something that out did the army by a million miles you know what that was I became a Christian I became a Christian and becoming a Christian in that family they didn't know what to do with me they didn't know what to do with me then they frankly they don't know what to do with me now still when I walk into the room everyone hides their beer they don't know what to do and families are like that are they not you know you have family some people believe in Jesus some people don't believe in Jesus the people that don't believe in Jesus don't know what to do with the the people that do, they think they're crazy. Now imagine if becoming a Christian causes a little bit of difficulty within your family. Imagine if something even bigger was the case and not that you were a Christian but that you were the Christ. You think that might cause a little people and a family? I mean, certainly when I work with psychiatrists, it causes a people because people come in all the time and say, my son thinks he's Jesus. In Mary's case, it was true. Now, if it gives you any hope, I mean, we're going to talk about family today and it gives you any hope. I thought of this between services and it made me laugh. If even Jesus was a member of a dysfunctional family. In fact, most people believe that at some point Joseph died, Jesus was the eldest son. Jesus was the head of the household of a dysfunctional family. So he knows what it's like to have a family that's not all together, which no family is. So we're going to talk about three things this morning as we look at this text. We're going to look at the frustration of family one. We're going to look at the, you see what I wrote here? We're going to look at the absurdity of the accusations against Jesus. And finally, we're going to look at this, the critical question that Jesus asks at the end. Who is my mother and brother and sisters? And if you look at verse 20, before we actually jump into the text, there's something that should have hit you as odd. And what should have struck you as odd as sort of the geography of this text? And it's something that Mark does all the time. And he does it on purpose. It's not just because he's the patron saint of those of us with ADHD, which he is. Mark is very intentional here. Did you notice he starts telling the story about Jesus' family? And then he changes gears. All of a sudden he's talking about the scribes, accusing Jesus of being possessed by the devil. And then he goes back to telling about talking about Jesus' family. That this story about Jesus being in the scribes seems to be just stuck in here. And Mark does it all the time. He sand, what he does, he sand which is a story within a story oftentimes. And he usually does that for one of two reasons. One reason that he will sand which one story within another story or interrupt himself is to show a comparison between two items. That you read along and these two things look like they're not the same. And yet they are actually really quite alike. The other thing he does, he'll do this, he'll sand which a story within a story to show how two items are completely different. So as you're reading the contrast strikes you very boldly. So in this passage, you have to ask yourself, Mark has sand which to story. If he's trying to make the case that the response of Jesus' family to him is completely and utterly different than that of the scribes and Pharisees or is he trying to show us that even though it's his family, that the response is actually quite the same as the scribes and the Pharisees. And the answer of course is the second one. That the response of Jesus' family and the actions of Jesus' family is quite like that of the scribes and the Pharisees. And if you remember the scribes and the Pharisees were Jesus' biggest enemies. So what happens? Notice verse 20 and 21 says then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that 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. He's crazy. He's not in his, he's off his rocker. Any cliche you want to use, they're trying to make the case that he's crazy. Or at least that's what they say. And you can read this either one of two ways, right? You can either be sympathetic to the family or you can be antipidetic. You can basically say well of course they're saying that. Here's Jesus who has just been going and going and going and going. And now he's back home and home here probably means Simon Peter's home. He's back home and the crowds are still overwhelming at such an extent that he can't eat. We need to do something to get in there and rescue him. At least get him some time off. At least get him to let him take a break and at least let him eat. Otherwise he's going to work himself to death if they only knew. And so they come and the language here is important as they come and says when his family heard about this they went out to seize him for they were saying he is out of his mind. And the word seize there is the word that's important. It's the same word that's used when the soldier sees Jesus. It means to restrain by force. In other words his family's mission in their mind was to come and restrain Jesus by force to keep him from doing that which he wanted to do or that which he felt called to do. Now again you can look at it one way and be sympathetic and say maybe they were just trying to help. Honestly they thought you know we'll just go and we'll tell people he's crazy and a lot of people are saying that anyway and they'll think since we're his family they'll believe us and we'll take him and we can get him some rest. On the other hand maybe they just didn't get it and they were seeking to seize him and stop him from doing the ministry that God had called him to do. Can you think of anyone else who tried to do that? Mark does and he immediately tells us. Jesus' family was trying to stop him from doing his ministry and they told everyone he was crazy and they tried to seize him. Now come to think of it the scribes came down from Jerusalem. Mark immediately goes to his next point. Jesus' family is trying to stop him because even his family does not apparently understand his mission or what he is all about and then the scribes come and we're going to see by what Mark is going to say not only do his family not understand what he's about but the scribes and Pharisees don't understand what he's about either. Let's look at the absurd the absurd accusations here in verse 22. It said the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by balesable and by the prince of demons he casts out demons. Now before you go on just notice the flow of what's happened here in the book of Mark at the beat by verse 6 of chapter 3 the first section of Mark basically Jesus that phase of Jesus ministry was complete and what he accomplished in that phase of his ministry was to make everyone in his locality hate him. Remember the verses and the Pharisees and the Herodians plotted how they might destroy Jesus and what's happened between then and now is apparently the Pharisees and the Herodians have sent word to Jerusalem that there's a troublemaker down here around Capernaum and the the Sanhedrin which would have been the ruling council of all the Jewish groups sent scribes down from Jerusalem to check things out and it would be the equivalent they've taken things up to the next level it would be sort of like that you know in our in our day the FBI you know things are have gotten beyond the jurisdiction of just your local police and so now the FBI they're going to send someone from Washington DC to see what's really going on because could this have national implications it's exactly what was happening here they make two accusations against Jesus the first accusation is that he's he is possessed by Balesable and they see this is the only place that this is used in the New Testament in other Jewish literature it's a synonym for Satan as this prince of demons that's also a synonym for Satan and so basically there's the first accusation is that Jesus is possessed by Balesable or Satan and the second accusation is that he casts out demons in the name of or by the power of the prince of demons so one he's possessed by a demon the other is that the power that he by which he casts out demons is by the prince of demons now here's what's interesting and here's what you need to keep in mind whether you're a Christian or not especially if you're not did you notice what's not in dispute here what's not in dispute is whether or not Jesus cast out demons everyone agreed with that everyone agreed that this guy is possessed by a demon and now Jesus came and did whatever his hook is poke as he does and now the demons gone so everyone knew and believed that Jesus had the power to cast out demons the question is where did it come from how is he doing it now that some level that the same principle applies to us when we think about the gospel of Jesus at some level you've got to deal with the facts about Jesus and that's where this text is going what are you going to do with the facts about Jesus are you going to embrace them or are you going to scorn them because at the end of the day there's really two things you can do with them like for example let me give you some facts that are that are undisputed a a guy named Jesus existed that's fact almost no one would dispute that second thing Jesus went around doing good the third thing Jesus this man who existed was crucified by the Romans about 2,000 years ago that's a fact fourth the same guy Jesus who was crucified by the Romans 2,000 years ago rose again from the dead and was seen by at least 500 people that's documented in a question you have to ask yourself whether you're a Christian or not is what value am I going to attach to those events
Jesus himself said that the reason I'm going to die and be raised again from the dead is so that you might have a relationship with God that all of your sins would come upon me and I would give you all of my righteousness and in the process God would smile upon you and that you would be what Christians call saved are you going to attach that meaning to those events or are you not the question is to whether these things happened it really isn't dispute by anybody the question is what you're going to do with the events will you embrace them in the meaning that Jesus attached to them or will you say I don't believe any of that I don't believe it even happened because when you start to do that you begin to enter the realm of where the scribes are right now that's what upset Jesus about them let's look at how Jesus responds to their absurd accusations Jesus does something interesting he answers that they make an accusation you know the accusation that he's possessed and then they make the accusation that he's casting out demons by the power of Satan and Jesus answers their accusation and reverse order so instead of they make accusation one and two instead of answering accusations by answering one and two Jesus starts with two and works his way to one so the second accusation is he does these things by the power of the Prince of demons and Jesus then addresses that accusation and he does so by doing what what philosophers would call I think the logical fallacy is reductio of that absurdum he shows them how absurd the article the the argument they are making in other words the argument they're making it's sort of like selling off the branch that you're sitting on that's what absurd arguments are like let me read to what he says Jesus asked them he said them 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 and the last thing that Jesus said there was really the kicker because the last thing he said that Satan's kingdom is coming to an end is really a statement about himself not about the facts of what's going on in other words Jesus could have just taken apart their argument that's pretty easy in other words they say you're you know by the power of the Satan he cast out Satan and Jesus says that's absurd how can Satan cast out Satan if a house is divided against itself it can't stand if a kingdom is divided against itself it can't stand and then he says to them and it's really a challenge if Satan casts out Satan then that means his kingdom is coming to an end right and if you remember Jewish expectation and that Messianic expectation of the time is that when Messiah comes the rule of Satan will come to an end and you can see where Jesus is going here where he says if Satan is being cast out that really means the kingdom is coming to an end doesn't it his kingdom and if his kingdom comes to an end what does that mean about me in in other words he's now put them in a position and basically showing how their own words are testifying to him when you tell me that demons are being cast out what you're saying is that means the kingdom of God must be invading that means the kingdom of God must be present I've shown you that I'm not possessed by a demon so that only leaves you one option what are you going to do before you answer he says let's talk about that first accusation he is possessed by bales of all Jesus answers them in verse 27 he says 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 so he says no one can enter a strong man's house no no no one can plunder or steal from a strong man unless he goes in and ties him up first and in this parable who is the strong man Satan is the strong man and Jesus has known can no one can plunder Satan's household unless he first binds Satan but the only way you could bind the strong man is you got to be what you got to be a lot stronger than the strong man and Jesus is basically making the point yet again you're telling me that demons are being cast out no one's disputing that are they no that means Satan must be bound up somehow that something more powerful than Satan must have come along and is casting these demons out and can you tell me anything that you know of that's more powerful than Satan is it not God so who do I come from Satan or God before you answer Jesus sort of takes him to the wood shed notice what he says next he says in verse 28 truly I say to you all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but his guilty of an eternal sin for they had said he has an unclean spirit perhaps one of the most important words that you can you can underline if you're a Bible underliner in this what I just read you as the very very first one truly because I know I've told this to you before that in the ancient Near East and in Jewish culture the word truly they're in Greek as a man and in Jewish culture it was almost exclusively used at the end of a sentence in other words and you see it all the time you know not necessarily the Presbyterian churches but almost every other Protestant denomination where the pastor says something and says amen and you respond by saying what amen great day day isn't it amen amen so it's a way for people to affirm what has been said that's why at the end of your prayers we say we pray something we say amen that's why when I do something I'll say amen and I want you to tell me that's true now the beautiful thing about Jesus is he the only person that I know of he says amen at the beginning of the sentence in other words Jesus doesn't say he doesn't make a statement and say you agree with this Jesus says let me just tell you what the facts are and he usually says amen amen so he actually takes the amen from the end he not only says his amen amen but he says our amen right up front amen amen what I'm getting ready to tell you is the gospel truth and what does he tell them it should either be extremely encouraging to you or it should be extremely frightening to you frankly what does he say he says that I say to you all sins will be forgiven the children of man but whoever blaspheme and whatever blaspheme's error but whoever blaspheme's the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but it's guilty of an eternal sin and they it's for they had said he has an unclean spirit the last line there he has an unclean spirit is I think the key to understanding what this unforgivable sin is but the first thing you should notice is it says that all sins and blaspheme will be forgiven and there's a nuance there in the Greek and the nuance is all sinful acts what might be more might be a more clear way to write that they're all simple deeds would be forgiven in other words there's no deed that you have done and I know some of you feel like that just statistically speaking you think you've done some things deeds that can never be forgiven and you never forgive yourself and Jesus says all those things can be forgiven you got to ask yourself do you believe that and he says in all blasphemes will be forgiven you know every one of us in this room if you're a Christian certainly if you're not a Christian we believe wrongful things about Jesus from time to time do you not you know I believe he's not as faithful as he promised he would be I don't believe that you know he said he would never fail me or forsake me and I feel like Jesus you have failed me and forsaken me where are you now it's a wrongful thing Jesus you know I can forgive that what cannot be forgiven what won't be forgiven it's simply unbelief it's to attributing to Jesus something that is untrue in other words Jesus has come in the power of the Holy Spirit and he is casting out demons and what really the problem what this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not just wrongful thinking you can forgive that it's just not wrongful deeds you can forgive that what this blasphemy is about is a proactive willingness to distort your own view and other people's view of Jesus in other words it's proactive unbelief and you look at the case of the scribes and the Pharisees they had two options they know he was casting out demons and they could either embrace him as a Messiah or they could make stuff up about him he's possessed by a demon and by attributing to Jesus something that is not true by going out of your way not only to to not believe but to make sure that other people don't believe and to do that that is unforgivable in other words if you don't trust the person and work of Jesus that's the only thing you know some people have come to my office over the years and they've been worried I think I've committed the unforgivable sin and I say that was great that's a short appointment and they say what do you mean I say if you're worried that you've committed the unforgivable sin you very obviously haven't because the only unforgivable sin is a hardness of heart that proactively goes out of its way to unbelieve and the fact that you're sitting here crying about it tells me that you you think it's an issue and you go back to the past all blasphemies all sins will be forgiven you believe that and he's basically telling the scribes you guys are pushing it here you guys are pushing it because they have said he has an unclean spirit they're on the borderline and Jesus is it's shooting a shot over the battle if you will like you guys getting on the verge of being unforgivable here and then you know what Mark does whatever good person with ADD does he just switches to another subject altogether you think but really they're tied together so he tells the scribes you guys are going to be in trouble by not believing this and then the very next thing he says and his mother and brothers came that's the last thing we'll look at is this critical question says in verse 31 his mother and brothers came standing outside they sent to him and called him and a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him your mother and brothers are outside of seeking him 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 whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother now if you catch the scene here if you if you if you if you're attentive to it you'll find a couple things one is it should seem odd to you that his biological family those who would normally be inside the house with him are on the outside of the house and the tax collectors and sinners and the broken and the disease and everyone else is on the inside of the house so those who should have been on the inside were on the outside and those who should have been on the outside bell writes are on the inside it's exactly how the gospel works and then Jesus asked this critical question you know the crowd the family sends it up you tell the families outside here to tell them now with anyone else but Jesus that would have been a show stopper because in the ancient near east family was everything in fact in a lot of evangelical circles family is everything to a sinful degree and I know you I'll get a you just sign the letter if you write it um but that's okay in other words in in the church today and in the church of Jesus day people tended to make two errors with regard to family the either view of family is is unimportant or the view of family is too important and Jesus here is saying there's something that is more important than your biological family right when you say something like that to a bunch of servings they will say you're crazy I don't care if the mob is after cousin Joe you you take care of them right and in the ancient near east it was even worse and so what Jesus does here is the unthinkable if his family sends and they want to talk to him and he says who is my family right he is getting ready to say something big and he looks around him some people think that it says there was a circle around him that he this actually connects back with his choosing of the disciples they looks around he says here is my family right here people who left everything to follow me how do you know if you're in Jesus family he says it right there he says here are my mother and brothers whoever does the will of God he is my brother and sister and mother when Jesus is pushed people said what is the will of God is he talking about being good whoever is good if you're just a good person you're going to be one of my mother brother sister mother child and the answer is absolutely not when you ask Jesus Jesus what does it mean to do the will of God he says the will of God is to believe in him who he sent to believe in his only begotten son and through him have forgiveness that is the will of God he says whoever believes that whoever is obedient to that whoever has faith in that that is my mother and brother and sisters and when that happens you have entered into Jesus family which is quite different you know most people in this room if you're my age certainly but even probably under 50 half of the room it has comes from a broken family every one of you comes from a dysfunctional messed up family but I mean just completely broken half of you maybe and you become a Christian and you find in the church a completely a family a new family is that the case now here's the beauty of the gospel is once you enter Jesus family by faith he'll never kick you out the promises he'll never kick you out of the house you know thinking through this and it reminded me of the worst Disney movie I think I've ever seen in fact the movie is so bad I don't recommend it avoided at all cost the only usefulness it has as a sermon illustration right now and the movie of course you're all going oh of course he's talking about Lilo and Stitch right and if you haven't seen it and you can go out and see it you know I'm talking about but Lilo and Stitch basically is about it's a Hawaiian family it's a little girl named Lilo her parents have died and she lives with her big sister and her big sister is constantly preaching to her and trying to comfort her with the virtues of ohana ohhana ohhana is vamp means family and at some point they decided they're going to get a cute little puppy and the the puppy her sister says can become part of our ohana the puppy will be you know another addition to our ohana and little did they know when they go to adopt the puppy that it's really just cross bread alien freak thing that instead of chewing on the furniture choose on the neighbors right it's just this nasty thing and the thing just tears up everything and at some point Lilo's older sister decides that thing is out of here we're taking him back to the pound and Lilo confronts her with one word ohana you said Stitch was part of our ohana and what it means to be an ohana is that you never get kicked out as sister just rolls her eyes and says whenever things get tough you pull that ohana stuff on me but you know what that's the beauty of the gospel that applies to us because can you imagine a situation where God might ever be frustrated with you I can most minutes of every day and you know if he thinks which he wouldn't you know I'm getting tired of Tommy I'm so frustrated with him all he does is sin and messing up I'm going to kick him out of the house you have someone there a brother who puts that hand up with the nail scar and says ohana he's in my family now and once you become part of my family you don't get kicked out and once you get taken into my family you will be taken care of and blessed your whole life think about that let's pray father I pray that you would continue to teach us here's a church what does it mean to be a true family what does it mean to be the family of God what does it mean to be part of Jesus family what does it mean to trust him and not restrain him father I pray that you just give us wisdom in these areas and Christ name we pray amen and amen if