If you would open your Bibles
with me to Mark chapter three, Lord willing, we'll finish up
our study in Mark chapter three this morning. Before we begin, let's bow before
our Lord together. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Father, we bow in your
presence. Utterly amazed at your mercy
and your grace to your people. The sinful men and women such
as we are can come before your throne of grace and call you
our father. Oh, how we thank you. And how
we thank you, Father, for your mercy and grace to your people.
Especially to our number here, our young ones here. Father,
you've been so merciful and so gracious all these many years. We're humbled, and Father, we
give you thanks, knowing it's only because of your mercy and
your grace. And Father, I pray that you would
continue to bless your word as it's preached here. Father, bless
it to bring glory to your name, that your people might be enabled
by the preaching of Christ to see your glory, that you might
use it to feed and to comfort and edify the hearts of your
people. And Father, that you continue to call out your people
that you continue to give life and faith through the preaching
of your word. Father, I thank you for this
place. I thank you for a place that you've given us where we
can meet together and worship you in peace and love and unity. And Father, I pray you'd give
each of us the wisdom to carefully protect that unity and that love
here that we might continue going forward with one accord and one
goal in our hearts. It's the glory of Christ our
Savior. And Father, we do pray a blessing for your people that
you brought in the time of trouble and trial. We freely confess
we're the most blessed people on the face of this planet. You've
blessed us more than we can ever say. But in this flesh, we are
a poor and a needy people. And in your providence, you brought
your people into the valley of trouble. And Father, we pray
for them. healing hand to be upon them.
We pray for your presence that you comfort their hearts. We
pray especially for our sister Sandy at this time going through
this difficulty, Father, that you'd be with her in a mighty
and special way. We pray that you'd be pleased
to heal her body and be with her, continue to comfort her
heart, we pray. Now, Father, all these things
we ask and we give thanks to that name which is above every
name, the name of Christ our Savior. I've titled our lesson this morning,
The Family of God. Our text begins in verse 31 of
Mark chapter three. 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 he
answered them saying, 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 should do the will
of God, the same as my brother and my sister and my mother. Now there are three good lessons
I'd like for us to learn from our text this morning. And the
first one is this. It's the Savior's relationship
with his mother, Mary. Now the Lord's brethren that
sit in here in verse 31, they're the same people from back, we
looked at this last week in verse 20. and the multitude cometh
together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread."
That multitude just crowded around them so much they couldn't even
lift their arms to eat something. And when his friends heard of
it, they went out to lay hold on him for they said he is beside
himself. Now that word friends properly translated is kinsmen. This Lord's kinsmen. His brothers
and his sisters. They tried to come and lead the
Lord away from that multitude because they're embarrassed.
about the outlandish statements he's making. He's saying he's
the son of God. He's saying that he is a long
promised Messiah. He's the savior of sinners. And
they were embarrassed. They thought, who's going to
believe such a thing? That this man in the flesh, we
know he's a man. This is God in the flesh? Who's
going to believe such a thing? And they tried to lead the Lord
away. They were trying to just, you know, tell her, just ignore
him. He's not right in the head. He's always been, you know, a
little off and they're trying to lead him away. But they couldn't
do it. The Lord wouldn't go. He could
not be led away. So it sounds like what happened
is they went to get their mom. They went to get Mary. Now, Mary
could not have been a part of these first kinsmen that were
saying, you know, the Lord's touched in the head. Because
Mary knew for sure. who the Lord Jesus was. The angel
came and told her, that holy thing was formed in your womb.
This is the son of God. He told her. An angel came and
told Joseph the same thing. You know, Mary Joseph talked
about that. Elizabeth confirmed her. Cousin Elizabeth confirmed
it to her when she was pregnant with John the Baptist. And Mary
kept all these things, scripture says, and pondered them in her
heart. Mary knew for sure her firstborn son was the son of
God. So she never would have said,
he's touching the head. She knew he was the savior. But
for whatever reason, now she did come with her other children,
didn't she? Maybe she thought, well, I'll get him to tone it
down a little bit or something. I don't know what was in her
mind. But here's what I do know. The Lord's brothers and sisters,
now they grew up with the Lord. They saw him every day. They
knew this for sure. The Lord Jesus loved his mother.
His mother, he was the perfect son. They saw how he loved and
honored his mother. So they thought, well, surely
if mom's here, he'll come out to us. But the Lord didn't go. Even when his mother was out,
he didn't go. Now that ought to put an absolute end to the
thought that what the Catholics teach us is that we need to pray
to Mary. so that Mary will pray to the
Lord for us. You know, Mary can get the Lord
to do what we can never get him to do. She's gonna intercede
for us. Well, the Lord wouldn't do what she wanted here, would
she? So I don't think she's the best intercessor we can find.
I think we need to go straight to Christ the intercessor, don't
you think? And this also puts an end to the Catholic teaching
of the Virgin Mary. Now, what they say is, well,
Mary was always pure and holy, because she was always a virgin.
Now let me tell you, that's not where holiness comes from. Mary
was a virgin when she gave birth to the Lord Jesus, but she wasn't
a virgin after that. She had several more children.
All these children here, those half-brothers and sisters, she
gave birth to them so that she couldn't have ever remained a
virgin. Only one man ever was born of the virgin birth, and
that's Christ our Savior. Only one man ever born on this
planet didn't take part in Adam's sin, wasn't born from Adam's
sinful seed, it's only Christ the Savior. Now Mary, she was
blessed, wasn't she? Highly favored among women, that's
what the angel said. But Mary, she needs an intercession
the same way you and I do. Mary needed to be saved by the
blood and the righteousness of Christ the same way that you
and I do. Now the Lord wouldn't go out
to his mother at this time, But he was not being disrespectful.
Don't ever think that we hear, you know, the interactions with
the Lord with his mother, that he's being disrespectful. Remember
when she came and told him about they'd run out of wine and he
said, well, what have I to do with thee? He was not being disrespectful
at all. Like I said a minute ago, the
Lord Jesus was the perfect son. I mean, how would you like to
be a brother and sister growing up? Your older brother, he's
the perfect son. He always loved. and honored
his mother. Even in his dying agony, as he
suffered on the cross, look how he provided for his mother. He
told her, woman, behold thy son, John, next to you. He's your
son now. And he told John, behold your
mother. John, she's your mother now. You treat her as your very
own mother now. And John took her into his home
from that very hour. Our Lord provided for his mother
I mean, you consider the dying agony that he was in. I mean,
he's doing business with God. He's doing business with the
Father. He's accomplishing the eternal will of his Father, the
weight of responsibility that was on him, and suffering like
no man has ever suffered, and he took time to provide for his
mother. Well, that's a loving son, isn't it? So the Lord honored
and loved his mother, but he wasn't controlled by her, then
or now. All right, here's the second
thing. The Lord's relationship with his earthly family. Now,
our Lord Jesus grew up in a home with his half-brothers and sisters,
and they never saw his holiness. They never saw, you know, this
is holiness personified. This is God in the flesh. They
never saw that. I told you last week, every believer, I mean,
it is our heart's desire to be a good representative of our
Savior. Every believer wants people to
see Christ in us. And I tell you, try like everything
to make that happen. I mean, don't ever let off the
gas on that. Try like everything that people
can tell you've been with Jesus. That's the way it should be.
But don't be disappointed when people don't see it. Don't be
disappointed when people don't see Christ in you. They didn't
see Christ in Christ. Even the people closest to him
didn't see it. And also don't be surprised when
the world is not impressed if they see Christ in you, but instead
they hate you for it. When they saw Christ in Christ,
they hated Christ for it, but don't be surprised if they hate
you for it too. You know, we just always should keep this
in mind. The servant's never going to be greater than his
Lord. If they hated our master, they're gonna hate us too, so
don't be surprised. But when the Lord's brothers and sisters
pulled this stunt, you know, just come out here, we're making
excuses for you. The Lord told them, I mean, it's
kind of harsh if you think about it, you're not my real family.
These people in here who believe on me, this is my real family.
Now again, the Lord, wasn't being mean to his half siblings and
he wasn't cutting them out of his life. I know for sure the
Lord wasn't cutting them out of his life because I know that
he saved at least some of them, at least some of them he saved.
So he wasn't cutting them off physically or spiritually, but
he did make this point of telling them who his real family is and
where his main responsibility lay. It was with his real family. Now, If you're a believer here
this morning, your true family is the family of God. Now that's
fact. And we bear a great responsibility
to our true family. We bear a great responsibility
to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Scripture tells us we're
to love them fervently, fervently. We're to take care of them. We're
to pray for them. or to be together with them and
have fellowship with them or to help one another through this
journey here below. And the only way you can do that
is by being together. Now, I know that that we've all
heard, you know, your real family is your spiritual family and,
you know, just ignore your physical family. Well. I'm sure that that that's true,
but I'm not here to try to get anybody to treat your spiritual
family is more important to you than your physical, natural family. Now that's true, our spiritual
family is more important. But it's been my experience,
not even a believer's gonna do that. I mean, I don't think I've
ever found anybody that's gonna do it. Willing to treat their
spiritual family really is more important than their physical
family. But we still ought to make it our aim. Now let me remind
you of this. We love our fleshly family members
and we should. But we need to remember they're
not gonna be our family in glory. Now we're not gonna have brothers
and sisters in the flesh in glory. My brother Jonathan is not gonna
be more important to me in glory than any of you. He just won't
be. All those earthly relationships
will end when this life ends. We won't have husbands and wives
in glory. It's just hard for me to conceive. that there will come a time that
Jana and I are not married. I just can't conceive of that.
I believe the scripture. I believe it's true. I believe
it'll be glorious. It'll be wonderful. But, Brent,
I just can't conceive it. I mean, I just can't. But in
glory, Jana and I are not going to be married. She's going to
be married to somebody a whole lot better than me. And I will
too. I will too. Those relationships
are going to be over. Those relationships will not
last past this life. But our relationship with the
believers around this room, the believers that you know around
this world, they're gonna last long past the end of this life.
They're gonna be eternal. There's a pastor friend of mine
that very, very frequently, after he closes in prayer, he tells
the congregation, now look around, These are the folks you're gonna
spend eternity with. Treat them that way, treat them that way.
And we should always keep that in mind. These people, God's
family, those who believe Christ, they're special to us and they're
dear to us and we need to treat them that way. Now, all that
being said, not one of you Don't one of you go cutting off your
earthly family that are unbelievers and say, well, the pastor told
me to cut them off. I'm not going to have anything to do with you anymore.
Don't one of you do that. Don't you lay that on me because
I'm not telling you to do that. Our Lord didn't do it. He didn't
cut off his brothers and sisters. Well, here they are saying, well,
he's touched in the head. He's gone crazy. You know, we're
going to try to take him to the asylum or something, you know,
or just ignore him. Jonathan, you said that about
me. Now, I love you. You and me are going to have trouble.
but our Lord didn't cut him off, did he? We know for sure, at
least some of those who are saying he's touched in the head, the
Lord had mercy on him. In about three and a half years,
he's gonna go suffer and die for him. He didn't cut him off.
Don't you do that either. I'll quote my dear wife on this
one. You got one family, take care
of them. You got one family, love them.
You got one mother, you got one father, you got one set of siblings,
you got your children, you got one set of children. Now you
take care of them and you love them. And don't you cut them
off if they're an unbeliever. Don't you do that now. Instead,
take every opportunity to point them to Christ. Now let me show
you that. Look first at first Corinthians
chapter seven. You take every opportunity to
point your unbelieving family members to Christ because it
could be that the Lord will use you to reveal Christ to them. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 12. But to the rest speak I, not
the Lord. If any brother hath a wife that
believeth not, it should be pleased to dwell with him. let him not
put her away. If your wife doesn't believe,
don't you divorce her because she's not a believer, as long as she's
pleased to dwell with you. And the woman which hath a husband
that believeth not, if he be pleased to dwell with her, let
her not leave him, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the
wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband,
else were your children unclean, but now they're holy. But if
the unbelieving depart, let him depart. If they're going to leave
you over the gospel, let them depart. A brother or sister is
not under bondage in such cases, but God hath called us to peace.
Don't you go looking for a fight. Don't you go starting a war.
God has called us to peace. For what knowest thou, O wife,
whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether
thou shalt save thy wife? Now look over 1 Peter 3. Peter
gives us a real good commentary on this, and you know good and
well that the apostle there is not saying that you're gonna
save him, but what he's saying is, that the Lord might use you
to point them to Christ, who will save them. That's what he's
saying. And Peter gives us good commentary on that. 1 Peter 3,
verse one. Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection
to your own husbands, that if any obey not the word, that they
also may without the word be won by the conversation by the
conduct of their wife. While they behold your chaste
conversation, coupled with fear, who's adorning, let it not be
that outward adorning of plaiting of the air and wearing of gold
or putting on of apparel, but let it be that hidden man of
the heart and that which is not corruptible, even the ornament
of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great
price. Now, a wife that has a husband
does not believe, but he sees. Well, I've got the best wife
I could have. There's something different about her. He sees
her chaste conversation coupled with fear. He sees her faith
in Christ. He sees her faith in Christ affecting
her life. And he says, well, you know what? I'll go to the service with her.
Because of the way she conducted herself in the home, he says,
I'm going to go to service with her. And in spite of himself, the
Lord makes him hear, makes him believe, causes him to come to
Christ. It's because of the way his wife
conducted herself. Wouldn't you like to conduct
yourself that way? I mean, my soul, for somebody to come and
tell you, you know, I first came to service because you're a good
guy. You're a fine woman. I thought
there's something different about you. I'm going to go find out
what it is. And you know, The Lord revealed Himself to me.
And He used you to bring me to Christ. It can't get any better than
that, can it? The Lord could use you for that way for your
family. The ones that you love the most
could be. So love and care for them. Love
and care for your earthly family while you remember what's most
important. See, there's always two sides
of this coin in there. Remember what's most important.
and as much as it's possible, don't let those earthly relationships
interfere with your worship of the Lord or with matters of your
soul or responsibility to your true family. Now love them, care
for them, but don't let it get to the point that it interferes
with your spiritual life. I think that's good advice. I
think that's what the scripture teaches there. That's the Lord's
relationship with his earthly family. Now here's the third
thing back in our text. It's the true family of God.
And the Lord does not leave us to wonder who his family is.
He tells us plainly who his family is in verse 35. For whosoever
should do the will of God, the same as my brother and my sister
and my mother. Now that verse got my interest.
I want to know if I'm in the family of God. I want to be in
the family of God and I want to know whether or not I am.
And I want you to know the same thing. And I love the gospel,
has these weighty, weighty questions of eternal importance. But the
Lord makes it so simple. You think about doing the will
of God. I mean the will of eternal God.
And the Lord gives us a simple answer so we can know what is
the will of God and have I done it or not? Whoever does the will
of God is in the family of God. That's what our Savior says.
It's that simple. And if you look over at John
chapter six, I can show you what the will of God is. We don't
have to guess because he tells us plainly. John chapter six. In verse 28, then said they unto
him, what shall we do? that we might work the works
of God. Jesus answered and said unto them, this is the work of
God, that you believe on him whom he hath sinned. Period,
end of sentence. That's it. The work of God is
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all it is, just
believe Christ. That's the Father's will, that
we believe Christ. and all of his family will. Everybody
who's in the family of God believes Christ. Everybody, and it's not
just believing that the gospel is true. You know, you all know
this. I mean, from the time I understood
language, I was under the sound of the gospel, and I never one
time questioned if it was true or not. It's just, it has to
be. I mean, it's just, either this
gospel's true, or there's no God at all, one or the other. I never did question that this
gospel's true, but I didn't believe Christ. See the difference? Now I believe Christ. Now I see
I love the gospel because it shows Christ to me. Everybody
who's in the family of God puts all the responsibility of their
salvation on Christ alone. I don't have to do one thing
to add to it. I don't have to do one thing to make it effectual.
I just trust Christ. And that takes all the pressure
off. Look at Acts chapter 16. I'll show you another example
of this. Acts chapter 16. In verse 25. And at midnight, Paul and Silas
prayed and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard
them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the
foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the
doors were open and everyone's bands were loosed. And the keeper
of the prison, awaking out of his sleep and seeing the doors
open, he drawed his sword and would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, do thyself no harm, for we're all here. And he called
for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down
before Paul in silence, and brought them out, and said, Sirs, what
must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house. Anybody else who believes on
Christ shall be saved. And they spake unto him the word
of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. They preached
the gospel to him, And he took them the same hour of the night,
washed their stripes, and was baptized. He and all his, everyone
else who believed, straight way. Now, if you ask that question
in your heart and in your mind the same way the Philippian jailer
did, what must I do to be saved? And the answer to you is the
same simple answer Paul and Silas gave that night. Believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. Everyone, absolutely everyone
without exception who believes on Christ, who trusts Christ
to do all the saving for them, they have eternal life. That's
the promise of God Almighty. All right, now another scripture,
1 John 3. 1 John 3. Verse 23. Now you want to know the will
of God, here it is. 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 not a suggestion, this
is a good idea. The will of God is a commandment. Believe on the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Trust him to be all it takes
to save you. This is God's commandment. Now
don't be confused about the commandment. We read about the commandments,
plural, all through scripture. God's commandment is not to obey
all the law of Moses. That's not God's commandment.
You know why God gave the law? It's not so you and I would have
a way that we could earn a righteousness and save ourselves, make ourselves
righteous, justify ourselves. That's not why God gave the law.
God gave the law to show us how sinful we are. so that we'd run
to Christ. God gave the law to show us it's
impossible for me to keep the law. I need somebody to keep
it for me. Tell you what I'm gonna do, I'm running to Christ.
I'm asking him for mercy. That's the reason that God gave
the law. God gave the law so that you'll
trust Christ to save you without you adding any of your works,
any of your morality, any of your goodness to him, and just
trust Christ alone. God gave the law so we'd trust
Christ. We've got to have an obedience
to the law. I'm gonna trust Christ as my obedience to the law to
make me righteous before God. I'm gonna trust Christ to justify
me by his sacrifice alone. That's God's commandment. And
everybody who's in the family of God trusts Christ that way.
Now if you trust Christ, here's what naturally follows from that.
You will love everyone else who trusts Christ too. you're gonna
love your true family. Now listen, this matter of loving
one another, that's not well, you know, love the people that
are nice to you, love the people that you like. God's commandment
is love your brethren. That's the commandment. He told
his disciples in John 15 verse 12, this is my commandment. It's my commandment to you, that
you love one another. And then he makes this oh so
clear. as I have loved you. That's loving one another truly
from the heart. Can you possibly question that
the Lord truly loves his people? I mean, in his heart and soul,
he loves his people. I'm to love you that way, truly
from the heart. Love one another in action. Not
just in word, not just sitting at home and I think, you know,
I love them, I care about them. It's putting it in action so
they see it by your actions. These people are going to see
your love by your actions to them. Especially if it cost you
something. The Savior loved His people self-sacrificially. It cost Him to love His people,
didn't it? My professed love for you is really nothing until
it cost me something to show you. It really is. Now, we're
to believe God, trust Christ. which love one another. That's
His commandment. Well, how am I going to do that?
How am I going to do that? Well, you know, the only way
we can do God's will is if He does His will for us and in us. Look at verse 24 there in 1 John
chapter 3. And he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him and he in him. He that keeps God's commandment,
God dwells in him. Here's how we know. that he abideth
in us by the spirit which he hath given us. The only way that
I can trust Christ is if God puts his spirit in me and makes
me trust him. The only way I can love you is
if God puts his spirit in me and makes me love you. That's
exactly right. Let me show you that in Philippians
chapter two. Philippians two. Verse 13. For it is God which worketh in
you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You see, God
has to do the work in us or we won't have the desire or the
ability to obey his command. I'm not gonna believe Christ
until God puts his spirit in me that makes me believe him.
That makes it so I can't not believe him. I'm not gonna love
my brother until God gives me a new nature. He puts his spirit
in me and gives me a new nature that makes me love you. All right,
one more scripture, Galatians chapter four. See, this is all
of God. God has to do the work for us and in us. Now, everybody who's in the family
of God, they trust Christ that way, they love their brothers
and sisters that way. And the only way that can happen
is if God causes us to be born again. born again into God's
family so that we have the nature of our father which is in heaven.
A nature that believes Christ and loves the family of God.
The evidence of the new birth is love for Christ and love for
his people. That's the evidence of the new
birth because that's the only thing the new nature of God can
do. And where there is no love, all you see is hatefulness and
fighting and bickering and division There is absolutely no evidence
of the new birth there, because the evidence of the new birth
is love. Look here at Galatians 4 verse
4. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his
son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And because you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of
his son into your hearts, crying Abba Father. See, God's put his
spirit in you. Wherefore, thou art no more a
servant, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. See, God sends his spirit into
the hearts of his people. God made you a son a long time
ago. He made you a son and a daughter of God in divine election long
before God created anything. And the reason God sends his
spirit into your hearts now is because God made you a son. And
He's gonna give all of His people those two things, faith and love. Faith in Christ, love for Christ,
and love for everybody else to trust Him to. All right, well,
I hope that that'll be a blessing and a help to you.