And here in Mark's Gospel last
week we saw that the Lord Jesus had suffered the accusations
of the scribes who'd come all the way from Jerusalem to Capernaum
to criticize him. They thought that they were the
true family of God. They were the real sons of Abraham. And this Lord Jesus, this Jesus
was an imposter and worse than that, he was actually a worker
of Satan. They accused him of doing the
things he did through the power of Satan. But in these verses
here in 31 we actually have the Lord Jesus' family coming to
him. In verse 21 it refers to them as well in the same chapter.
When his own people heard of this they went out to actually
take custody of him, to take charge of him. because they were
saying he has lost his senses. And so in this passage before
us we have the Lord Jesus leaving the scribes and their accusations
and then gathering his people to himself to teach them extraordinarily
wonderful and powerful things. So it's the business of the Lord
all the time, isn't it, to be gathering his people out of the
world, out of the religious world and bringing them to himself.
And he shows in these verses that he's to, and we are, to
leave them alone, leave the scribes and Pharisees alone. He's also
showing that any earthly association must be secondary to our association
with him and who he is, what he is doing, what he has done
for his people and what he will do for his family. So all earthly
relationships are secondary. So the mothers and the brothers
stood outside, in verse and they sent word to him. And so here
we have another of the many, many pictures in the scriptures
of the relationship between the Lord Jesus and his mother Mary
and especially after his ministry, his public ministry began. And it's extraordinary how the
Lord Jesus deals with his mother. We must never be in any doubt
about the depth of his love for his earthly mother and the depth
of his love for his brothers and sisters, that family that
nurtured him, that cared for him, that he had been intimately
a part of for 30 years. But sadly, we have before us in this world, we have
so much misunderstanding about who Mary is. And it's a sad misunderstanding
because Mary now is in that great multitude before the throne of
God in heaven, saved by grace. She's worshipping Jesus right
now as we speak. And Ephesians says that we are
carried into those heavenly places to worship God as well. But it's
almost as if God the Holy Spirit wrote the scriptures and he did
with perfect knowledge of what was going to happen between when
the time the New Testament was written and the time the Lord
Jesus returns to this earth. And sadly Mary is one of the
most maligned women. She is the most maligned woman
in all of history. You have before you my gleanings
from the New Testament of all the passages that actually refer
to Mary in the New Testament and it's extraordinary when you
actually compare what the scriptures say about Mary and you think
about what the Roman Catholic Church and other churches that
join with the Roman Catholic Church say of Mary today. What they say of Mary is that
Mary had no original sin, that Mary was all holy. that Mary lived a sinless life,
that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that Mary is the Mother of God,
Mary is the Mother of the Church, Mary is the Queen of Heaven and
Mary is to be prayed to as such. So if you turn in your sheets
to the verses in Luke's Gospel on the second page, there you'll
actually see something of what the scriptures say. One of the
most wonderful passages is in Luke, Luke's Gospel, where Mary
is told that she's going to be the carrier of the Lord Jesus
and in verse 38 of chapter 1 of Luke she says, the bondservant
of the Lord, the maidservant of the Lord, may it be done to
me according to your word. And then we have that wonderful
prayer, that song that Mary sings in Luke chapter 1 verse 46 and
following. And Mary said, My soul exalts
the Lord, my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour, for he has
regarded the humble state of his bond slave." And so Mary
no doubt was a woman of honourable character, but she was the sinful
daughter of sinful parents, and she was made holy and honourable
by the free grace of God bestowed on her as it is on all other
believers in the Lord Jesus. And she worshipped, she rejoiced
in verse 47, in God my Saviour. Mary was a woman who acknowledged
that she needed a Saviour. And she is blessed. She says
that she is blessed. But she is blessed along with
all of God's children. She was blessed in eternity.
She's blessed unchangeably by God, according to Ephesians 1.3. She is blessed like all of God's
children. She's blessed because of the
work of the Lord Jesus. And it's extraordinary when we
see the proud religion around and all the robes and people
sitting on thrones these days. In Luke 51, 51 she says, He has
done mighty deeds with his arms. He has scattered those who were
proud in the thoughts of their heart. He has brought down rulers
from their thrones. And so it's a sad, sad thing,
isn't it, that we see Mary, who is so honoured in the Scriptures,
so maligned in this world of ours. And finally in Acts chapter
1 verse 14, the last of those quotes there, there's a reference
to Mary and his brothers. These people that we read about
in these verses, they were there, saved by God's grace, rejoicing
in the Lord God, their Saviour. So Mary really is no more holy
than Rahab. no more holy than Ruth. She's
just a wonderful recipient of the grace of God, the free grace
of God in the Lord Jesus. And so the Lord Jesus is the
only sinless human being to ever live in this world. And to honour
her, we need to honour her saviour. There's only one mediator between
God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And the only human being through
whom prayer is made and through whom we may hope for grace is
that man who is God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think the
adoration that, not just Roman Catholics now, but there are
millions and billions of other people in the world treating
Mary in ways which are beyond the scripture. I think it's just
a great reminder to us that any doctrine or practice which is
not founded on the Word of God is always idolatry, it always
leads to works righteousness, which is really self-righteousness,
and it leads multitudes to hell, thinking they have peace with
God because of something they do, some religious things they
do. And I think secondly, as the
Lord Jesus turns from these people on the outside and looks to his
disciples and his family who are gathered in a circle around
him, is that regarding in spiritual matters, when it comes to matters
to do with your soul, Family and friends are no guide. They might be extraordinarily
helpful, but we test everything. You need to test the things that
I say. We test everything against God and his word. We test everything
in light of who the Lord Jesus is and we test everything in
light of his finished work. So if you want to be concerned,
if you are concerned about the state of your soul, we don't
want to be satisfied with the good opinions of other people.
We need to deal directly with God. And also if you want to
do the will of God, we mustn't take into account the desires
of our flesh, the desires of our family or the counsel of
human wisdom. No one knows God's will in detail
for you except you and God alone. And so it's the responsibility
of God's children to go to God and to deal with him directly
rather than through the wisdom of other men. And so it's a sad
thing, isn't it, that these religious leaders that created their own
religion, a man-made religion, where they actually really thought
that they were on the inside track with God. They were really
Abraham's children. They are the ones that had the
ability to stand in judgement of others. All man-made religion
does the same thing in some way or other. But then he turns to
his people and he has some beautiful things to say to his people. And he answered them and said,
in verse 33, he said, the crowd sitting around him in a circle
and they said, Behold your mother and brothers are outside looking
for you. Answering them he said, Who are my mothers, my mother
and my brothers? Behold my mother and my brothers. whoever does the will of God,
the same is my mother and my brother and my sister. And so
we have in this comparison the wonderful picture and we have
no need to doubt the love of God for his family. Mary was
loved from before the foundation of the world, as were his brothers.
He had deep, deep love for them and deep, deep compassion for
them. But now he wants all of God's children to actually think
about a relationship which is much, much more profound than
the earthly relationships we have around here. No one can
understand deeply how much the Lord Jesus loved his family. Yet in comparison to his children,
to his bride, in comparison to those of us here who believe
on his name, the Lord Jesus gives no regard to earthly family,
even the ones who are near and dear to him. And so this is a
passage where the Lord Jesus, after receiving these extraordinary
accusations from the Pharisees, gathers his people together and
gives them great, great comfort. We are one family. God's children
are one family. They have one Father in heaven.
They have one bridegroom who loves his bride infinitely. He is bone of our bones and flesh
of our flesh. He knows us, He loves us, He
cares for us and He counts us to be part of His family. We are, according to Jesus, the
brothers and sisters of the Son of God. We may be persecuted
and mistreated. People may say all sorts of things
about us and even in our own families because of our faith
in the Lord Jesus. But as David said in Psalms 27.10,
when my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take
me up. So to be part of God's family
is to be the object of God's constant care. And I stress that
constant every moment of our lives. And we are the recipients,
the beneficiaries of God's special providence. Romans 8, 28 and
many, many other verses show that nothing comes to God's children
outside of his covenantal love for us. And we are made to be
heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. There are
those beautiful verses in 1 John 3 that we should read over and
over again. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons
of God. And therefore the world doesn't
know us because it didn't know him. Beloved, now we are the
sons of God. And it doesn't yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when He appears, we shall be
like Him for we shall see Him as He is. Every man that has
this hope in Him purifies himself even as he is pure. And so the Lord Jesus is in Heaven
and He continually pleads our cause before the Father. And
so let us always be found faithful to His cause. So all true believers
are part of this family of God. And that's this picture, isn't
it, that we're gathered out of this world and what it says about
the Lord Jesus. And we're gathered together to
receive these amazing promises from God. And so he calls this
group, doesn't he, the Church. It's called the Body of Christ.
It's called the Kingdom of God. It's called the Bride of Christ.
It's the Lord's sheepfold. It's a holy nation and a royal
priesthood. But most of all, we are part
of family. So all believers are counted
by the Lord Jesus to be as his closest relatives. He loves them,
he feels for them, he cares for them as members of his family. He provides, he protects, he
prays for his family. and so if we are members of his
family we rejoice, we rejoice in God our Saviour. But there's
something that I'd like you to see in these verses which is
really special and that is that in verse 32 and 34 he talks about
these people sitting in a circle around him. It's just a wonderful
picture of the fact that as the Lord Jesus gathers His people
together, each of His people is in exactly the same relationship
with Him and equidistant from Him. And that same word circle
is the word that's used in Revelation and often we go to Revelation
and it's right that we go to Revelation because God says this
is where we are seated. and the worship of heaven should
be the worship of God's people on earth. In Revelation 4 we
have this wonderful picture of God's people gathered around
the throne in heaven and this is where Mary and these brothers
are right now. This is what they see. This is
what Mary and these brothers, James and Jude and others, are
seeing. And they see the Lord Jesus sitting
on a throne in heaven, a glorious throne. signifying the fact that
the Lord God rules all things and rules this universe. And
around the throne are four living creatures, but around the throne
is this rainbow, a rainbow that represents God's covenant. As it was pictured with Noah,
it represents God's covenantal promised purposes for all of
this world and for his people in it. And then around this throne
are these 24 elders which represent all of the children of God, those
saved under the old covenant and in the Old Testament times
and those saved in the new covenant, all of them ultimately saved
by the eternal covenant. And so this rainbow represents
God's covenantal purposes. And it's a beautiful picture,
isn't it? Seated in this circle as these men were in this room
in Capernaum, which is a reflection of what's going on in heaven
right now. And Revelation 6.17 says, I hope
it's 6.17. I have lost my place, I'm sorry,
7.17. 7.17. For the Lamb in the centre of
the throne will be their shepherd and guide them to springs of
the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eye. And so God Sitting on this throne
in heaven, can't look at anything that's going on with Rigati's
people without looking at his covenant. He's mindful of his
covenant. God operates on the basis of
his promises to his people, whichever way he looks. He looks at his
people through the covenant and the Lord Jesus is the covenant.
He is really the Covenant. He embodies the Covenant. He
promises the Covenant. He fulfills the Covenant. And
so the rainbow is also showing that nothing can come to the
throne of God unless it comes through God's covenantal purposes. And nothing can come to God's
people unless it comes via the covenant through the Lord Jesus
and who He is, by the blood of the eternal covenant. So we cannot
draw near to God with our works We cannot draw near to God by
creating our own religious ways of feeling as if we approach
him and please him according to things that we or other people
might construct. But we can draw near to God on
the basis of this covenant, on the basis of who the Lord Jesus
is. We come to God pleading the merits
of who the Lord Jesus is. We plead before God the merits
of Jesus' righteousness. And as Gary talked about, Jesus
shed blood. We come to God in the Lord Jesus. So the password to God's throne
is simply the Lord Jesus. We pray in Christ's name, we
worship in Christ's name, we are saved in Christ's name. And
so this rainbow and these people sitting in a circle around us
just always remind us that God is dealing with us and with all
of this world exactly according to promises. And the great events
of Providence, even the incredibly sad ones that we've witnessed
in Australia this last week, are just simply God fulfilling
His sovereign purposes. But the promise of the covenant
to God's people is that surely in blessing, I will bless you. and he always does. As David
said, even though my house, even though my life and what I see
around me is not as it ought to be with God, but God has made
with me an eternal covenant, ordered and secure in every detail. So in all of my temptations,
in all of my afflictions, in all of the things that God brings
into my life chastise me, to remind me of how weak and frail
and fallible I am. The ultimate end of all the events
of providence is God's salvation of his children, the gathering
of his redeemed one. the calling of his church to
be with him in glory and to reign with him in the new creation
forever and ever. And God rules everything in this
universe to that end. By his secret, almighty, irresistible
force, God works all things together for the good of his children.
And that includes in this story before us the attacks that these
wicked people bring upon the Lord Jesus. And it includes the
misunderstanding of his family, of his purposes and what he came
to do. Truly God is good to Israel. And the final verse in this small
section of scripture is a wonderful verse because he talks about
this family that he's gathered together and he says, For whoever
does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. And often we struggle with the
whole business of how do we actually do God's will? How do we do things
that please God? When these Pharisees came along
to the Lord Jesus in John Chapter 6, they said to him, what shall
we do? that we might work the works
of God. Tell us what we have to do so
that we can please God. Jesus answered and said to them,
this is the work of God that you believe on him who has been
sent. This is the commandment of God
now. Do you want to fulfil all the
commandment of God, all of it? in your life. 1 John 3.23 says,
This is the commandment that we believe in the name of his
Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. I thought he said it
was the commandment. The commandment is to believe
and now we believe and are told to love. But faith in the scriptures
is a powerful force. Faith is a gift from God, it
comes from God, it's exercised by God, it's grown by God, it's
nurtured by God and it's a powerful force in the scriptures. It's
not something that just leaves believers sitting back and doing
nothing. Faith works. Galatians 5, 6 says
that circumcision doesn't matter and uncircumcision doesn't matter.
In Christ Jesus, the things that we do, whether they're under
the law or outside of the law, they have no ability, it says. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision
means anything but faith working through love. Faith energises
God's people. It's energised by God as the
new creation. God, indwelling his people, moves
us. to look and see the Lord Jesus
in ways that see him as glorious and then moves God's people to
be faithful. For those who say there is nothing
that comes of faith, we need to go to Hebrews chapter 11 because
faith in the scriptures is the basis of mighty, mighty deeds. And faith is the substance in
verse 1 of Things Hopeful, the conviction of things unseen. Faith in verse 6, without faith
it is impossible. to please him. And he who comes
to God must believe that he is and he is the rewarder of those
who seek him. And then we have in Hebrews 11
this extraordinary list of these people who did amazing things
through faith, by faith, Noah. built the Ark. By faith, Abraham,
as we've seen in the children's stories in the last few weeks,
by faith, Abraham did remarkable things. He didn't think about
his family. He thought about God's promises
and took his son up to that mountain to sacrifice him. By faith, Sarah
conceived and these people, like Abraham and others, died not
seeing the result of it. but they were people who were
looking. They were looking over the horizon for God to do what
he had promised. Faith works and faith looks to
the Lord Jesus. Faith takes God at his word and
trusts the promises of God. I often remind you of what happened
in Abraham's life as God exercised his faith in Romans 4. 2019, it says, without becoming weak
in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead,
and he was about 100 years old in the deadness of Sarah's womb.
Faith looked at the things it could see around it and said
there is no hope in those. But without becoming weak in
faith, Yet with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver
in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, being
fully persuaded that what God had promised, he was also able
to perform. So, what a great promise from
God we have in these verses, that he gathers his people together
out of this world And he calls them his children. He says they
are my family. They are my closest family. My
relationship with my family is no different to my relationship
with all of my believers. My bride is one. It forms one body and he loves
it all, loves every one of them infinitely and intimately. And because he is infinite, the
Lord Jesus can give 100% of himself to Norm Day and 100% of himself
to June Mesner. and not be diminished in any
way at all. He still has 100% of himself
to give to each of his members of his bride. That's what it
is for him to be God. And he says, I have done it. I have finished everything. You are my children. Delight
in the fact that you are my children. And if you feel as if you are
not his child, then he says just come, come, he says to those
who are weary and heavy laden, and you will find rest for your
souls. He has a light yoke for his family. It's the yoke of looking to Him,
resting on Him and trusting Him for absolutely everything because
He is good. He is unbelievably good and He
loves His bride with a passion which should embarrass all of
us here who are husbands. He loves His Bride faithfully. He loves His Bride passionately.
He loves His Bride powerfully. He loves His Bride forever and
ever. Let's just be thankful to who
He is, for what He is and what He's doing for all of us. Let's
pray.