Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up? Series

Will the REAL Jesus Please Stand Up?

Series: Markers Along the Narrow Way

November 18, 2012

*** Darren Pullins READ Mark 3:7-35

The question we’re going to tackle this morning (and in our Life Groups this week) is this… Who is Jesus? That may sound like a pretty simple question to some of you because you feel like you know Jesus pretty well. But I find that depending on your upbringing, background, teaching or own personal agenda …different people have different ideas about who Jesus is that may be right or wrong. For example…

• When I was a little kid going to Sunday School, I kind of thought of Jesus as a nice, patient, Mr. Rogers kind of guy, but I couldn’t imagine him ever getting mad at anybody. And there are aspects of Jesus that match that, but that’s not ALL of who he is. Some of you may still see him like that.

• When I grew up, went to college and started studying him in a little more detail, I confess that I started seeing Jesus as more like “Spock” from Star Trek…remaining cool, calm and collected…walking around like a robot, while the excitable human beings tried to outwit and kill him. Maybe that’s the way you see him too!

At youth camp this year, one of our speakers said that he had hobby of collecting pictures of Jesus. I thought that was kind of a neat idea, so I collected a few pictures of my own that I’m going to show you. Of course we all know that camera’s didn’t exist back then…so there aren’t any real photo’s of Jesus …but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to imagine what he looked like. Now, as you look at these pictures, you realize that behind each one is somebodies “idea” of what Jesus is like…

1. “Good Shepherd” Jesus: my earliest recollection

2. “Frito Bandito” Jesus: a pretty tough cookie!

3. “Black Jesus”: Actually may be closer to his natural skin color

4. “Ghoulish” Jesus: stress the serious side

5. “Laughing” Jesus:

6. “Buddy” Jesus: for those who don’t want to feel

judged.

7. “Cromagnon” Jesus : UGG!

8. “Feminine” Jesus

9. “Rocker Jesus”: for those who come out of the

10. WWF Jesus…

So which one is it? Who is the real Jesus? Well, what does the bible say? Mark actually seeks to answer that question in the passage of scripture we’re going to look at today. Because he shows us what other peoples initial impressions and thoughts of who Jesus was are. But then he goes further and reveals who the REAL Jesus is, if we’ll just take the time to look a little more closely.

Like some of those pics we just saw, some of their ideas of who Jesus really was…are way out there!

The 1st of what I would call the “mischaracterizations of Jesus” comes from a very surprising source…HIS OWN FAMILY! READ vs.21-22. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

So here are Jesus’ own family members saying, “He’s out of His mind!” They were mischaracterizing him as…

1. CRAZY Jesus

Have you ever been misunderstood by family members? Well then you can sympathize with Jesus then! How many of you know that the people who are supposed to understand you the most, sometimes end up mis-understanding you the most! In this case they really had it wrong. Now why in the world would his own brothers and sisters…even his mother (Mary) say something like that? Well, look at it from their point of view…

1. Jesus left a carpenter’s business in Nazareth where he was at least eeeking out a living to become a wandering preacher with nowhere to live and no way to earn an income. If your husband or wife would do that…what would you think?

2. On top of that, a good Jewish young man, raised in a respectable home…now he was now hanging out with some real rif-raff! I’m not just talking about the taxcollectors and prostitutes…but his so-called disciples! No sensible man would pick a group of friends like this.

3. And probably most concerning of all…Jesus was obviously on a head-on collision course with the most powerful men of his day…the religious leaders, not to mention the whole Roman Empire!

The 2 things that most of us spend our entire lives to protect…our security and our safety…Jesus was haphazardly throwing away! Yeah…you’d think He’s acting a little odd yourself! No wonder vs. 21 tells us that they went to “take charge” of him (lit. grk. means to forcibly seize him). If they couldn’t reason with Him, then they felt it was their responsibility to save him from Himself! You would have tried to do the same thing if he was your son or daughter, brother or sister. BUT…as convinced as they were about their point of view…they were DEAD wrong! They didn’t understand that Jesus didn’t come to live a safe and secure life…Jesus came to die for you and for me! He came to change the world, and not even His own family would stand in the way!