A. You’ve heard the old joke: “You can call me anything you want, just don’t call me late for dinner.”
1. Have you ever had someone call you a name that hurt you? We all have, right?
2. Some people call us names to deliberately hurt us, but others sometimes call us names in jest, and yet those names can still hurt.
3. Have you ever heard these names being thrown around? Bozo. Dork. Weirdo. Wuss. Porker. Geezer. Spaz. Crazy. Birdbrain. Lamebrain. Dingbat. Dingle-berry. Dimwit. Chatterbox.
4. Did your parents teach you the nursery rhyme that’s been around since the 1800s that help’s children overcome the pain of name-calling? “Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”
5. In some respects, that’s true because names can only hurt us if we let them hurt us, whereas we don’t have much of a choice about the sticks and stones hurting us.
B. In the section of the Gospel of Mark that we will explore today, as we continue our sermon series on Mark’s Gospel, Mark tells us about the opinions that some people had about Jesus and about the names and labels that they were giving Him.
1. As we work through our sermon today, I want us to wrestle with the question of who Jesus was and what was people’s opinion of Jesus during His life and ministry.
2. Mark reveals to us that some members of Jesus’ family thought He was deluded and some of the religious leaders thought that He was demonized, but neither of those judgments were true.
3. The truth of the matter is Jesus was and is divine.
4. C. S. Lewis popularized the “trilemma” of Jesus being either “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic.”
5. In Lewis’ book “Mere Christianity,” he wrote: I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to …. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
6. We might state it this way: Jesus claimed to be God. His claim is either true or false. If it is true, then He is God. If the claim is false, then either He said it knowing it was false, in which case He is a liar, or He said it not knowing it was false, in which case He was deluded. Therefore, we are left with three logical options: He is either God, or a liar, or a lunatic.
a. To say Jesus was a liar will seem quite a stretch for most people (even unbelievers), particularly if they think He was a great moral teacher. A great moral teacher would not, by definition, lie, and certainly not tell a lie of such magnitude as to claim to be God when He wasn’t.
b. To say Jesus was a lunatic is also a stretch, since His teaching would appear to be the quintessence of sanity—and, of course, a great moral teacher is, again by definition, sane.
c. So, if He was not a liar and was not a lunatic, then the only other logically possible conclusion is that He is God.
7. Let’s see how Mark sandwiched together the incident with Jesus’ family and the incident with the Jewish leaders to help us understand who Jesus is so that we can follow Jesus better.
C. Mark wrote: 20 Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, “He’s out of his mind.” (Mk. 3:20-21)
1. Some Bible versions translate three of these important phrases differently.
2. The first phrase “Jesus entered a house” could also be translated “Jesus came home.”
a. Since Jesus didn’t have a home of His own, Mark could be referring to Peter’s house in Capernaum which appears to have been the base for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee.
3. The second phrase “when his family heard this” could also be translated “when his own people heard about this.”
a. The phrase in verse 21 is vague and so the question is are these people Jesus’ family, or His friends, or just people from His hometown?
b. Because Jesus’ mother and brothers are specified in verse 31 toward the end of this section, it seems logical that they are the group in mind at the beginning of this section.
4. The third phrase “out of his mind” could also be translated “he is beside himself” or “he has lost his senses.”
a. Are we to conclude from this phrase that His mother, Mary, and his brothers thought that Jesus was deranged or insane?
b. I don’t think so, after all, Mary had heard from angels and knew who Jesus really was.
c. Scripture tells us that Jesus’ brothers did not initially believe in Him – the apostle John wrote in John 7:5 that “for not even his brothers believed in him.”
d. But their disbelief doesn’t mean that they thought of Him as mentally unbalanced.
5. Ultimately, I assume that Mary and His brothers meant well and that their desire to protect Him was based on love and kindness.
a. Why might they have thought that Jesus needed protection and had lost His senses?
b. Well, consider Jesus’ behavior from their perspective:
1. Jesus had left His home and His business behind, He had been a carpenter.
2. Jesus was on a head-on collision with the religious leaders who were making plans to kill Him.
3. Jesus was beginning to link Himself with some pretty unpopular people – tax collectors and sinners and zealots.
4. And on top of all that, it didn’t look like He was taking very good care of Himself – the crowds were so demanding that He didn’t have time to eat or to rest.
c. So, in His family’s opinion, He had become a kind of religious fanatic and He was taking things too far, and He needed someone to protect Him.
6. Let’s pause and make an important personal application.
a. Has anyone ever called you a religious fanatic, or said you have lost your senses, or have gone religiously crazy?
b. In many respects, that’s a badge that Christians should wear with pride and thanksgiving.
c. The apostle Paul was given that distinction when Governor Festus said of him, “You’re out of your mind, Paul! Too much study is driving you mad.” (Acts 26:24)
d. Paul proudly called himself a “fool for Christ.” (1 Cor. 4:10)
e. Paul and his co-workers had given themselves so much to God that they were fools for Christ and out of their minds for God.
f. Is that a charge that anyone has ever made about you?
g. Do others view your dedication to God as so intense that they call you a fanatic?
h. Now a person might respond, “But aren’t Christians supposed to be respectable?
i. While its true that we should be respectable and not be obnoxious or offensive, our respectability should not be an excuse for a lack of intensity and zeal, or a lack of dedication and boldness.
j. God calls us to give ourselves fully to Him and His mission, and that kind of attitude and lifestyle is likely to look a little crazy to the world, but maybe it is time that we look a little more fanatical and a little crazy in our commitment to the Lord.
D. Mark turned attention away from the family who was concerned about Jesus to the religious leaders who had made a negative judgment about Jesus.
1. Mark wrote: 22 The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “He drives out demons by the ruler of the demons.” (Mk. 3:22)
2. Unable to deny what Jesus was doing, the religious leaders attempted to discredit Jesus by attributing His power to Satan.
3. The willingness on the part of these religious leaders to make that 80 mile trip demonstrated their deep-seated hatred of Jesus as they saw Him as an ever-increasing threat to their authority.
4. Beelzebub (which means “lord of the flies”) was the name of a pagan god in the OT (2 Kgs. 1:2), and no one is sure how the name was changed from Beelzebub to Beelzebul, but in the time of Jesus, Beelzebul was considered the prince of demons, Satan himself.
5. It’s ironic that the Jewish leaders who claimed to be spokesmen for God, were actually the ones who were under Satan’s power.
a. In John 8:44, Jesus said of the Jewish religious leaders: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.”
E. So, how did Jesus answer the accusation of those religious leaders?
1. Mark wrote: 23 So he summoned them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished. 27 But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house. (3:23-27)
2. Jesus’ reply was a logical rebuttal of an absurd theory.
a. Satan would hardly be at war with himself – that wouldn’t make any sense!
b. Anything divided against itself cannot stand or succeed.
c. That goes for kingdoms, homes and even individual lives.
d. Can you imagine a nation sending troops to fight against another nation, but then also sending troops to help the nation they are fighting to fight back against them?
3. Then Jesus illustrated it in another way: if a burglar wants to rob someone’s house, and if that homeowner is at home, then they must overpower the person and tie them up.
a. In Jesus’ analogy, Satan is that strong man and Satan’s property consists of the demonic forces and the oppressed humans under the control of demons.
b. Jesus had to be stronger than the strong man in order to plunder his house.
c. Jesus was able to cast out demons because He was stronger than Satan.
4. Those two arguments of Jesus were and are very logical.
F. Then Jesus proceeded to make one of the most terrifying statements He made.
1. Mark wrote: 28 “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they utter. 29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” (3:28-30)
2. First of all, note that Jesus introduced His terrifying statement with the words, “Truly I tell you.”
a. The word “truly” comes from the word “amen” which means “This is definitely so” or “so be it.”
b. Most people use the word “amen” at the end of a prayer, or in response to something that someone else has said.
c. Jesus was unique in the way that He put the word “amen” at the beginning of His statements in order to introduce and endorse His words.
d. The word “amen” at the beginning was to express that His words are reliable and true, and to suggest that what He was about to say might come as a surprise to His hearers.
3. Many people have wrongly understood this passage causing them untold distress as they have worried that they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and committed the unforgivable sin.
4. So, what did Jesus mean by His serious statement?
a. As is always the case in Bible study and interpretation, the context is important.
b. Jesus’ statement must be interpreted in light of the situation in which it was said.
c. Blasphemy is an expression of defiant hostility toward God.
d. Simply put, blasphemy can be committed by any word or action that detracts from the power and glory of God.
e. This is done by attributing an unworthy thing to God, or by denying a worthy thing to God, or by claiming for oneself or for another the power or authority that belongs only to God.
f. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit occurs when someone attributes the work of God to Satan and calls what is good something that is evil.
5. How had these Jewish leaders blasphemed?
a. They had blasphemed by attributing to Satan that which was clearly a work of God through Christ.
b. This wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, but reflected a corrupted mind and a hardened heart which led them to attribute to Satan a good work of God.
6. In Matthew’s rendition of Jesus’ statement, Matthew included Jesus’ words: “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven Him.” (Mt. 12:32)
a. Why would it be so much worse to blaspheme the Spirit than to blaspheme Christ?
b. Jesus’ stern warning to them was in essence: “If you continue in your hardened way, you will come to a time when you will blaspheme the Spirit as you have Me, and there will be no more hope for you.”
7. The Spirit had not yet been manifested fully, nor had the Spirit’s work in people been accomplished through the apostles after the beginning of the church.
a. On the day of Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the Spirit began the work of converting people through the Gospel.
b. Many people accepted and obeyed the message that day, including some who had been a part of crucifying Jesus.
c. In the end, those who reject the salvation that is found in Jesus are rejecting the Holy Spirit who attempts to convict and point people toward Jesus.
d. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit denotes the conscious and deliberate rejection of the saving power and grace of God that is released through faith in Jesus.
8. To be forgiven requires repentance, and this sin against the Holy Spirit is unpardonable because people are unwilling to follow the Holy Spirit’s path that leads to pardon.
a. It is an eternal sin, because no forgiveness is possible for those who refuse to stop rejecting Christ.
b. I can say with confidence that anyone who is overwhelmed by the fear that they have committed this unpardonable sin has not, because the fact that they care and want to repent, if they need to, is proof that they are not beyond receiving God’s forgiveness.
9. Mark gave no reaction of the religious leaders to Jesus’ warning, but moved right into the interruption of Jesus’ family.
G. Mark wrote: 31 His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him and told him, “Look, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside asking for you.” 33 He replied to them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (3:31-35)
1. The arrival of Jesus’ mother and brothers on the scene resumes the account that started in verse 21 that we talked about at the beginning of this sermon.
a. I won’t reiterate what we talked about earlier about their concerns for Him and that surely they were motivated by a desire to protect Jesus.
b. Jesus certainly knew that they were coming and He knew why they were coming.
c. It was no surprise that the crowd kept them from being able to get to Jesus, but people graciously passed the message through crowd and the message reached Jesus that His mother and brothers were outside and wanted Him.
2. Jesus used this interruption as an occasion for teaching, so He asked a rhetorical question: “Who are my mother and brothers?”
a. Mark says that “looking at those sitting in a circle around him” – surely those sitting closest to Jesus were the apostles and the women who had been with Him.
b. Then Jesus pointed to them and said, “Here are my mother and brothers. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
3. Jesus’ words were not words of a man who was indifferent to family relationships.
a. The Gospels give evidence that Jesus was deeply devoted to His mother.
b. Jesus’ point is that the will of God transcends the restraints of family and that the most important family is not the physical family, but the spiritual family.
c. This situation illustrates the tension that is in the life of every disciple of Jesus – the tension between the desires and obligations to one’s physical family and the desires and obligations to one’s spiritual family.
d. Jesus’ statement teaches us that there are times when a person must choose to serve and obey God over and against his/her physical family’s desires.
e. This does not imply that a Christian should neglect their physical family, but does help us prioritize our obligations.
f. Many a missionary has had to choose to be separated from family in order to minister.
g. Many a new convert has had to choose to take a step away from physical family in order to step closer to God.
h. Many a husband or wife with a non-Christian mate has had to take a stand and obey God regardless of the contradictory desire of their mate.
i. God promises that when we obey God in this way, we will be blessed many times over.
4. This does not depreciate the sacredness of physical family relationships, but it asserts that the ties that bind the spiritual family are even deeper and dearer.
a. Why is that the case? Because in the spiritual family, we share more than just flesh and blood.
b. In the spiritual family, we share a common experience in Christ – His salvation.
1. We share a common interest in Christ – His Word.
2. We share a common obedience in Christ – His Will.
3. We share a common purpose in Christ – seeking the lost.
4. We share a common hope and reward in Christ – eternal life, a home in heaven.
H. So, what are the take aways we might get from today’s sermon and what action items might we act upon?
1. First, let me ask you: what have you concluded about the identity of Jesus?
a. Do you believe Jesus was deluded, demonized, or do you believe He was and is divine?
b. There are only three choices: Lord, liar, or lunatic – which choice have you made?
2. Second, if you have decided that Jesus is Lord, are you totally devoted to Him?
a. Is it clear that Jesus means everything to you and that you are intent on living for Him?
b. Would others consider your love and service to be filled with zeal or even be fanatical?
3. Third, how much are you valuing and prioritizing the spiritual family?
a. While God doesn’t want us to neglect our physical family, neither should we allow them hold us back from our relationship and service to the Lord.
b. Let’s be sure that the family of God and the mission of God are our highest priorities.
4. Finally, are you allowing the possibility of ugly labels to keep you from following Jesus?
a. They called Jesus some terrible names, but He didn’t allow that to stop Him, and we must not allow being given ugly labels to stop us!
b. The world might call our goodness evil, but we must never stop sharing God’s truths and doing God’s good works.
c. God’s opinion about everything is what is most important, not anyone else’s.
d. If the world hates us and callus us negative names, then we must remember that the world treated Jesus much worse.
e. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but names can never hurt us.
f. Actually if the world persecutes us, then God will reward us.
g. Jesus said, “You are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward in great in heaven.” (Mt. 5:11-12)
Resources:
• Truth for Today Commentary: Mark 1-8 and 9-16, Martel Pace, Resources Communications.
• Popularity Problems, Sermon by David Owens
• The Strongest Man, Sermon by Nate Shinn
