For years an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems, and for years his family tried again and again to persuade him to get a hearing aid, but he always refused. Then finally, one day, he gave in. He went to the doctor and was fitted for a set of one of those nearly invisible hearing aids that allowed him to hear 100 percent.
A month later he went back to the doctor. The doctor said with a smile, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased that you can hear again.”
The old man replied, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to their conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!” (“Hearing Problems,” Crosswalk.com, 12-03-02; www.PreachingToday.com)
I wonder what WE would do if we heard some of the things our family members say when they think we can’t hear them. You see, sometimes even our own families can be very thoughtless. Our own mothers and fathers or brothers and sisters can say things about us that really hurt, such words that cut very deeply, simply because they are family. They are people who are supposed to know us best, so their thoughtless words end up hurting us the worst. My dear friends, that’s when life gets terribly lonely.
Well, Jesus Himself experienced that kind of loneliness, but He showed us the way to find true family. He showed us the way to find people, who truly care, to find a connection with people who truly understand. So if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Mark 3, Mark 3, where Jesus talks about his true family.
Mark 3:20-21 Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” (NIV)
Literally, he is standing beside himself. The term describes someone who is “ecstatic in the sense of psychic derangement” (Lane). Jesus misses a meal, and His own earthy family thinks he’s crazy! They come from 30 miles away to “take charge of him” or to arrest him. They want to seize him and forcibly bring him home.
It reminds me of Mark’s family in the 13th Century. His Italian mother had named him after the gospel writer Mark in the hopes that he too would tell the gospel truth. But 13th Century Europeans found it impossible to believe Mark’s tales of faraway lands. He claimed that, when he was only seventeen, he took an epic journey lasting a quarter of a century, taking him across the steppes of Russia, the rugged mountains of Afghanistan, the wastelands of Persia, and over the top of the world through the Himalayas.
He was the first European to enter China. Through an amazing set of circumstances, he became a favorite of the most powerful ruler on planet earth, the Kublai Khan. Mark saw cities that made European capitals look like roadside villages. The Khan’s palace dwarfed the largest castles and cathedrals in Europe. It was so massive that its banquet room alone could seat 6,000 diners at one time, each eating on a plate of pure gold.
Mark saw the world’s first paper money and marveled at the explosive power of gunpowder. It would be another 500 years before Europe would manufacture as much steel as China was producing in the year 1267. Mark became the first Italian to taste that Chinese culinary invention, pasta. And as an officer of the Khan’s court, he traveled to places no European would see for another 500 years.
Then after serving the Kublai Khan for 17 years, Mark began his journey home to Venice, loaded down with gold, silk, and spices. When he arrived home, people dismissed his stories of a mythical place called China. His family priest rebuked him for telling lies. And at his deathbed, his family, friends, and priest begged him to recant his tales of China. But setting his jaw and gasping for breath, Mark spoke his final words, “I have not even told you half of what I saw.”
13th Century Europeans rejected his stories as the tales of a liar or a lunatic, but history has proven the truth of those stories, which he wrote in a book about his adventures called The Travels of Marco Polo. (Dr. Robert Petterson in a sermon given at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 11-8-09; www.PreachingToday. com)
The same thing happened 13 hundred years before that when Jesus began talking about a strange place called “the Kingdom of God.” Even His own family thought He was insane, especially when He claimed to be the King of that Kingdom.
Tell me. What would YOU think about someone who made such claims today? We could only conclude that such a person was crazy! Jesus doesn’t leave us with very many options. That’s what his earthly family thought. But if you want to be a part of his real family, then…
DON’T RIDICULE HIM AS A LUNATIC.
Don’t write Him off as someone who has lost His mind, and…
DON’T REJECT HIM AS A DEVIL.
Don’t turn Him away as Satan himself, the prince of demons. That’s what the religious leaders did.
Mark 3:22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebub! (or better, He has Beelzeboul, which means “the lord of the house”). By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
The religious leaders accuse Jesus of having Satan himself within, by whom He is casting out other demons.
Mark 3:23-26 So Jesus called them and spoke to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. (NIV)
Jesus exposes their faulty logic. It doesn’t make sense for Satan to drive out his own demons, because he would be defeating himself, and Satan is not that stupid! More than that, Jesus makes it very clear that He is more powerful than Satan!
Mark 3:27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house. (NIV)
The “strong man” is Satan; and since Jesus is constantly robbing Satan of his demons from those who were demon possessed, that means Jesus has bound Satan in every instance. Jesus is more powerful than Satan!
In fact, Christ at his weakest was more powerful than Satan at his strongest. When Jesus died on the cross, Satan may have bruised Him on the heal in that great fight, but there on that cross, Christ dealt the fatal blow to Satan’s head (Genesis 3:15). Colossians 2:15 says, “Having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” And Hebrews 2:14 says, “By his death he destroyed him who holds the power of death – that is the devil.”
George Herbert, a 17th century English poet, once put it this way: “Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him just a gardener.” (George Herbert, English poet, 1593-1633)
Jesus rendered Satan powerless on the cross, but Satan doesn’t want us to know that. Instead, he plays “head games” with us, which is really all he can do.
When Alexander the Great came to power, he ordered his armor makers to construct oversized breastplates and helmets that would fit men 7 or 8 feet tall. That way, on those rare occasions, when his army found themselves in full retreat from a larger army, all they had to do was leave the oversized armor for the pursuing army to discover. Then when the bigger army found the oversized gear, they would be demoralized by the thought of fighting such giant soldiers, and they would abandon their pursuit. (Tim Downs, Head Game, Thomas Nelson, 2007, p. 309; www.Preaching Today.com)
Well, that’s exactly what Satan does to us. Christ has him on the run. He is already defeated, but he likes to make us think he is bigger than he really is, demoralizing us with fear and doubt.
Hey, the next time Satan does that to you, don’t be fooled. Instead, look to the cross and see Jesus at His weakest still more powerful than Satan at his strongest. Jesus is more powerful than Satan, and Jesus has a warning for those who would refuse to recognize who He is.
Mark 3:28-30 I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an evil spirit.” (NIV)
I.e., they were CONTINUING to say, “He has an evil spirit.” The tense of the verb implies “repetition and a fixed attitude of mind,” which brought the religious leaders “to the brink of unforgivable blasphemy” (Lane).
Please, understand what Jesus is saying here. The “unforgiveable sin” is not some slip of the tongue. It is a fixed attitude of mind which constantly calls the Holy Spirit in Christ a devil, and refuses over a long period of time to acknowledge that Jesus is indeed the Son of God.
If you’re concerned that you might have at one time committed “the unpardonable sin,” I can assure you that you have not committed it, because if you had, you wouldn’t care. The “unpardonable sin” is slandering the work of God’s Spirit over such a long period of time that your heart has become so callous and hard that the Holy Spirit never bothers you again. He ceases to convict you of sin, righteousness and judgment and lets you die in your sins.
The religious leaders themselves talked about such an “unforgivable sin.” From their own writings they said, “The Holy One, blessed be he, pardons everything else, but on profanation of the Name [i.e., blasphemy] he takes vengeance immediately” (Lane, quoting Sifre on Deut 32:38). Well, Jesus tells these religious leaders that they are in danger of committing that very sin.
God, the Father, had sent John the Baptist to prepare the nation for the coming of their Messiah. And many people responded to John’s message, but the religious leaders rejected him.
Later, God, the Son, came Himself and called the nation to trust Him, but the religious leaders demanded that Pontius Pilate crucify Him. Even so, Jesus cried from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Then, God, the Holy Spirit, came at Pentecost and demonstrated God’s power in many convincing ways. Again, many people responded in faith, but the religious leaders arrested those who proclaimed His message and killed some of them. Stephen, who was stoned by the Sanhedrin, told them in Acts 7, “You always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51).
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day had sinned against the Father and the Son, and God still gave them more chances. But when they continued to resist the Holy Spirit, there came a time when God gave up on them and let them die with their sins un-forgiven.
The only sin that God cannot forgive is a stubborn refusal to trust Christ as your Savior. My friends, if you’re here as an unbeliever, I urge you: don’t be like those religious leaders and keep on resisting the Holy Spirit’s conviction in your life. Don’t harden your heart any further, lest you become like those religious leaders who actually thought Jesus was the devil.
Instead, trust Christ as your Savior today. If you want to be a part of His real family, don’t ridicule Him as a lunatic; don’t reject Him as a devil. Instead…
RECEIVE HIM AS LORD.
Accept Jesus Christ as YOUR Lord and Savior. Welcome Him into your life and let Him take charge.
Mark 3:31-35 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (NIV)
Closer to Christ than any earthly family are those who have answered His call to be with Him and to do His Father’s will. In dramatic contrast, the earthly mother and half-brothers of Jesus stand outside, while those who make up his spiritual family are seated within the house. (Lane, pp.137-138)
Do you want to be a part of a family that’s closer than any earthly family? Then I invite you to enter Christ’s family by joining with Him in doing His Father’s will. When Jesus looked around Him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers,” He was saying that about his disciples. He was saying that about those who trusted Him as Lord. He was saying that about those who answered his call to be with Him (Mark 3:14).
It’s a call Jesus extends to you and me today! “Come, be with me,” He says, “that I might send you forth to speak for me and exercise my power over the forces of evil in this world.” It’s an invitation to be a part of His family!
About 10 years ago, Jon Foote and his wife, Lori, were working with a youth group in Nebraska. That’s when they met Amanda, a teenage girl the same age as their son, Wesley. Amanda came from a terribly abusive home and was eventually taken from her parents by the state. Jon and Lori welcomed her into their home.
Then, a little more than three years ago (August 2009), Jon and Lori legally adopted Amanda at the age of 22. Her name was changed to Amanda Foote, and she even got a new birth certificate! Jon and Lori now have three legal heirs, and Amanda has two new brothers. Her former parents, who disowned her, lost any legal claim they might have had on her, and the process was relatively simple because she was more than 21 years of age. All they had to do was appear before a judge.
Jon and Lori Foote had thought of Amanda as their daughter for a long time, but when asked if anything felt different after that day at the courthouse, Jon said, “Absolutely! When it was official,” he said, “there was a huge change in Lori and me – sort of like when you see your newborn for the first time. And for Amanda, there was a change in her, too. Now she knew she belonged. She knew we were her parents.” !" (Lee Eclov, Vernon Hills, Illinois; www.PreachingToday.com)
It’s that sense of belonging that Jesus offers to anyone who answers His call. We get a new name – CHRISTian! We get a new legal standing in heaven as we become joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And we get a new family – God becomes our Father and Jesus our Brother with many other brothers and sisters in Christ.
But more than that, God does for us what Jon and Lori could never do for Amanda. He gives us His own Holy Spirit. It’s like giving us His own DNA, so that we become more and more like Him as we grow up in His family.
Isn’t that what you want? Then answer Christ’s call to be with Him today, to be a part of His family.
I like the way Joni Eareckson Tada put it: “You don’t have to be alone in your hurt! Comfort is yours. Joy is an option. And it’s all been made possible by your Savior. He went without comfort so you might have it. He postponed joy so you might share in it. He willingly chose isolation so you might never be alone in your hurt and sorrow. (Joni Eareckson Tada, Christian Reader, Vol. 32, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
All you need to do is trust Jesus with your life. Acknowledge Him as YOUR Lord, and submit yourself to His Father’s will today.
It’s really the only choice we have, because we know that Jesus is no lunatic, and we know that Jesus is no devil. Jesus is in fact LORD, and we must acknowledge Him as such. There is no middle ground. There is no other choice.
C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, put it this way: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Tell me, what are you going to do with Jesus this morning? Shut him up for a fool? Spit at him as a demon? Or fall at his feet and call him Lord? I hope you choose the latter, because then and only then will you find your true family.
