He was talking about how hard
it was for him to prepare a Mother's Day message. And he said, after
all, you know, how many Mother's Day messages can you get out
of the Bible? I said, what? Do you know how
many times it is written in the scripture, the word mama? None. But the word mother Mother
is written over 250 times. The word mother is written over
250 times and you find it at the beginning of the book and
you find it at the end of the book. Now if the word mother
is written over 250 times in the scriptures and all I've got
to do is preach a Mother's Day message once a year and I can
live 80 years if I started when I was born. I could preach 80
messages on mothers just out of the scriptures. And so the
idea that when we come across these seasons like Mother's Day
and Father's Day and other days, Can we not find something specific
to say? Sure, we can. We always can speak
to that which God has done, by which God has blessed this world
and by which God gets glory. Can we not? We can always speak
to that which God has done and which God has done for our good
and our glory. Let me ask you the question.
If the Lord Jesus Christ was your son, mothers. If the Lord
Jesus Christ were your son, would you be proud of him? Would you
be so proud to have the Lord Jesus as your son? Of course you know that he would
honor you, right? Because after all, he wrote it
In the book, Exodus 20, what? Honor your mother and your father. And so be sure that if the Lord
Jesus was your son, mother's, you could expect him to honor
you. More than that, if the Lord Jesus
was your son, you could expect him also to provide for you. After all, is he not the bread
of life? Is not he the source from which
all blessings come? Doth not the Lord Jesus Christ
uphold all things? Don't we receive everything from
him? Wouldn't it be a great blessing for you mothers if the Lord Jesus
Christ were your son? He would not only honor you,
he would protect you, he would provide for you, and he would
care for you. The Lord Jesus would care for
you mothers just as he did his own mother while hanging on Calvary's
tree. as a substitute for his people. You remember what he did? In
caring for his mother, he placed her, who was obviously at this
time a widow, in the hands of his servant, John, and said to
John, John, this is your mother. And to his mother, this is your
son. Wouldn't the Lord Jesus Christ
take care of you? Wouldn't you be happy to have the Lord Jesus
Christ as your son? But here I want you to understand,
that being the case, notwithstanding, there's one thing for sure the
Lord Jesus Christ wouldn't do for you mothers. Do you know
what that is? He wouldn't deify you. He wouldn't
exalt you to a status of co-matrix. The Lord Jesus Christ would not
make you the co-redemptress of the salvation of sinners. The
Lord Jesus would not put you on an equal scale with him. He
would honor you, protect you, provide for you, care for you,
but he wouldn't exalt you above all the other women in the world.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? And this is the context
in which now our message proceeds. Today I want to talk to you as
we constantly do about the priority of the gospel and I hope it allows
you who are mothers to be able to integrate what we are about
to discuss with the honor of being a mother. Didn't you think
it's strange in our account where there were folks who had come
to the Lord Jesus and said, in the midst of his ministry, as
we said last week, in Luke's account, Jesus is at the pinnacle
of his success. He is encumbered by multitudes
of people. Even on this occasion, we know
that there are hundreds and thousands of people in his face right now
because our text tells us that his mama and his brothers couldn't
get to him because of the what? The press. And so according to
Luke's gospel and Mark's and Matthew's there was a messenger
sent from his parents working his way through the crowd and
that message came to Jesus to let Jesus know that his family
was outside wanting to talk with him. That's the way Mark puts
it. Your mother and your brothers,
they want to speak with you. Our text, Luke says, they want
to see you. But they wanted to speak to him.
Obviously, there was something urgent going on in the life of
Jesus' family of which They needed to talk with him, but they couldn't
get to him because of the press. And Matthew's gospel says that
they sent unto him. Now, the way it works out is
the individual that wanted to talk with Jesus couldn't get
through the press. So he had to let everybody else
know, hey, tell Jesus that his mother and his brothers are on
the outside. So by the time Jesus gets the
information, our narrative tells us that the crowd, the people
that were in front of him says, hey, Lord Jesus, the buzz is
going about among us, that your mother and your brothers are
way outside trying to come in or at least get your attention. Now, isn't it remarkable? how he responds. Verse 20, and
it was told him by certain which said, your mother and your brethren
stand without desiring to see you. And he answered and he said
unto them, my mother and my brethren are these which hear the word
of God and do it. Now, mama, wouldn't you want
to take a stick and knock your boy right upside the head when
he do something like that? And in fact, if you were dealing
with Mark's account, here's the way Mark puts it. We're gonna
put it all three together. In Mark's account, what Jesus
does when he hears that is he says, who is my mother? And who is my brethren? That's how Mark's account puts
it. And in Matthew's account, he stands up while he gives that
interrogative question and he points at the people that are
right in front of him. And he said, these are my mothers
and these are my brothers, such as do the will of God, my father
in heaven. How do you take that kind of
response? Well, I want to help you now.
Calm down. Let the emotion settle. Just
realize the Lord Jesus Christ is not dishonoring his mother.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not dishonoring his brethren, but
the Lord Jesus Christ is establishing what I call the priority of the
gospel. The priority of the gospel. See,
if you follow me, we are really in no different of a tenor than
that which Jesus has been setting down even as he just recently
had spoken the parable of the sower and the seed. And remember
what the ultimate lesson about that was? How are you hearing?
Are you hearing the Word of God in such a way that it's making
an impact in your life? That you are receiving the Word
of God and guarding the Word of God so that it's bearing fruit
in your life? And Jesus is right here with
that as well. As you noticed, the previous verses said, take
heed how you hear. for to whom that that person
has more shall be given but to him that hath not even that which
he what seems or thinks to have will be taken away strange language
isn't it but what it's teaching you and i is the priority the
priority of the gospel now with that i want to share with you
seven points out of this text from which we can derive some
lessons critical to what our Lord is saying. So first, perish
the thought that our Lord is so inclined to belittle or disregard
or neglect or defame or dishonor his family. Perish that thought. But what I want you to grasp
is our first point in our outline. If you have your outline, here
it is. If Jesus is God, And if there is a God, he must truly
come first. Is that all right, ladies and
gentlemen? If we are about the business of God, if there is
such thing as the kingdom of God, if there is such thing as
a king who has a kingdom, and his name is Jesus Christ, and
we are about his business, must it necessarily be that he comes
what first he must come first and this is the beginning of
the understanding why our lord phrased this terminology when
you look at our lord's ministry here's what you and i know everything
jesus did he did to please his father his father which is in
heaven Every move he made, every word he spoke, every gesture
that proceeded from our Lord's being was in design of this principle. First seek ye the kingdom of
God. First seek ye the kingdom of
God and everything else will take care of itself. Do you believe
that? Now, here I wanna share something with you. This principle,
this modus operandi, if you take it seriously, is gonna challenge
you you know about a year ago i read this text and i was thinking
about our lord jesus now jesus is god we believe that right
very god of very god but he's also a man isn't he what was
going on in our master's soul when as he is preaching and teaching
the crowd, he hears his mom and his brothers on the outside needing
him for which he has to now make this statement of priority. What's
going on in the soul? He's a human being now. What's
going on in the soul? And I had to think about that
myself. My goodness. Every one of us
are obligated to make sure that we don't let anything, including
our own family, the dearest and the nearest and the most important
people in our life, take first place over Christ. Now watch
this. It means then that I have to
bring my emotions into subjection. I have to bring my mind into
subjection. I have to bring all of what I
would consider the consequences of such a bold and unpopular
stance into subjection I have to be able to reconcile on very
solid biblical grounds and some type of divine evidences in my
own life that the position that I'm taking is not being some
type of cold sociopathic Narcissistic maverick that I'm able to say
who is my mother and who are my brethren but these who do
the will of God and I therefore say that our Lord Jesus Christ
being fully God and fully man as he prepared to say what he
said said it on the basis of him knowing it was critical at
this point in his ministry to make this clear line of demarcation
because of all of the unbiblical expectations that sit in the
minds of men and women when it comes to ministry You see our
Lord is preaching, and He's already painted the picture of the Word
of God going forth in the hand of the sower. That sower is who?
Christ. He's already spreading the gospel,
and there are multitudes hearing Him. Multitudes who have four
kinds of hearing. Is that what we learned last
week? The wayside hearing, the thorny ground hearing, the shallow
ground hearing, and then a very biblically-based, Christ-centered,
God-exalting hearing. One-fourth of those hearers are
people who hear correctly. everybody else is hearing temporarily
or in a shallow way are missing the message altogether with that
kind of liability in the ministry don't we have to at times establish
groundwork make people understand what the priorities are because
if you don't you know what you do you will allow people to think
certain things and then when Events start to formulate and
come to pass you can be sure that they are going to act upon
faulty Assumptions that have no basis in the truth and you
can have actually aided and abetted that by not Establishing what
we call the priority of the gospel up front or frequently Let me
give you a couple examples of what I'm talking about You might
think Jesus if you don't understand what I mean by the priority of
the gospel was cold He certainly was politically incorrect. He
had no problem admonishing the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
did he? But he also had no problem rebuking his own disciples. He
had no problem admonishing his own disciples. He had no problem
letting them know, you are not thinking right. Is that true? And so in regards to the priority
of the gospel, sometimes you and I have to be told we aren't
thinking right. Am I making some sense? okay
so now here are several things i want to call your attention
to point number two this is i mean part number two yeah this is
very important watch this there are times when you and i fall
prey to the blindness of savoring the things of men rather than
the things of god am i telling the truth point number two savoring
the things of men is a daily trial for every believer savoring
the things of men is a daily trial for every child of God. You are tried daily with what
would be considered normative assumptions that everybody holds
to as your protocol, or as your mode of operation, or as something
that you are to hold in high esteem. But the Word of God often
cuts against that grain, doesn't it? Often the Word of God will
say things like, that which is highly esteemed among men is
absolutely detestable to the Lord. Now with that kind of statement,
ladies and gentlemen, if you and I take that statement seriously,
are you ready? We're going to offend somebody.
If in fact, the things that most men love are the things that Christ and
God despises most. And you and I come to grow to
love what God loves and hate what God hates. we're gonna run
at odds with the people we know. Can I keep talking to you? Savoring
the things of men is a natural default mechanism within ourselves
because when we aren't thinking God's thoughts after him, it
is natural for us to think, watch this now, that it's all about
us. Now, just as we are, as it were,
settling down with the fact that the Lord Jesus was both God and
man, we are sure and certain that his mother was a human being
and that his brethren were also human beings. And we know by
the information we have in the scriptures that there were times
when the Lord Jesus's mother and brethren didn't think all
that well of Jesus. There were occasions when, and
this is right around the time we are now in our text, watch
this, that mom and brethren We're hearing the buzzes from the populace. Remember last week, the wayside
hearer is the person whose head is filled up with all the secular
data, all of the consensus thinking, all of the majority rule, the
consciousness of the larger society starts to become the grid through
which you interpret things. Well, watch this. Isn't it possible
that the mother and brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ could
have heard those knucklehead Pharisees going around saying,
Jesus is crazy. This man is going around calling
disciples to himself. He's got all these people following
him. And guess what? He said he's the Messiah. And
over time, this type of derogatory speech can start to permeate
the thinking of mom. and brothers. Especially if you
read the historical context of Pericope carefully, Jesus has
just ordained the 12. He's just set up 70 men. He's
ran these 70 men into the midst of the people group. Then he
went up to a high mountain to establish his kingdom in a very
visible and public way. And multitudes now are coming
to him. Don't you think that for a moment, mama might be thinking,
Now it was all right at the first, you know, when he was just doing
a little preaching here and there. But now that multitudes are asking
the question, is this the son of David? And yet she's also
hearing the authorities in the church discount him, malign him,
ridicule him. Isn't it possible that mom and
the brothers are struggling with The fact that jesus is operating
out of a clear call of his father. Is that possible? In fact, isn't
it possible that mom and brothers may be coming to jesus to try
to get jesus to sit down and talk with them so they can talk
some sense into his head You you know lord. I mean, you you
know, I mean you're actually taking this thing serious now
See the other portions of scripture intimate that they worried that
jesus had lost his mind Are you hearing me? And so what if our
Lord in his omniscience knew that their attitude about him
wasn't right? What if our Lord knew that the
mass of the multitudes were struggling with the authenticity of his
Messiahship? What if he knew that even though
externally there was great population coming towards him, that two
thirds of that population actually were ready to be his enemies?
Are you hearing what I'm saying? They were more than ready to
get the necessary information, to get the necessary evidence
to prove that he couldn't be of God. What if Jesus knows this?
Must he not then deal with these assumptions that are flawed?
Must he not do that? And isn't it good to establish the priority
of the gospel now before way down the line? And so I say it
is a natural default mechanism on our part that if we're not
careful, we will savor the things of men. Do you remember when
our Lord Jesus was headed to Calvary and he had to tell his
disciples finally and decisively, the son of man is not headed
to Rome. I'm not going to the Citadel
in Rome. I'm not getting ready to establish
my seat in Rome. I'm not getting ready to topple
the Roman Empire. I'm not getting ready to make
you Jewish people the head and everybody else the tail. We are
not headed up. We're headed down. I want you
guys to know that we are not headed to fame and victory and
triumph. We're headed to ignominy and
shame. We're headed to betrayal and
persecution. I am getting ready to be crucified
and viewed as the most hideous person on the earth. This is
what he said after he had called Peter to him and said, Peter,
who do men say that I am? And Peter said, you are the Christ,
the son of the living God. Peter, your heavenly father told you
that. Upon this rock. I'll build my church this confession,
but I want to let you know something peter. This is matthew chapter
16. Are you ready? I want to let you know something peter
satan has desired to shift you as we And i'll tell you why because
you right now are thinking that what i'm saying Is wrong. Do you remember when christ continued
to press to texas and he continued to tell them i'm going to calvary
fellas peter stopped him and said lord Let it not be so. In fact, shaking Jesus in one
text said rebuking the master. He's going to rebuke the master
because the master is going to Calvary. Now, what does the Lord
know that Peter didn't know? That the devil was working behind
his emotions to cause him to savor the things of men and not
the things of God. Do you remember what our Lord
Jesus Christ said? Satan, get thee behind me, because
all you ever do savored the things of men and he was able to trap
one of Jesus choices servants and get him to fall prey to carnality
Jesus rebuked him didn't he was that love not only was it love
it was absolutely necessary can you imagine if Peter would have
been successful at stopping Jesus from going to Calvary out of
his own narcissistic self-absorbed thinking Be it not so, so he
had to rebuke him. I remember another account where
the savoring of the things of men had to be admonished on the
part of Jesus. Look in your Bible in Luke chapter
11, just a couple of chapters over. The Lord Jesus is preaching
and this lady seems to feel inclined to take advantage of his preaching and respond to him with regards
to his message. And our Lord Jesus Christ says
these things. Here it is in Luke chapter 11,
verse 27, after Jesus has preached the gospel, verse 27, and it
came to pass as he spake these things, a certain woman of the
company, she's part of the crowd now, lifted up her voice and
said unto him, blessed is the womb that bare thee and the pounce
which thou hast sucked. Now here she is honoring Jesus's
mother. Isn't that right? But do you
know what Jesus knows? He knows that she was being used
by the devil also to, as it were, savor the things of men. She
was she was inadvertently used to establish a precedent of which
we're getting ready to deal with in our next point, for which
our Lord says, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not about my mother,
Mary. And it's not about her breasts, which I drank from.
Listen to what he says. Here it is. He repeated it again,
verse 28. But he said unto her, Yea, rather
blessed are they that what? Hear the word of God and do what?
Keep it. That sister got rebuked right
there, didn't she? But but listen, that's the way our Lord was.
That's the way our Lord was, just like many of the theologians
long ago that I used to listen to. They were very serious men.
Watch this. If you asked a stupid question,
you got a serious rebuke. You weren't free to ask frivolous
questions that didn't first get taken into consideration on your
part of what the consequences would be if that question had
any validity. So one has to be admonished.
Now there's nothing wrong with saying his mother was blessed.
There's nothing wrong with saying the breast that sucked you. All this woman was doing was
acknowledging that Jesus was the product of a mother that
cared about him until he got older. And they're doing what
you and I are doing today, honoring our mother. But here, we can
never honor our mother or our father or our families at the
expense of the priority of the kingdom. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? Therefore, point number three.
Now, this is the one I want you to see. Why did Jesus do what
he did in our Luke account? Point number three in your outline.
Are you ready? Religious nepotism must be destroyed. Do you guys
know what nepotism is? Nepotism is the favoritism of
a family member or a group of family members in a certain religious
or institutional context by which they have preference over everybody
else. Nepotism is the design and the
model that takes place in businesses. They take place in religion. And they have for a long time
been part of what we call our monarchical design churches where
in the churches they were started by an individual, let's say a
man, and his family. And because the church was ignorant
of what a biblical gospel church is built on in terms of its infrastructure
and foundation, they bought into what we call a monarchical model.
And that model is called a kingship model. And a kingship model is
where everybody in the church views the pastor as king. And
necessarily what follows then is that his wife is queen. And
if his wife is queen, then the children are princes and princesses. And if this is the case, that
the royal family, which is called in these ungodly designed churches,
first families, then he's the head pastor and his wife is what? First lady. But did not tell
you before, if you buy into the wife being the first lady, that
makes you necessarily the second lady and the third lady and the
fourth lady. Now, why would you put that on
yourself? But what I'm getting you to understand, if you follow
me carefully, listen to me. What I'm getting you to understand
is Jesus did not set up a monarchical model for church government.
He did not establish a precedent for nepotism. Nepotism is one
of the ways, right along with savoring the things of men, that
will destroy the gospel in any church. Do you understand the
type of ramifications that falls out in churches where will his
mama get all the privileges, or his brothers get all the privileges,
or everybody that's on the staff, his family members. Do you understand
the scandals that run through churches for this kinds of stuff?
One of our sisters was speaking to us in our Beauty for Ashes
classes a couple of weeks ago, and I marked how that she had
stated that early on in her Christian walk with her family, they were
part of one of these big old prosperity churches where the
pastor's well-known, and just because her family was close
to the pastor family, she had folks in the church coming over
to their house serving them as if they were royalty and they
were slaves. Perish the thought! Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? The notion that there is a hierarchy
in the church is not only unbiblical, asinine, it's demonic. It follows
the protocol of the devil. It follows his protocol. It is
a carnal design that has no biblical basis. And I'm here to tell you
what our Lord did in saying who is my mother and my brethren
was to destroy the carnal practice of the father-son ministry family
hierarchy. So many ministries get started
by a man and he thinks he's compelled to have to give it to his son
when he's done. What are you hiding? And this is why I love God being
providential and sovereign in these kind of cases because most
of the time in these systems there is so much unethical and
immoral practice going on behind the scenes that they need that
sort of nepotism to protect things. I was just talking to my brother
Bill Nahava about that at Family Radio. They're doing the same
thing, positioning family members to save face. Listen, when you
do it God's way, are you ready to hear this? When you do it
God's way, you know what we do? We let God raise up whom God's
gonna raise up to be in leadership. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
We let God raise up whom God wants to raise up for leadership.
Now, you know, and I can say this confidently because our
Lord set this model. When he started ministry, he
did not call his brothers. Are you hearing me? In fact,
none of them, with the exception of his mother, were saved until
after his resurrection. They all were suspicious of him. He had to experience the same
kind of antipathy and resistance and hostility that often we do
as believers because our family members can't get with us being
kingdom first or gospel priority type people. They don't understand
this idea of Christ is primary. Am I making some sense to you?
Let me keep talking to you then. It's very important to know then
that the manner in which our Lord is speaking is in order
to stop, to put to rest the notion of savoring the things of men
over the things of God because, ladies and gentlemen, you will
be unfruitful and unproductive before God if you don't understand
that God must come first. Your family members, are just
by nature going to be obstacles to you doing the will of God
until you understand God must come first. And let me say this
about this. Our Lord Jesus knew that in order for him to secure
his family in the most eternal sense, the thing he had to do
was keep God first. They may not understand this,
but we do. I'll say it at the end of the
message. If I want my family with me for all eternity. In order for that to even have
a half a chance of existing, I must put God first. If I want to be sure to lose
them, remember what the text said, be careful how you hear.
For with what measure you hear, it'll be measured unto you. To
him that hath, more shall be given. But to him that hath not,
even that which he thinks he has will be taken away. If I
think that the most important thing for me is my family, to
the negation and rejection of the eternal kingdom of God, I
will lose both the kingdom and my family. Am I telling the truth? Do you know how I know I'm telling
the truth? Because Jesus said in Mark chapter 10 verse 30,
these words, when the disciples came to him and said, Lord, we
have left everything for you. And Jesus turned to him and said,
you didn't lose anything. You remember what he said? The
person that has left home, have left husband, left wife, left
father, left mother, left sons, left daughters, and left everything
for my sake, will in this life obtain houses, obtain material
things, obtain brothers and sisters, watch this, and mothers and brethren,
and in the world to come eternal life, Only it's gonna come with
persecution now when he said that I want can you can I can
I can you stay with me for a moment? I want when I when I read that
over against what we're dealing with now, you know what it tells
me Jesus wants us to understand that Everything down here that
models the eternal kingdom is ethereal. It has no real substance
while as yet we don't bring it up under the authority of the
gospel and Our families have no security of staying together
or being cohesive or living harmoniously and dying fruitfully if it is
not a consequence of the grace of God undergirding it. Do I
have to say that again? Don't you know we live in a generation
right now of utter disintegration of the family? that the family
is being completely deconstructed and destroyed, and that the only
institution that's working on planet earth to sustain any kind
of semblance of a family model is the gospel, that the gospel
church and the gospel ministry has the ability, has the ability
to be the real glue which binds families together. Am I telling
the truth? This is why I'm confident that
the Lord Jesus knew that better is the latter end than the beginning.
That he knew that he would have his family at the end of his
ministry when he died for them than for him to try to have them
now before he paid the ultimate price. And often I say that to
us in our love for our loved ones and our desire for our loved
ones to be where we are and to know what we know and to have
what we have. and to be secure for all eternity, you're going
to have to be patient. You're going to have to pray,
but you're going to have to be committed to Christ. You're going
to have to be patient. You're going to have to pray,
but you're going to have to be committed to Christ. You see
the God who created the kingdom of God, which is now receiving
men and women from every nation, kindred, tribe and tongue and
making us a family under God is the same God that created
the first family. and he is capable of taking broken
families and bringing them back together. But you got to do it
God's way. Am I making some sense? This
is so critical. God help us to see this. God
help us to see this. Therefore, religious nepotism
must be destroyed. Point number four. This is quite
interesting. You'll see the twist here now. In our Lord's demonstrably
setting forth the priority of the kingdom of God and thus speaking
that way to the crowd because he was pressed about with multitudes
of people and they are all looking in his face and they're waiting
for the words that drop out of his mouth as he is setting forth
his his his clear prioritizing of the gospel over against his
family you know what he's doing are you ready he is affirming
the true family status now When we heard him say, who
is my mother and my brother but these who do the will of God?
Listen carefully to me. He wasn't merely being nice. He was establishing for us the
crystal clear fact. Are you ready? That God has a
family. He's bringing to bear on the
conscience of the whole crowd the issue of whose family are
you a part of? And he's making it very clear
that God has a family. Paul used this language in Ephesians
chapter three, where he spoke of, and I bow my knee to the
God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom is the whole
family in heaven and earth. He viewed the church of the living
God as the family of the triune God of which he was ready to
lay down his life for that family. Now the question is, are you
part of that family? Are you hearing what I'm saying? Are
you part of that family? Those of us who are believers,
if we understand that familial language, that we are part of
that family, then here's what we know. We are not part of the
family of God by virtue of our bloodline. We weren't born physically
into the kingdom of God. You hear these religious folk
when you talk to them, particularly the ones that grew up in your
more, uh, uh, pedo churches, uh, where they are born into
the church. Well, how long you've been in
church? I've been in the church all my life. Well, what church you're part
of? Because the true church is not a church to which you can
physically be born into. You must be born spiritually
into the church of the living God. And so you know what the
Bible says in John chapter 1 verse 12? As many as received Him,
to them He gave power to become the sons of God. them that believe
on his name who were not born of the will of the flesh nor
of the will of blood nor of the will of blood or the will of
man but of God meaning there was no bloodline there was no
human works there was nothing that we did in the physical sense
by which you and I secure our status with God you've got to
be born of God in order to be part of God's family you have
to be born into it am I making some sense Born into the kingdom
now, you can be born into the physical corporate church But
the best you're going to get is a hearing To be in the church
It's not the same as being in christ and it's certainly not
the same as being in glory or in the kingdom of god Please
understand that for you and i to be able to have some confidence
that we are going to glory We must be born of god If we are
then we'll be able to say That we are part of that heavenly
family when jesus says this he is affirming the doctrine of
regeneration Remember romans chapter 2 verse 28 29. Don't
go there Paul is arguing with the jews because the jews somehow
believe that they are the people of god and paul said listen He
that is a jew outwardly is not a true jew Just because you can
prove you're circumcised doesn't make you a child of god He that
is a jew inwardly whose circumcision is of the heart, whose praise
is not of men, but of God. He is a true Jew. You know what
that did? That excluded every physical
blood lineage under Abraham from the kingdom of God. That was
a radical truth that got Jesus killed as well. That just because
you know your Bible and you know doctrine and you go to church
makes you a child of God. No, it doesn't. For you to be
a child of God, you need to be regenerate, born again, quickened
by the Spirit of the living God. And once you become a true Jew,
there are clear and abundant evidences So Romans chapter 2
verses 28 and 29 teach us of the grace of regeneration. Remember
what Galatians chapter 3 verse 28 says? If you be Christ, then
are you Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise of God by faith. If you be Christ, then are you
Abraham's seed and you are heirs of the promise of God by faith.
Now you are part of the family. The one talks of grace, the other
talks of faith. Do you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ? Do you trust Him as your Lord
and Savior? Have you received the full-orbed
message of the gospel and rely on that gospel as your only hope
for glory? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So when we talk about believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
we are talking about believing on the person and the work of
Christ, are we not? And having heard the message
of eternal redemption through the God-man Jesus Christ, your
soul says yes to Christ. as your only hope for glory.
That makes you a family member. That makes you a family member.
So, not only does it require the grace of God, not only does
it require faith, but it's precisely what the scriptures tell us in
Romans chapter 8. Go there. I want you to see one
verse before we go to our next point. What am I doing? I'm simply
helping us understand that when Jesus said, Who are my mothers? And who are my brethren? And
in Mark's account, he says, Who are my sisters? He wants us to
understand that he always understood that there was a family of God. that didn't set aside the physical
family but transcended it by bringing men and women in this
physical dimension into the real spiritual dimension so that we
could be part of the true family of God. Now how do I know that
I am part of the family of God? I want you to see it in Romans
chapter 8. Watch this. In Romans chapter 8, here's the objective
for which God has chosen to establish family members. I'm going to
read verse 28 and 29. It's in the latter part of verse
29. Now we know that all things work together for good to them
that what to them who are called according to his purpose now
here it is watch this for whom he did for no remember what we
learned that that's a covenant term for god having a special
love for you He also did predestinate. That means God had purposed out
in a specific way what your destination would be and what you would ultimately
be. Now, here's what predestination
is all about. Watch this, ladies and gentlemen.
For some of you, this is going to be the first time you hear
this. Predestination is God's determination before the world
began to reshape you. into the image of his only begotten
Son so that you can be part of the family of God looking just
like Christ. Predestination is to be conformed
to the image of his Son in order that Jesus Christ by virtue of
the magnanimous sacrifice that he executed Because he loved
his father and because he loved sinners, God is now going to
reward him with a multitude of men and women from every nation,
from the beginning of time to the end of time, a number that
cannot be numbered on our part, of brothers and sisters. Are
you ready? That look just like him. Got it? That look just like How do I know I'm part of the
family of God? Because the Spirit of God has hunted me down by
the gospel, got a hold of me, and started towing me in little
by little. Are you hearing me? Having quickened
me by his Spirit, opened my ears, opened my eyes, caused me to
see the glory of God, placed in my heart a longing not only
to know Christ, but to be just like him. I want to be like my
big brother, the son of my father. That's how I know. That's how
I know. And I long for it. And as such,
as the text clearly indicates, we put ourselves by the grace
of God in position at Christ's feet. We put ourselves by the
grace of God in position at Christ's feet. because we love him. Are you hearing me? And see,
when I say that by virtue of Christ taking the opportunity
to do what he did right here, give me a few more minutes of
your time. By virtue of Christ taking the opportunity for him
to do what he did right here is remarkable because I do believe
in emotional intelligence. I do believe in thinking about
the blessing of the word of God as it penetrates the soul of
men and women who by the grace of God are following Christ.
Now watch this, now watch this. Don't you Think for a moment
that when Christ admonished us to understand the priority of
the gospel, that what he's saying would not be an absolutely tremendous
blessing to the people who were sitting in front of him. Are
you hearing me? These people that were sitting
in front of him were the people who had been following him for
months. who had been following Him on the trails, who had gone
into the deserts, who had sat at the seaside. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? They had sacrificed to pursue
Christ. They had sacrificed to be where He was. They knew He
was the Messiah. They were like the disciples.
Where should we go? You are the only one with the
words of life. And so everywhere Jesus is preaching and teaching,
they're plopped down right in front of Him. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? Jesus also knows this. Are you ready? He also
knows that the people that are in front of Him who are enjoying
his preaching and teaching and the good fried chicken and hot
biscuits whenever they need it. Him meeting the sufficiency of
their needs. If they're hungry, he turns the loaves into bread.
He multiplies the catfish and fries it and gives it to him,
right? That's my interpretation. I mean, if he's gonna multiply,
just give me some fried catfish. Watch this, will you hear me?
As he demonstrates himself to be a sufficient savior in meeting
their needs For people who have come to him by faith He rewards
them publicly in front of everybody by saying to everyone He that
cometh unto me must believe that I am And am a rewarder of them
that what diligently seek me now watch this hear me hear me
now. He just rewarded them Did he just reward them? No, watch
this. Boy, I know my head is going
to be big if I'm sitting at the feet of the master and our master
stands up and he says to the crowd, who is my mother and my
brethren? And then Matthew's gospel says,
and he pointed to his disciples and said, these are my mother
and my brethren. These are my mother and my brother
see the people watch this now the people who nobody suspected
And they were even wondering whether or not this is all of
not will this just evaporate one day Will he preach and teach
and be an itinerant preacher and then one day go away and
it's all over with you know How ministry goes it comes and goes
doesn't it? Here the Son of God is publicly
owning His disciples in front of everyone. Wouldn't that make
you feel good? Tell the truth. Wouldn't it make
you feel good to have the Master say to everyone, this is my brother,
this is my sister, this is my family. Wouldn't that crystallize
for you the need to prioritize the Gospel? for you to know that
God will reward you one day watch it now one day we're telling
everybody this is my brother this is my sister which moves
us to our next point he gives a precursor to the day when he
will honor men do you see that in your outline is that in your
outline good because i have other things in my notes here's what
i'm saying i want you to get this Our Lord knew when he began to
call men and women to himself that he was laying down promises,
eternally precious promises, of which many of them would not
be fulfilled in this life. That's why coming to Christ is
a matter of what? Faith! And believing on him and
trusting him is a matter of grace. believing God for things that
have not yet come to pass and also according to the Word of
God will never come to pass on this side of glory requires the
grace of God. On top of that, when you come
to Christ by faith, believing the gospel and thus are a follower
of Jesus, he knows that you are gonna have to suffer for his
cause. Am I telling the truth? He knows
you're gonna have to suffer for his cause so when we talk about
the doctrine of suffering for Christ, we talk about the scales
of Suffering on the one hand and glory on the other hand as
Paul put it in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 remember what he says
He says that the sufferings that we experience work for us They
don't work against us. They work for us a far greater
exceeding weight of glory If you can apprehend your sufferings
and know that they are for Christ, here's what you can know. If
you suffer for Christ on this side of the scale, on the other
side of the scale, glory is increasing. That's what he says. It works
for us a far greater weight of glory. In other words, one of
the primary motives of the believer as he follows Christ and suffers
for Christ is the glory of God. Entering into His glory means
we embrace what? Suffering. Our Lord knows that. So, you know, we talk about the
doctrine of assurance. Assurance is a fruit of faith.
Do you believe that? That's all assurance is. It's
a fruit of faith. And it's a dynamic that God produces in our life
in intervals when we are walking with Him and we are going through
the dark times and the difficult times and the trying times. And
come on now, if you're like me, don't you enjoy the fact that
God gives you a little assurance that you're His in the midst
of trouble? Don't you thank God when he gives you that little
glimmer of a revelation that you're his, because most of the
time I'm thinking I'm probably not his, not the way I'm acting,
not the way I'm thinking. And then he shows up in a revelation
of the gospel or in a providential act and he moves things and he
gives favor in order to whisper in my ear, you are mine, just
like I am yours. Well, that's what he did to this
crowd right here. Are you hearing me? He let this crowd know this
is what constitutes my brethren. And they will experience the
blessing of one day. Watch this. The blessing of one
day when the whole world stands before God. Jesus will say, I
am not ashamed. to call him my brother. I am
not ashamed of calling her my sister. I am not ashamed of calling
them my brethren because they honored me down here, not being
ashamed of me down here. I own them, Father, as my family
before all the angels, before all the devils, before all the
world that persecuted us for Christ's sake. Am I making some
sense? He cares about his family members, don't he? because they've
got to go through what he's got to go through. And I think, I'm
going to say this, I believe to say this, that when you experience
what David experienced, as the psalmist said, I think it's Psalm
27, when my mother and my father forsake me, the Lord will take
me up. Say that with trembling lips.
I don't ever want my mother to forsake me. I don't ever want
my family to forsake me, but if they do, I know God will take
me up. I know God will take care of
me. Are you hearing what I'm saying? I know God will provide
for me. Now what I am talking about right now is the doctrine
of adoption. I'm talking about those who are
destitute of mamas and daddies because their mamas and daddies
hated God or were so bent on their own agenda that they left
their sons and their daughters to themselves. And God is the
one that takes up orphans and makes them his children, doesn't
he? And so every redeemed, born again, orphaned child of God
can say, when my mother and my father forsake me, the Lord took
me up. The Lord took me up. And they
can also say, who is my mother and my brother? But those who
do the will of God, who showed me kindness and preached the
gospel to me and invited me into the family of God by calling
me to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I am so thankful for
my brethren who preach the gospel to me, aren't you? I am so thankful
for my brethren who proclaim the message of redemption for
me. One more thing then in our outline. He not only gives a
precursor or a foreshadow to the day when he will honor us
publicly to be glorified in all his saints is the way Second
Thessalonians 1 tense puts it. When Jesus shall come with flaming
fire, taking vengeance on all those who know not God and obey
not the gospel to be glorified in his people. What a day that's
gonna be. When he comes, he's going to
be glorified in all of his people. Do you know what that means?
That means when he comes, he'll come in the fullness of the glory
of his father and that glory will permeate one of every one
of God's people. Every one of us will be enveloped
and overwhelmed and transformed by the glory of God and taken
up in the glory of the ineffable bliss. You will be looking good
that day. you will be looking good that
day what a day that is point number
six i think this is important when jesus said who are my brethren
who was my mother and my sister he made visible the invisible does somebody know what i'm talking
about this is how god works I'm almost done. Carnally, if we had the power,
we would pick and choose whose disciples would be Jesus. Yes, we would. If we had the
power, we would pick and choose who would be pastors, who would
be elders and deacons, who would be preachers. If we had the power,
we would pick who we wanted to be in our church, right? And probably none of y'all would
be in my church if we had the power, right? If
we had the power. Come on now, I just need a little
honesty. I told you honest people are not going to hell. We learned that last week out
of a good and honest heart, receiving the word of God, keeping it and
guarding it, it bore forth fruit. Watch this. If you had the power,
you would choose different people than Jesus chooses. You would
have the people to be part of your kingdom that jesus would
not have And as a consequence what christ does because he knows
our world is backwards. You're backwards i'm backwards
You know what? He does from time to time in
his love for us because we've been called to humility. Haven't
we? You know what he does. He makes the invisible visible
the marginalized he exalts The people that are said it not,
he uses mightily. The individuals that you don't
like are the ones that end up bearing fruit. That's how God
works. Are you hearing me? So the Bible
tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verses 26 through 31, You know,
brethren, not many mighty or many noble or many wise or many
strong are called. But God has chosen the weak things
of the world to confound the mighty. The base things of the
world to confound those things that are high and lifted up.
And God has called those things that are, watch this, nothing.
That's the invisible. To bring to naught the ones that
appear to be something. That's how God works. That's
exactly how God works. And one day, that's why I say
this is a precursor. One day when God pulls the veil back
on this thing called faith and he shows it for what it really,
really, really, really is. You're going to be looking and
go, oh, I didn't know he was there. What's such and such at? I just knew such and such. What's
such and such at? I knew such and such. I got that
wrong. You sure did. because that's
how God works. So let me say it. God resists
the proud and he gives grace to the humble. And the people
that are going to be part of the family of God are going to
be humble people. Humble people. And God will see
to it that those humble people who do his will, who do his bidding,
will be ultimately honored. The scriptures are clear. He
that honoreth me, him I will honor. Point seven and done.
Hearing correctly means responding correctly. You guys got that? Hearing correctly means responding
correctly. That's in your text. I'm just
going to read it and we'll close right here. Jesus in his preaching
and teaching warned all of us to hear correctly Don't misunderstand
what our Lord is saying. Get the point. He that hath ears
to hear, what? Let him hear. And so the scripture
tells us here in our text, verse 16, no man, when he lights a
candle, covers it with the vessel, does he? Or puts it under a bed,
but sets it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may
see the light. You know what he's saying to
you and me? Don't be ashamed of the gospel. Set the gospel
up as a priority and you will benefit men. They'll be able
to find their way into the house. For nothing is secret that shall
not be made what? You know what he's saying? You
can hide now, but you won't hide later. You might as well act
as if there is no darkness at all. walk in the light for that
which is hid shall be known and come abroad take heed therefore
how you hear for whosoever have to him shall be given and whosoever
have not from him shall even be taken that which he seems
to have so let me close with this practical word of advice
did our Lord rebuke his physical family Perhaps. But all whom the Lord loves.
He chases. The message is a call to family. But at its highest levels. Where
division is impossible. And we're suffering and trouble
resolved through the cross of Jesus Christ and where the aim
is not our good first but God's glory now and our glorification
with him in eternity where forgiveness of sins and the gift of righteousness
allows us as his family to pursue his will where he will never
be ashamed to call us his brethren. That's this whole business, where
he will never be ashamed to call us his brethren. Amen.