The True Family of God, Pt. 1

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These days, we throw around the word “family” loosely. We use it to describe all kinds of relationships––best friends, team mates, and sometimes even co-workers! Somewhere along the way, the word got stretched. Pastor Nick Gatzke reveals Jesus’s surprising claim about who truly belongs to The Family of God.

Friends, please pray with me. Father, we pray that you would bless the reading and the preaching of your most holy word. Continue to challenge us, convict us, build us up and encourage us, we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen. The subject of family comes with mixed emotions for many of us. For some of us, our families give us great pleasure and joy, encouragement. For others of us, our family is the source maybe of our greatest hurt. And for many of us, we might fall somewhere in the middle.

The topic of family is, well, it’s complicated. Johnny Carson once said back when he was hosting The Tonight Show on NBC that Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then they discover that once a year is way too often. But there’s no doubt about the fact that your family has a massive influence on the person that you will become.

Two families from the state of New York were studied very carefully by sociologists and historians. One was the Max Jukes family, and the other was the family of the Puritan Jonathan Edwards. And the thing that they discovered in this study was remarkable, but not completely surprising. Like begets like. Your family shapes your identity, and it informs your trajectory. Max Jukes was an unbelieving man, and he married a woman of like character who lacked principle. And among the known descendants over 1200 were studied. 310 of them became professional vagrants. 440 physically wrecked their lives by a debauched lifestyle. 130 were sent to prison for an average of 13 years apiece, and seven of them for murder. There were over 100 who became alcoholics. 60 became habitual thieves. 190 public prostitutes. And of the 20 who learned to trade, 10 of them learned that trade in the state penitentiary. It cost the state $1.5 million, and they made no contribution to society whatsoever.

About the same era, the family of Jonathan Edwards came onto the scene. Edwards, a man of God, married a woman of like character. And as their family began, so did the trajectory of many lives. Of those studied, 300 of his relatives became clergymen, missionaries, or theological professors. 100 others became college professors in other fields. Over 100 became attorneys, with 30 of them being judges. 60 of them became physicians. Over 60 of them became authors of classic books. 14 became presidents of universities. There were numerous giants in American industry that emerged from this family. Three of them became United States congressmen and one became a vice president of the United States of America.

There’s no doubt about the fact that your family is one of the most substantial pieces of your identity. Your family shapes you in many ways and has the ability to set you on a trajectory, even before you know it.

In Mark chapter 3, Jesus talks about the nature of his family. And I want to ask you to turn your Bible to Mark 3, and we’re going to read a long section, Mark 3, verse 7 through 35, and a number of different accounts and interactions. We’ll spend most of our time toward the latter half there in verses 20 through 35, as Jesus speaks about the markers of his family identity. And as you read the section, I want you to notice the different responses that people have to Jesus. You have some people who think that they are part of God’s family, but they aren’t. You have others who want to be, but they don’t know if they can be. Then there are some people who are part of Jesus’s physical family, but at this point, not part of his true family. And then there are those who he says are part of his true family. And it begs the question, it’s the question for you today, are you part of God’s family? Not just in proximity, but are you part of his true family? And how do you know for sure?

Jesus tells us. Let’s look at Mark 3, starting in verse 7. It says that “Jesus withdrew with the disciples to the sea. And a great crowd followed from Galilee to Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him and he told his disciples to have the boat ready for him because of the crowd lest they crush him. For he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, you are the son of God. He strictly ordered them not to make him known. And he went up to the mountain and he called to him those whom he desired and they came to him. And he appointed 12 whom he also named apostles so that they might be with him and he might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed 12, Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the names Boanerges, that is the sons of thunder.” It’s a pretty cool nickname, by the way. “Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. And then he went home.”

“And the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him. For they said, he is out of his mind. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebub. And by the prince of demons, he casts out demons. And he called to him and he said, How could Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. True. Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. For they were saying, he has an unclean spirit. And his mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking around about those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus’ ministry is expanding rapidly, and right away you see a very interesting observation when you think about all the characters involved in those four or five accounts that we just read. The observation is about how and who is responding to him. Those who are far away from him are pursuing him and drawing near, and those who are near to him are actually pushing him away. And somewhere in the middle, are his true followers, his disciples.

Let’s consider the ones who are far, the far off ones who are drawing near. This is the crowd. They want to be part of God’s family, but they don’t know if they can be. They’re experiencing wonder and fear. Jesus performs more miracles and it says the crowds became so great as they followed him because the miracle worker was there. People were being delivered of what ailed them. Jesus was shown to do things that no one else could do. Diseases were being eradicated within bodies and demons were being cast out. And what results is an excited mob. Anyone and everyone with a disease or an ailment comes just to simply reach out and touch him. And the crowd pressed so hard that Jesus has his disciples derive an exit strategy on a boat because they were in danger of being crushed. This was more than the popularity of a modern-day singer after a great performance. This is more than people who hang around the baseball stadium after the game to get an autograph. These people’s lives were being changed. And they were doing anything and everything they could to draw near to him. We don’t know who they thought Jesus was, but they wanted the benefit of being close to him. They were far off, but they were drawing near.

And then comes an interesting string of accusations that culminate in the question of the day. Who is my mother and my brother and my sister? Who is part of my real family? The demons in verse 11 say that you are the son of God. As the wonder captured the crowd, the demons give an orthodox expression of who Jesus actually is, but it’s not met with a faithful following of him as their king. They’re scared because they know his power. And then comes his family.

Verses 20 and 21, Mark introduces the story about his family and then he interrupts it with another story about the scribes. And then he comes back to the family again. And he does so to make a point. The way that Jesus responds to the scribes informs how he views his true family. And so the family is not real fond of the notoriety that Jesus was gaining and the controversy surrounding his ministry. And it says in verses 20 and 21, they went out to seize him for they were saying he is out of his mind. Clearly what’s happening here is not normal behavior. Said the ones who knew him the best, the ones who were closest to him said, he’s crazy. I mean, I’ve seen crazy, but this guy is crazy. And so the word here, To seize him literally means to physically restrain him. His mother and his brothers were trying to physically restrain him to stop him from what he was doing. Now, we could rabbit trail with all kinds of fascinating theories about how they grew up with this guy and witnessed Jesus as the perfect son of God and still come to this conclusion. Or Mary, the mother of Jesus, getting to the point where she thinks her own son is crazy. You can chew on that over lunch later. They’re not successful. His family, the closest ones to him, are actually very far off in this moment.

Proximity to Jesus doesn’t guarantee faith in Jesus. Remember that. That’s part of the warning. Proximity to Jesus doesn’t guarantee faith in Jesus. You can be near and still not part of the true family. Practically, you can participate in the life of a church and not be part of his real family. You can do religious things and not be part of his family. Proximity to Jesus doesn’t mean, doesn’t guarantee faith. And so you’re starting to see a variety of responses. He can heal me, those who are far away but drawing near. He’s the son of God, the demons who refuse to draw near. He’s out of his mind, his family who are physically near but spiritually very far away.

And then you see the most sinister of the opposition. And it comes from the religious leaders. Now remember, this whole section of Mark is colored by the verse that happened just before our reading for today. Do you remember it? Verse six, it says that “the Pharisees went out immediately and held counsel with the Herodians against him how to destroy him.” The religious leaders of the day, now have seen Jesus’s power. They’ve seen his claim and authority to forgive sins. And they said, we are going to destroy him. And the word gets out. And as they’ve been trying to undermine what he’s been doing, they come now to their most pointed and ridiculous accusation.

He’s possessed by Beelzebul. Beelzebul is another name. For Satan. Now, if anybody should be near to Jesus, it would be his physical family, and yet they accuse him of being crazy. If anybody should be near to Jesus, it should be the religious leaders. I mean, after all, they facilitate the worship of God, and he is God among them. But that’s the peculiar thing about this passage. Those who are supposed to be near are actually far, and those who are far are drawing near. They’re saying that Jesus and his work is from the devil. There isn’t a worse accusation than that. And I don’t know if it’s one that they thought through all that well. They accuse him of playing for the opposite team, working against the purposes of God, of being satanic in his activities. And so you see that faith is not the automatic response to see miracles of God. I mean, these Pharisees have seen the miracles. They don’t respond in faith, love the acts of Jesus, but they don’t have faith. Others misdescribe the source of his power, which you might say is an opposition to faith. And so Jesus gives them a stern warning and shows them why their accusation is absurd.

Reason number one, Jesus can’t be from Satan because a house divided against itself won’t stand. The logic’s really simple. I can’t be from Satan because a kingdom divided against itself won’t stand. A house divided against itself won’t stand. Satan can’t be divided against itself if he is going to continue to stand.

Reason number two, Jesus can’t be from Satan because he is the stronger man. He gives this allegory of the strong man to describe the work of Satan and the work of Jesus. The strong man is Satan, who possesses a bunch of people. He draws them in. He’s captured them as his own to do his will. People who live in darkness, people who live under his lordship, the lordship of the Lord of the earth. And in this case, some people who are possessed by demons. But Jesus is the stronger man who binds the strong man, Satan. He rescues the people. He frees them, loosing them of their demons. Now they can enjoy light, follow their new Lord and God. And as he will show in a minute, they can even have the opportunity to become part of his family. And that little allegory is a profound picture of what happens in salvation. Satan, the Lord of the earth, captures as many as he can in unbelief. And Jesus, the stronger man, rescues them, rescues you, rescues me. You want to talk about people who are far off? That’s far off. And they have the opportunity to draw near because Jesus is the stronger man.

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** This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.