Mark 3:31-35: What It Means to Be a Member of the Family of Jesus

INTRODUCTION

You will remember that during Jesus’s life he was often attacked by those who were out of sympathy with not in sympathy with his message.

Some of his enemies felt threatened because he was associating with notorious sinners, with tax collectors and prostitutes and people who didn’t live according to all the rules of their religion.

Some of his enemies became so alarmed by his teaching and behavior that they said he had a demon.

It is hard enough to be attacked by our enemies.

But there was something even worse for Jesus.

His family also became alarmed. The quiet, responsible Jesus who had lived with them for 30 years, the son and older brother they had depended on after Joseph had died—this son of Mary and brother of James, Joses, Juda, and Simon and of sisters also whose names we don’t know—had been acting strange lately.

He had left home and was preaching a kind of message no one had heard before, gathering crowds, and healing people of all kinds of diseases.

He was surrounded by noisy crowds. People were leaving their homes to follow him. He was becoming a controversial figure.

His family, who loved him, became worried that he had become unbalanced—a fanatic—unpredictable—what we would call “mentally ill.”

We read about this in Mark 3:19-22 we read: “…and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’ And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons’” (NRSV).

Now let me read the verses we are going to consider today:

And his mother and brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you.”

And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

I. Some have been offended by what they consider his harsh words about those who were nearest and dearest to him—his mother and brothers and sisters.

A. We know that Jesus had a tender regard for his mother.

We see this in the story of the cross. As Jesus hung dying on the cross, we read, “He saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, and he said to his mother, ‘Woman behold your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!’ and from that hour the disciple took her to his own home” (John 19:26-27).

In this way, even in the extremity of his pain, he was able to make provision for the care of his grieving mother by committing her to the care of his dearest disciple.

This is one of the so-called “Seven Sayings of Jesus from the Cross.”

B. We also know that until later his own brothers didn’t believe in him. We read this in John 7.

C. No, Jesus wasn’t rebuffing his family. Jesus was using this situation to teach his disciples—and us—something of the greatest importance.

Jesus often used situations that arose in the course of his life to teach lessons.

These were what teachers call “teachable moments,” opportunities to use an unexpected situation to teach important lessons that his hearers would never forget. For example, a teachable moment may come when a child misbehaves: the teacher stops the lesson he or she is teaching to talk about the more important lesson of courtesy and respect.

Do you remember the story in which James and John came to Jesus and asked to have the privilege of sitting at his right hand and left hand in the Kingdom of God? Jesus took the opportunity to teach his disciples and us wherein true greatness lies: he said (Mark 11:43-45), “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came, not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Do you remember that when parents brought their little children to him to be blessed, and the disciples tried to shoo them away? Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10:13-15).

II. When Jesus’s family came to rescue him from the crowds because they thought he was becoming unbalanced was just such a teachable moment.

A. In those days families stayed together. They worked together in the family business or on the family farm.

They lived in the same village and maybe in the same house. They didn’t split up and go far away like families do here and now.

I have a brother in Argentina, another in Florida, and one in Arizona. I have sisters in Kansas and Chicago.

We don’t see each other very often. I feel closer to some of them than to others, but we have grown apart because we see each other so seldom.

It wasn’t so in the Palestine of Jesus’s time. Jesus’s seeming rebuff of his family would have surprised and scandalized those sitting around him more than we can imagine.

And for that reason, the lesson he taught them that day was never forgotten.

B. Notice the lesson Jesus draws from this situation.

We read that he looked around at the people sitting before him. His eyes rested on one and on another—it was a searching look.

These are the ones who have responded to his message.

Among them were people who had left family and friends and jobs to follow him, to learn of him, and to become part of his mission to the world.

As a former teacher, I can tell you how satisfying to have students who are attentive, who want to learn, who hang on every word with a thirst for knowledge.

This pleased Jesus too.

And Jesus said to them: “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

They might have been surprised that they were “doing God’s will” when all they were doing was sitting listening to him talking.

Doing God’s will means, first of all, choosing to be with Jesus when people all around were saying, “Stay away from him.”

You are doing God’s will by being here this afternoon.

Obedience begins with listening to Jesus.

But it doesn’t end there.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me…”

Jesus’s true family—his sisters and brothers and mothers—are those who are obedient to his commands.

They listen to his voice as it comes to them in his Word—as it comes to them in their consciences—as it comes to them in the words faithful believers.

And then we live our lives to please him—by telling the truth when we are tempted to lie, by visiting the sick, by our generosity, by serving the needy, by loving the unlovable, by bearing witness to God.

Many of you have lived your lives like that. And you are still finding opportunities to serve him, even here at Village Ridge.

Jesus made it very clear in his teaching that it isn’t the one who says he or she believes in Jesus who will enter the kingdom of God on the last day; it isn’t even the one who goes to church; it’s the one who makes it his aim in life to do God’s will.

Sometimes it’s a painful sacrifice to obey Jesus, but for the true believer, there’s no other option.

CONCLUSION

An old woman in Scotland said to her pastor: “That was a grand sermon you preached last Lord’s Day.”

Wanting to test the sincerity of her remark, the pastor asked, “Do you remember the text I preached from?”

“Ah minister!” she answered, “I don’t remember the text or the words, but I came home and took the false bottom out of my peck measure.”

A missionary-translator said, “For a long time we were looking for a word for ‘obedience.’ One day as I went home from the village my dog stayed behind. I whistled and he came running after me at top speed. An old man by the roadside said with admiration: ‘Your dog is all ear.’ I got hold of that expression and found in it the perfect word for ‘obedience.’”

The most common Greek word for “obedience” in the New Testament is “hupakoe” which is built on the word “akouo,” which means “to hear.”

A Muslim converted to faith in Christ.

This is his first prayer as a Christian believer: “O God, I am Mustafah the tailor and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali. The whole day long I sit and pull the needle and the thread through the cloth.

“O God, you are the needle and I am the thread. I am attached to you and I follow you. When the thread tries to slip away from the needle, it becomes tangled and must be cut so that it can be put back in the right place.

“O God, help me to follow you wherever you may lead me. For I am really only Mustafah, the tailor, and I work at the shop of Muhammad Ali on the great square.”

Every morning and every evening let us remind ourselves that we have been called to obey God. Let us pray that we will love to do his will, no matter what the difficulty, and let us pray that we will never flag in our zeal to please him. Let us keep this resolve strong in our hearts until the end of the road.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9: What Does It Mean to Love God with All Your Heart?

INTRODUCTION

In 1945 Rabbi Eliezer Silver was sent to Europe to help reclaim Jewish children who had been hidden during the Holocaust with non-Jewish families.

Some of these children had lived with Gentile families for years. Many were so young they could hardly remember the life before they were rescued.

Here is how he was able to discover the Jewish children.

He would go to gatherings of children and loudly proclaim:

“Hear, O Israel:

The Lord our God is one Lord;

 and you shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.”

Then he would look at the faces of the children for those with tears in their eyes.

The children with tears in their eyes were those with a distant memory of their mother putting them to bed each night with these words.

This was the first prayer that little Jewish children have been taught since ancient times—long before the time of Jesus.

Mary probably put little Jesus to bed with these words.

It is traditional for Jews to say these words twice daily—just before dawn and just after sunset.

When they say these words they are supposed to say them slowly and distinctly, and they are instructed to put their hands over their eyes so as to avoid any distraction.

And according to custom, these are the last words the Jewish believer will say before death.

The story is told of a Jewish soldier who threw himself on a live hand grenade to save his comrades. And as he did so his comrades heard him say these words.

We read that Jesus quoted these words as recorded in Matthew 22 and Mark 12, and the scribe quoted the words to Jesus in Luke 10.

I. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is the most important part of scripture to Jewish believers.

A. The entire passage reads:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;

and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

and with all your soul,

and with all your might.

And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart;

and you shall teach them diligently to your children,

and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,

and when you walk by the way,

and when you lie down,

and when you rise.

And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand,

and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

The Jews call this the Shema Yisrael after the first two words, “Hear, O Israel.”

Usually it’s called simply the Shema, which means in Hebrew, “hear.”

B. The Shema was considered a confession of faith—and a prayer.

In saying it the believer confessed—in a world of many gods—that he or she belonged to the one true God.

The believer professed the intention to love the Lord his God with all his or her being.

Prayer doesn’t have to be asking for something or thanking God for something.

Prayer can simply be affirming a truth about God—reminding myself of what it means to belong to God and to be one of God’s children.

C. Notice how important this prayer is as it is presented in Deuteronomy:

These words are to be upon their hearts.

They are to teach them diligently to their children.

They are to talk of them when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down, and when they rise.

They are to bind them as a sign upon their hand,

They are to be as frontlets between their eyes.

And they are to write them on the doorposts of their houses and on their city gates.

Christians and most Jews think of binding them as a sign on their hands, and having them as frontlets between their eyes and writing them upon the doorposts of their houses as figurative language.

But orthodox Jews came to take the words literally.

Even today orthodox Jews recite the prayer with little boxes containing these words tied above their foreheads and on their left arms. They are called “phylacteries.”

By the door of his house, the Jewish believer has a little box attached to the doorpost called a “mezuzah,” which contains these words. They believe that the Mezuzah protects the home.

When the believer leaves his house, he touches the mezuzah and repeats the words.

II. Why does God say “heart,” and “soul,” and “might”?

A. The “heart” in scripture never means the organ in your chest that pumps blood.

To the ancient person the heart meant the center of your life.

The heart was the part of you that you think with, feel with decide with.

Evil desires come from the heart.

The heart can be disobedient, hard, faithless, dull, and far from God.

Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (17:9).

But the heart is also where God dwells with you.

In Ephesians 3:17 Paul prays that God will grant the believers to be “strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man”—that means the heart—“that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

The heart is where we keep the Word of God: “Thy Word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.”

So when God asks us to love him with all of our heart, he means with all our intelligence, all our feelings, and all our will.

B. After it says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, it says, “…and with all your soul.”

I used to think of my soul as the little invisible thing inside me—about the size of a walnut—that flip-flops up to heaven when I die. But your soul in the Bible is the whole you—your whole life.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will you give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

In the gospels the words “soul” and “life” translate the same word in Greek.

Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life (or “soul”—same word) will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? (or “soul”—same word).

So my soul is really another way to say myself, my whole self.

C. Then God tells us to love him with all our might. By this we see that our love for God must be complete—with all the powers of our mind and body. With our time and money and energy.

D. Maybe I should remind you that in the Bible love is not mainly a feeling. Love, in the Bible, is a way of behaving.

To love God isn’t to have fond feelings about him.

God isn’t telling us to feel the strong emotion we call “being in love.”

Love is a way of behaving.

To love God means to put him first.

It means that I want to please him in all that I do.

It means obedience and trust and service.

It means loving those whom God loves—my family, my friend, my neighbor, and even my enemy.

CONCLUSION

Do you remember that motto that we used to see on the walls of many homes: “Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal, the silent listener to every conversation”?

I may be thinking about whatever occupies my mind, but I am always aware that Jesus is with me.

He is listening to my conversation.

He is sitting beside me while I watch TV, or read a book.

Jesus is my companion.

I’m not thinking about him all the time, but he’s always there in the background of my mind.

And if something good happens, I have the impulse to say, “Thank you, Jesus.”

And if a problem arises, it’s just natural to say, “Help me, Jesus.”

And to keep Jesus in mind we pray every day.

We call to mind scripture. We go to services. We speak of Christ to others.

To help them feel that Christ is present some believers keep a picture of Jesus on the wall.

Others display a scripture verse prominently in their room.

Catholic Christians hang a crucifix by their bed.

Or we may keep our Bible on a table where we will see it often, and where we can, any time we like, pick it up and read.

My grandmother used to sing hymns while she did her housework.

Here is a prayer that I use. It is from St. Columbanus, who died in AD 615:

I beg you, most loving Savior,

to reveal yourself to me,

so that knowing you, I may desire you,

and desiring you, I may love you,

and loving you I may ever hold you in my thoughts.

When we are ever holding Jesus in our thoughts, we are learning to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our might.