I always consider it a privilege
and a pleasure to come down this way and be with you. I told Randy
you must be one of those masochist type people just begging for
a beating and a punishment or something. Open your Bibles this morning
first of all to the Gospel of Mark. I've been studying and preaching
through the book of Mark and I've always been accused of not
being one of those preachers who spends a lot of time preaching
about the family. But this morning I want to say
a few words to you about the family or our family. The Lord Jesus Christ, since
He became a man and was born of a woman, had an earthly family. And in our text this morning
here in Mark 3, there come to Him on this particular occasion. If you look down in verse 31, It says, There came then his
brethren and his mother, and standing without, sent unto him
calling him. And the multitude sat about him,
and they said unto him, Behold thy mother and thy brethren without
seek for thee. And I have a suspicion that they
are come on this occasion as some of his friends had already
come to him because as he began to teach and preach, for such
long periods of time so as to do without food, they begin to
wonder if maybe he was becoming mentally unstable or out of balance
some way. If you look back at verse 21,
it says, And when his friends heard it, that is, that the multitudes
of the people gathered around him, and he taught for hours
on end, When his friends heard of it,
they went out to lay hold on him, for they said, he is beside
himself. And I would suggest that that
is about the common opinion of most people concerning all those
who are brought to truly believe the gospel and to worship the
Lord Jesus Christ. They're really, they think, beside
themselves. They've become fanatics and things
of that nature. But our Lord asked a question. And then he answers it and shows
those who are in a true spiritual, eternal family relationship with
him. As a matter of fact, if you stop
and think about it, all of salvation All of God's grace and mercy
is really all about relationship. And that is relationship to God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. So look down in verse 33, it
says, And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother and Who is my mother or my brethren? And he looked round about on
them which sat about him and said, behold, my mother and my
brethren, for whosoever shall do the will of God, the same
is my brother and my sister and mother. Whosoever shall do the
will of God, these are my father, my mother, my brother, my sister,
and all these things. As a matter of fact, what he's
saying here is this is the way by which His true brethren are
made manifest. They do not do the will of the
Father in order to become His family, but they do the will
of God and in doing so they manifest that they are His family or His
brethren. I like the way the Apostle Paul
is led by the Spirit of God in Galatians 4 to express this. He says, and because you are
sons, there's that relationship, and because you are sons, God
has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. In other words, the relationship
is already there, it's been established by God, and because you are sons,
God sends forth His Spirit He says, whereby we are enabled
and do cry out to God, Abba or Papa, Father. And then like he expresses it
in this way in Romans chapter 8, he says, for as many as are
led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. So how could we ever read what
our Lord has just said in this answer to his own question without
really being concerned about and really being interested in
what it is to do the will of God. What does he mean to do
the will of the Father? And to show you the importance
of this, if you go over in Matthew chapter 7, our Lord uses this
same expression when he says it like this, not everyone that
saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but
he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." These
who are his family, these who are his children, him being called
himself the everlasting Father, These who are his mother, his
brethren, his sisters, they are these that do the will of the
Father who is in heaven. Now I know exactly how we are
and how we will remain apart from the grace of God. That word
do immediately sets off bells in our natural self and flesh
and sets us to doing something in order to show ourselves to
be in the family of God. The only problem with that is
No matter what you do bodily, no matter what you do in this
flesh to try to show yourself to be the children of God, there
will be multitudes of people out there who have no understanding
of, no belief in the true gospel who will do those things better
than you do. You say, show zeal. There'll
be some who are more zealous than you. You might give and
be benevolent, but there'll be those who not only are more able
to give than you, they'll give more than you. Sacrifice, no
matter what it is. Whatever we try to do to show
that we're in God's family outwardly, somebody is going to top us in
it. Somebody is going to do more. And not only that, but this business
of doing is so contrary to the principle upon which all of salvation
is based, which is the principle of grace. so that we have to
know in the light of the whole of scripture that this cannot
be what he's talking about. And oftentimes in the New Testament
as well as in the Old Testament people were coming to either
the prophets or they were coming to the Lord Jesus Christ himself
or they were coming to the apostles and their one question was this,
tell us what we should do in order to show ourselves favored
and of the people of God himself. Turn over to John chapter 6. John chapter 6 and listen in
John chapter 6 to one such occasion in John 6 and verse 28. Because
they're saying here essentially the same thing. Notice what he
says. Jesus answered and said unto
them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
hath sent." In other words, we get a hint right in those few
words. that rather than our actually
doing something in order to show ourselves and distinguish ourselves
as being the true people of God, rather than what we're doing,
it has to do with what we're believing. You say, what do you do? Well,
I give. So do so many more. And you go
down the long list of it. And none of God's true people,
according to the Scriptures, are distinguished as His family
on the basis of this doing. They are distinguished based
on what they believe. That's just the way it is. So the root of this is this family
is distinguished. These in the family of God are
distinguished or made manifest by this gospel that they believe. Turn over to 1 John. 1 John and the third chapter. Because in 1 John chapter 3,
the apostle John begins in that first verse of chapter 3 talking
about this relationship and how we got into this family. He says,
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. That's what I like to hear, language
like that. That's the language of grace. We have love that is not some
kind of abstract or mystical kind of feeling or attitude. We have something that's been
bestowed upon us. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, not offered us, but bestowed
upon us, that we should be called the sons of God, the children
of God. That's that family. Therefore
the world knoweth us not, because it knew him. But look over just a bit farther
in verse 7 because this is essentially the same thing because he describes
it in verse 7 saying this, little children. I like that a lot, little children. Little children loved of God. Little children who have this
relationship bestowed upon them in grace. Little children born
of God. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous even as he is righteous. That's a close kin to doing the
will of the Father in heaven. Doing righteousness. Look down
in verse 10. He says, in this, the children
of God are manifest. And you do yourself a real favor. If you'll get your concordance
or maybe like me and my laziness, you get your computer software
program going and just look all throughout the scriptures at
that word manifest or manifested. You remember in Ecclesiastes,
he says something like that, that which is always was. What does he mean there? He said
there's nothing new under the sun. And that has to do with
God's purpose and grace and salvation as well as everything else is
concerned so that in this business of salvation we receive and are
made aware of that which always was with God. This isn't new
to God. This business of being his family,
his children, his purpose is so interwoven in it that it had
to begin before time ever was and these things are made manifest
and among them all his children are going to be made manifest.
He's going to show who his family is. And he begins to do that
in time. He begins to distinguish his
family. He begins to make manifest who
his children are by bringing them To what in this text is
called doing righteousness, which in the words in Mark has to do
with doing the will of the Father in heaven. He says here, in this
the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil.
Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that
loveth not his brother. So here we have it, doing the
will of the Father, doing righteousness before God. And look down at
verse 22. He says, And whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do
those things that are pleasing in his sight. This gets more amazing as it
goes. Could it ever be said that any
way a sinner like you or me has ever done the will of the Father? Could it ever be said that we
have ever done righteousness? Could it ever be said that we
have kept His commandments? That we have done those things
that are pleasing in His sight? Look at that next verse. And
this is His commandment. That we should believe on the
name of His Son, Jesus. Christ and love one another as
he gave us commandment. This is his commandment. This is the work of God that
we should believe on his son Jesus That is to believe on Him, to
plead His righteousness, to lean wholly upon Him, trust in Him,
and cast off all hope and help in ourselves, and plead Jesus
Christ and Him crucified only. I've heard over the years people
make statements like this, grace people, supposedly. They'll say, well, a real Christian
won't do that. I don't ever make that statement.
For one thing, you can go back beginning at Genesis and you
can see where a real Christian did just about everything you
can imagine. From drunkenness to murder to
incest to just about anything you can fathom, they did it. But we can say what a real Christian
will do. They will be brought to trust
Christ and only Christ. They will be brought to believe
the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. So that John in 1 John
2 says, and the world passes away, or the world is passing
away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God
abideth forever." Forever. You see, Christ, on this occasion
and others, Christ showed love and respect to his natural family,
but he also demonstrated how that his spiritual kindred were
preferred far above the natural. In truth, in truth, One day, all of my natural family, outside
of Jesus Christ, that I love now, humanly speaking, so dearly,
that I pray for, that I seek at every opportunity to preach
to them and talk to them about the gospel, but if they die without
Christ, when God casts them into hell, I will be a part of another
family that says at their judgment, hallelujah. Is that not what
the Bible says? Hallelujah. And all those earthly connections,
all those earthly relationships that are so dear and precious
to us now, they will dissolve into that great eternity without
remembrance, without remorse, and I will be spending eternity
with my family. Forever. Won't be any of them
missing. Won't be any of them absent.
You see, that which characterizes the true family of Christ is
oftentimes the very thing that puts us at enmity or at opposites
with our natural family. It dawned on me that in those
texts where I find our Lord talking
about our cross, you know he does talk about that.
And he distinguishes and makes us to know that our cross and
his cross are two definitely different crosses. And our cross is not a cross
that has a curse in it. His cross was a cross that had
the curse in it, but our cross is always associated with discipleship. You know where that cross always
comes in in those texts? With our natural family. Turn over to Luke's Gospel, Chapter
14. Luke's Gospel, Chapter 14. Now,
I know a little bit about this. I grew up having As good a family
relationship, I guess, as a guy could ever have. And I had it
all through my life and with all my greater family. And I had it as I began to preach. Everybody was so proud of me.
The preacher boy in the family and everything like that. And
I thought, man, this is great. Until. Until the Lord interrupted me. until the Lord intruded into
my life with his grace and revealed the gospel to me. And you know
what? Things began to change. Things began to change. And I'll
just tell you the truth, they've gotten worse instead of better. But now listen to what our Lord
says in Luke chapter 14 and verse 25. And there went great multitudes
with him. They began a lot of people to
follow after the Lord Jesus. And he turned and said unto them,
if any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and
wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own
life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his
cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." In other words,
you can read that text and all the others wherein he says essentially
the same thing, and what you're going to find out is, I believe,
that in most cases, the believer's cross is always in relationship
to those nearest and dearest to him in the flesh. Because
being in one family most oftentimes puts us in being opposition to
the other family. That's it. That's the way it
is. Well, what characterizes those
that are in the family of Christ? They all confess this. And when
the Lord saved them, they were in the same state. Sinners, lost,
hopeless in themselves, doomed according to their own course
of action in this world. They were not seeking after God. He sought them. If I ever find anybody talking
about how good they were, or all these things that they rest
in in the past, I'm always a little bit in question. Paul, who was Saul of Tarsus,
he, in confessing what God had done for him in Christ, he said,
I was before a blasphemer. A blasphemer. And then not only
that, but they all confess that they are now in the same state,
being saved altogether by the grace of God. I don't have any other thing
to boast on. I can't talk about my will. I
can't talk about my works. I can't talk about what I did.
I can't talk about my decision. I can't talk about any of these
things. Our mouths are shut to those
things and we plead only the grace of God in Jesus Christ. That we're not righteous in ourselves,
in our persons. But rather we are what the scripture
says, we are justified sinners. We are those that God has declared
righteous based on the blood shed, the righteousness imputed
to us of the Lord Jesus Christ. You got any other hope? You got
any other ground of salvation? You got any other thing to make
your boast in? We're going to glory about something.
That's our makeup. We were created to glorify somebody. And in the fall, we begin to
glorify man. But when we're born of God's
Spirit, we turn to glorify God. To God be the glory, great things
He has done. We all have the same Father. We all have been loved in Christ
and accepted in Christ. We're all in that union and relationship
with Christ and find in Christ all we need and all we want. We believe Him. We believe him. We believe the same gospel. When people that I know, they
find out that I'm driving 10 hours to Georgia to preach, they
look as if to say, my gosh, ain't they got no preachers in Georgia?
Or are you so wild and controversial you can't find a place to preach
here in North Carolina? And my thought is, thank God
there's somebody in Georgia who wants to hear the gospel, wants
to hear about Christ. And those who do, those who love
it, those who trust him and rest in him, those who have the same
hope of salvation, those that the apostle describes as those
being of like precious faith, That's our family. That's our
family. They have the same desire, that
is to be found in Him. They have the same goal. What
is that? To glorify God and to advance
His gospel. They have the same and expect
the same inheritance. That's what I love about this
family. There's not going to be any big I's and little u's. I have an acquaintance that has,
it's a lady who's in a family and her dad died and when he died,
he followed an old family tradition. He gave everything, the house,
all the land, all the property, all the money, everything. He
gave it all to the eldest son. He got nothing. That's not the way it is in this
case. Everybody gets the same thing in this family. You know
what that is? Everything. Because it's based
on relationship. If children, Paul says, then
heirs. You say, well, what about one
child does better than the other? All these children did terrible. But it's all of grace. You know,
you see some fellow, he worked hard all his life, him and his
wife, and they stand and saved and accumulated something, and
all of a sudden, and they die, and that one child they have
who's a worthless, sorry, drunken, no good, and he gets everything. Doesn't it just make you mad? You say, he don't deserve any
of that. No, and neither do we, and we're
getting it all. because he made us joint heirs
with Jesus Christ. The early churches, when they
began to preach the gospel, it says, and all them that believed
were together and they had all things common. what the world by various policies,
principles, ideals, and such, what the world seeks, they say,
to accomplish, which is to unite us all, which never does, because it
fails to recognize one thing, and that is the depravity of
man. We ain't never going to be united.
Because we're all sinners. We all love self too good. But
what never is accomplished by man, grace accomplishes it. And we have all kinds of differences,
male, female, black, white, young, old, learned, unlearned. But we're one. in Christ. That's our family. That's our
family. And so the scripture says, as
we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, but especially to them that are
of the household of faith. Isn't it amazing to think just
a little bit that this one we're in family
relationship with, and I think Christ is in some way in Scripture
expressed in every one of these relationships to his people,
whether it's in marriage, whether he calls us his sister or his
brethren or his children, just name it. But that the Lord of glory sits
on his throne and looks down on the earth at a poor wretched
sinner here and a poor wretched sinner there, and he said, are
my mother and my brethren and my sister. These are my family. That's grace. Bless you.