Alba 5-12-2024
ARE YOU REATED TO JESUS?
Mark 3:31-35
Mother’s Day is a special time for us to honor mothers. That is a good thing to do. And hopefully, we honor them all year long, not just on this holiday. Sadly, many of us do not realize how good our mother was until she has passed on and then we cannot show her the honor she deserves.
Thomas Edison once said, “I did not have my mother long, but she cast over me an influence which has lasted all my life. The good effects of her early training I can never lose. If it had not been for her appreciation and her faith in me at a critical time in my experience, I should never likely have become an inventor. I was always a careless boy, and with a mother of different mental caliber, I should have turned out badly. But her firmness, her sweetness, her goodness, were potent powers to keep me in the right path. My mother was the making of me. The memory of her will always be a blessing to me.”
What a fine tribute Thomas Edison paid to his mother. Hopefully he told her some of those things when she was alive and still able to hear it.
So the words that Jesus spoke as recorded in our text for today, Mark 3:31-35, sound quite strange, and may be strange for a Mother's Day sermon. Somehow it seems out of character for Jesus to say what He did. But He had a purpose.
Here is what happened (Mark 3:31-35) : “Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, 'Look, Your mother and Your brothers are outside seeking You.'”
“But He answered them, saying, 'Who is My mother, or My brothers?' And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.'”
1. Did Jesus Forget His Mother?
For all we know, Jesus lived at home until He was around 30 years of age. And even though it seems that Joseph was no longer in the picture, more than likely he had died, still Mary was there in the home. Actually Scripture gives us quite a bit of information about Mary, the mother of Jesus.
She is the young maiden who was specially chosen to be the mother of God's only begotten Son. She was the woman who gave birth to Him. She nursed Him. As a mother she did for Him the things a small child would need. Luke 2:40 says that, “the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him.”
Scripture also tell us what happened when Jesus was 12 years of age. The family had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Jesus had stayed behind when they were going home. When Mary and Joseph found Him, He was asking and answering questions from the teachers in the temple impressing them all. In spite of the concern that caused Mary and Joseph, Luke 2:51 says that “He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them.” And verse 52 says that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”
Jesus was a good boy. Wouldn't you expect Him to be? I think Mary had to be a very special lady to be entrusted to care for God's own Son.
Now Mary and Joseph had other children. Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55 give the names of His brothers. James was the eldest, Joses the next, then Simon and Judas. We cannot be sure which was the youngest because of the different order they are listed in the two references.
The name Joses was a common abbreviated form of Joseph. Judas has been conventionally known as Jude. And from the same passages of the Gospels that name four brothers, we learn also that Jesus had sisters.
So why would Jesus have asked, “Who is my mother, or who are my brothers?” Jesus is the one who was able to even discern what other people were thinking. Certainly He would not be so forgetful as to not remember Mary or His brothers!
No, He didn't forget. In fact, as He hung, nailed to that cross paying for your sins and mine, He looked down at His mother and committed her to the care of John, the apostle. But what He was doing now was using this opportunity as a teaching moment. It was to show that, while there are physical family connections, there is also a spiritual family we can take part in. So no, He did not forget His mother. But then the question is:
2. Did Jesus' Mother Forget Who Jesus Is?
When we look back a few verses here in Mark chapter three, it says that Jesus' ministry was expanding. He had healed a man with a withered hand in Jerusalem. Then He went back to the area around the Sea of Galilee where crowds followed Him. He was healing people, and so many were coming to Him that they were crushing in to see Him.
Then He went up to a mountain and there selected the twelve disciples that we know of as His apostles. When He returned verses 20 and 21 tell us, “Then the multitude came together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, 'He is out of His mind.'”
We can be quite sure that the phrase, “His own people” refers to His mother and brothers, because they are the ones who come, apparently to take Him home. The phrase “out of his mind” could also be translated “he is beside himself” or “he has lost his senses.”
Now you might understand why the brothers could feel this way. But Mary?? She is the one who was told by the angel that she would have this special child. She is the one who heard what the shepherds saw of angels proclaiming His birth. She is the one who was visited by the Magi and received their gifts. She is the one who saw Him as a twelve year old boy amazing the teachers in the temple. She is the one who even encouraged what became the first miracle Jesus performed at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.
And how could she forget that when Jesus was just a baby that He is the One of which Simeon, the old man in the temple, took Jesus up in his arms and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation.” (Luke 2:29-30)
And how could she forget that Anna, an elderly lady in the temple, also “gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all who looked for the redemption in Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:38) Surely she didn't forget all of these thing that God made clear to her about Jesus. I don't think she did. But what was she thinking?
Was it just her mother's instinct to protect her child? Maybe. After all, Jesus had left the family business and now was followed by so many people that it says He couldn't even find time to eat. Jesus had gathered what could have looked like a rag-tag group of men to associate with Him. He got in trouble with the leaders in Jerusalem when He healed a man on the Sabbath. If nothing else, he was putting himself in a very dangerous position.
Did Mary just want to protect her boy? Or did her other sons convince her that something must be wrong with their brother? Scripture tells us that Jesus’ brothers did not initially believe in Him. In John chapter seven they almost taunt Him saying that He should go to Jerusalem and show Himself publicly if He could really do all these amazing things. Then John 7:5 says that “for even his brothers did not believe in him.”
Maybe they came to take Him home to save Him from Himself. Certainly Mary, who had heard from angels, knew who Jesus really was. Perhaps Mary and His brothers meant well, and their desire to protect Him was based on love and kindness. Nevertheless, had they succeeded, it would have been an interruption to the ministry and mission of Jesus.
So instead of acknowledging them when He is told that His mother and brothers were outside wanting to see Him, He asked, “Who is my mother, or who are my brothers?” He, who knows all things, was not going to be detoured from the plan which would bring us salvation.
And so He turns this into a teaching moment about the spiritual family He came to create. That's why He follows His question with this statement as “He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, 'Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother.'” (Mark 3:34-35
So that leads to our next question:
3. Does Jesus Include You In His Family?
It is not that hard to figure out. Jesus tells us how to know. This event is recorded in all of the first three gospels. Here in Mark it records the words of Jesus saying, “whoever does the will of God.” Matthew records it saying, “whoever does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matthew 12:50) And Luke records it saying, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.” (Luke 8:21)
These three gospels drive home the point that if you want to be in God's family you will enter it by knowing and doing His Will as revealed in the Word of God. It will change you. And it will be evident to those around you by the things that you do (and the things that you don't do). The only way to know God's will is by what He has revealed through the scripture. It is not a guessing game. It is not a “make it up as you go along” scenario. God has spoken and His word is final.
Jesus says His family consists of those who hear the word of God, and do it! So what does that imply? It is this: That those who do not hear the word of God, or those who hear but do not do, are NOT His family. You are in or out. Or as one preacher put it, “Either you is, or you ain’t. You are family, or you are not family.”
Jesus offers a relationship to all that is stronger, closer, and more powerful than any blood relationship. The Roman Catholic Church has made much of Mary’s relationship with Jesus as His physical mother. But Jesus corrected that attitude in Luke 11:27-28.
It says, “And it happened, as He spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, 'Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!' But He said, 'More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!'”
Jesus calls us all to leave anything that would hinder us from following Him. Sometimes family members can be a hindrance to making a decision to become a Christian.
In Luke 14:26-27 Jesus said,“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
If you have ever been rejected by family or friends because of your faith, Jesus has personally been through that. When Jesus said we must be ready to lose our families if need be to follow him, He wasn’t asking us to do anything He didn’t do.
It is interesting that in the account here in Mark chapter three, there is no mention of Jesus going out to meet His mother and brothers. But He isn’t shutting them out. In fact, by saying that those who hear the Word of God and keep it are His family, He throws the doors of His household wide open not only to them, but to anyone in the whole world who is willing to enter. And after His resurrection, His brothers walk through that door. They came to believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
Mary was at the foot of the cross, and she joined the group of disciples who gathered in the upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit to come at Pentecost. And James, Jesus’ brother, becomes a leader in the Church at Jerusalem.
You’ve heard blood is thicker than water? Not in this kingdom – the water of baptism is way thicker than blood. When Jesus’ brothers James and Jude write two of the books we have in the Bible, they introduce themselves not as Jesus’ brothers, but as His servants. Why? Because that’s a higher credential. Being Jesus’ blood brother is irrelevant and of no consequence in comparison to being His servant and follower.
If there is any reason to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, it has to be that His brothers, who grew up with Him, came to believe as well! His natural family became part of His spiritual family!
Jesus calls us to hear God's Word and do what it says. Again, He is not asking us to do anything He has not done. In speaking of Jesus Hebrews 10:9 says, “Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.”
And in John 17:4 Jesus prays to His Father in heaven saying, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” If we know God's Word and do it, we will glorify God and be able to finish the work that He gives us. It begins when we put our faith in Jesus.
Belief in Jesus is not just a change of mind – it is a transforming relationship. We trust Him to be right about the way that we are supposed to live. We trust Him because of His deep love for us and our world. He wants us to do the will of God because it is the best way for us to live!
When we are in Christ, we are in God's family. We do not have to wait until we reach heaven to experience that sense of belonging to the Lord. When looking at the people around Him, Jesus said of the men that they were His brothers. He said of the ladies that were there, they were His sisters and mother. In the family of God we have brothers and sisters and mothers. We are to care for each other as family.
Hebrews 2:11 says “Jesus, who makes people holy, and those who are made holy are from the same family. So he is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters.”
At baptism God washes away our sins. In the Lord’s Supper the Savior reminds us of the sacrifice He made on our behalf with His very own body and blood. As a result, our lives are changed forever. And we are welcome in His family.
Our prayer should be, as it says in Psalm 143:10, “Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.”
Because when we answer the call of our Lord, we become “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that (we) may proclaim the praises of Him who called (us) out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
(I Peter 2:9)
CLOSE:
A six-year-old boy, separated from his mother in a supermarket, began to call frantically , “Martha! Martha! Martha!”
That was his mother’s name and she came running to him quickly. “But, honey,” she said, “you shouldn’t call me ‘Martha’, I’m ‘Mother’ to you.” “Yes, I know,” he answered, “but this store is full of mothers.”
When Jesus calls your name, do you answer?
