The True Family of God, Pt. 2

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Have you ever noticed that some of your closest relationships aren’t with people who share your last name? Maybe it’s a neighbor who’s become like family or a friend who somehow knows you better than your own relatives do. Pastor Nick Gatzke explains what it really means to belong to The True Family of God.

Proximity to Jesus doesn’t guarantee faith in Jesus. Remember that. That’s part of the warning. 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. 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. Some 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.

The plot thickens and there’s a warning again about blaspheming the spirit. It’s a two-edged sword of good news and bad news. Look at it with me. The good news is this. Jesus says in verse 28, “All sins will be forgiven of the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter.” We know that the broader message of the gospel of Mark is that Jesus has come to forgive sins. Regardless of how bad your sins are, regardless of how careless your words have been, regardless of how violent your posture has been against God, Jesus has come to forgive sins, and he offers that forgiveness to you. That’s the good news. The forgiveness comes by those who put their faith in him as their king, and the forgiveness is purchased by what he’s going to do on the cross. And so the good news is that there’s hope for anyone, anyone and everyone who is far away to be forgiven through Jesus. But there is one sin that is unforgivable. He says it in verse 29, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”

So what is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and how do you know if you’ve committed it? That’s the question that we get asked with some regularity. Now remember the context of the story. Jesus announces the coming of his kingdom. He’s showing that he has the power of the king. He’s doing the works of God that are meant to display his kingly power and authority and glory so that people would recognize him, not just as their savior, but also as their king. The physical healings that Jesus is doing is pointing to his ability to eternally heal. The casting out of demons is pointing to his lasting spiritual purity and his ability to conquer the dark forces. But some, these Pharisees, are attributing this work of God to the devil. And the last part is the key to understanding what Jesus means. He says in verse 30, or it says in verse 30, for they, being the scribes and the Pharisees, were saying that Jesus has an unclean spirit.

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is resisting the work of the Spirit in an ongoing active way, but it’s more than that. It’s resisting the work of the Spirit in unbelief and actually attributing that work to the devil. It’s proclaiming that the good things from God are actually from Satan, that the saving work of God is from the devil, that the eternal deliverance that Jesus offers is actually evil. That’s blaspheming the Holy Spirit. And Isaiah 5 points to this one. It says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

So his physical family at this point is not his real family. They’re pushing him away. The ones who should be his spiritual family are not his real family. They’re the farthest ones away. They’re blaspheming the spirit. So who is the real family? Who’s the real family of Jesus? And he tells us in verse 31, you see that his mother and his brothers came. Standing outside, they sent to him, and they called to him. It’s interesting that they were calling him. Up to this point in the Gospel of Mark, the only one who’s been doing the calling has been Jesus. And here, his family is calling him to get him to follow them.

Moreover, when you see those who are looking for him or seeking him, that phrase, looking for him, is used 10 times in the Gospel of Mark. And every time it’s used to show someone who’s trying to gain some sort of control over Jesus. And in this instance, it’s his family. His family is trying to assert their claim on him. It’s as if they’re saying, Jesus, remember whose name you carry. Remember, you’re one of us. You’re part of this family, and this family doesn’t do the crazy that you’re doing. Come back. Follow us. And the posture of these family members is like some of the other followers. Some of them think that Jesus owes them something as part of their family. And so being told that his family’s outside, his family thinks he’s crazy, he responds with these surprising words. “Who is my family? Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at 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.”

Seeing his deeds does not make you part of the family. Having close proximity does not mean you’re part of his family. Having earthly relationships does not mean that you’re part of his family. Faith in the Son of God and doing the will of God, that’s what shows that you’re part of the family of God. And it’s interesting because everywhere else, it seems like you hear the call to believe, believe, believe, believe. And here we see the call to do, to do God’s will. And friends, you need to know that these things are inextricably linked to each other. They are in some ways one and the same. Belief and obedience are the opposite sides of the same coin. You can’t do the will of God unless you believe in Jesus. And you can’t believe in Jesus without doing the will of God. There’s no such thing as believing in Jesus, truly believing in him, without following him in obedience. Now that’s going to be a difficult thing for some of us to swallow, whether we think about our own life or whether we think about the lives of somebody that we love. In our time, people are very sensitive about the idea that we must give a regular assurance of salvation. How can I know if I’m actually saved?

And the reason for this is because so many of us struggle with perpetual guilt of our sins, with a fear that God won’t actually forgive us like he says that he will, and that we’re unworthy of the grace and the forgiveness that he offers. And when we feel that way, we’re right, at least half right. Because none of us are worthy of God’s grace. None of us are worthy of God’s forgiveness. But that’s precisely the point. God promises that for those who put their faith in Christ, they will be forgiven. But there’s another part of this that’s really important to consider. Because of the fear of taking away assurance, sometimes we actually provide false assurance. Sometimes we provide comfort to ourselves or to someone when there should actually be a strong sense of being disturbed about our spiritual state. Sometimes we soften the edges so much, claiming that we only need to yield to the king occasionally instead of kneel before the king perpetually. And that is precisely what Jesus is getting to here.

Jesus is not primarily giving a word of encouragement. He’s giving a word of warning. And the warning has some implications of encouragement. Because sometimes people look back to their own family, their upbringing in a church, or experience that they had when they were a child, or their regular church attendance today, and they say, I know who Jesus is. I’m part of the family. But perhaps they’re wrong. So how do you know? How do you know if your faith is genuine? How do you know if you’re part of the true family, or just one who’s enjoying proximity?

Jesus tells us in verse 35, whoever does the will of God. And so let’s be clear. Doing the will of God doesn’t save you. Faith in Jesus does, but doing the will of God is evidence that your faith is real. It’s really important to get that right. Doing the will of God doesn’t save you. Works don’t save you. Faith does. But doing the will of God is evidence that you have real faith. To put it another way, doing the will of God or obedience, as we might just simply say, is another way of saying that you recognize Jesus as the king and you follow him.

The demons know who he is. They know he is the king, but they just won’t bow the knee to him as the king. The Pharisees have seen the power. They won’t bend the knee to him as the king. And even Mary, Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was visited by an angel for a miraculous birth, that the savior of the world was coming, even Mary in this moment says he’s crazy, which is another way of saying, I’m not yet willing to bend the knee, as the king. But Jesus rejects the rejecters. We won’t follow you as king. And he says, I won’t allow you into my kingdom.

And so the question for me and the question for you is this, do you simply know who Jesus is or do you follow him as your king and thus obey him? by doing the will of God in your life. Because faith in the Son of God and doing the will of God show that you’re part of the family of God. The ones who are supposed to be close are not. The ones who are far off can draw near and become part of his true family. And he contrasts the crowds who see the miracles, the family who accuses him of being crazy, the scribes who claim he’s from Satan. And in the middle of all that, he calls his disciples. The ones who make no such claims over him, but are commissioned to do his will, to follow him. They are the ones who will preach, though the ones who have authority. Those who reject Jesus are replaced. And it’s interesting that the religious leaders of Israel are replaced by a bunch of nobody, fishermen, tax collectors, and laborers, 12 of them representing the patriarchs of Israel. These 12, nobody has now become the spiritual fathers of the church, new patriarchs, new spiritual leaders. Jesus replaces those who rejected him.

And the same holds true for his family. Those who reject him are replaced, his mother and his brothers, replaced by those who will do the will of God. They are my mother and my brothers and my sisters. Now, thankfully, we know that many of those mothers, that mother and those brothers come back and follow him and he receives them. So it is with you and everyone else who follows him. Faith in the Son of God and doing the will of God show that you are part of the family of God, his family, the most important relationships in life, the identity-forming relationships, the relationships that put you in a trajectory for the future. You can be part of the family. And that means the good news here, in the midst of warning, the good news is wonderful.

The family of God does not have an impossible barrier to entry. Jesus lowers the barrier to entry to let you in. It means that it’s possible for anyone who has faith to enter, regardless of what you’ve done in the past, your past sin, your blasphemies, your ethnicity, how far off you’ve been, Jesus makes the way. It means that regardless of how dysfunctional your earthly family is, that you are not bound to that dysfunctional trajectory because there’s an eternal family that welcomes you in, and you will have the benefit of a perfect, loving father and the purposes of his good pleasure. It means that obedience is part of this family relationship. The ones who say they believe, but then live in contradiction to this king are not part of the family. The ones who believe truly will obey this Jesus as their king.

Andrew Murray once wrote, “The true pupil, say of some great musician or painter, yields his master a wholehearted and unhesitating submission. In practicing his scales or mixing the colors in the slow and patient study of the elements of his art, he knows that it is wisdom, simply and fully. It is this wholehearted surrender to his guidance, this implicit submission to his authority, which Christ asks. We come to him asking him to teach us the lost art of obeying God as he did. The only way of learning to do a thing is to do it. The only way of learning obedience from Christ is to give up your will and to make.”

You might feel like following the will of God in your life, the instructions of God are not possible. You might feel like maybe they’re not applied to you. It might be a mistake, but there’s no mistake. The Lord himself commands it, he empowers it, and he empowers it to the point of obedience. And here you find the greatest joy, the greatest benefit, the greatest family, underneath the banner of the king. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that we can be part of the family of God. It is my sincere prayer that our joy would be found as part of this family today. Father, we thank you that you make clear the boundaries of this family. And I pray for any among us who have not yet surrendered their will to Jesus as their king, that today they would indeed do that, to see themselves clearly before you as they are, to revel in the grace that you offer, to reach out and take hold of it for the forgiveness of sins, and to follow faithfully as a member of your family. God, the opportunity that we have, it’s priceless. It’s rooted in your love. And we express our love to you now in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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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.