WWUTT 2352 Who Are Jesus Mother and Brothers (Luke 8:19-21)

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Jesus' mother and brothers attempted to come to him and see him, but Jesus responded to those by saying, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we've been in chapter 8 and just finished up Jesus' teaching in parables.

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We come now to this short paragraph where Jesus' mother and brothers attempt to see him. So let me read to you from Luke 8 verses 19 to 21, hear the word of the

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Lord. Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd.

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And he was told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you.

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But he answered them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.

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Now this might seem a little out of place, diverting away from the action because we just read these two parables that Jesus taught, the parable of the sower and then explaining the parable and the reason for teaching in parables.

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And then yesterday we looked at the parable of a lamp under a jar, where we're going to go next is

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Jesus calming a storm. So these three verses right here, did Luke just wedge this in here because it was the next thing that happened in the action, so that's where he had to stick it?

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No, this has everything to do with the context of the parables that we just read. And I'll show you that connection here in a moment.

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And also understanding the main point of what Jesus is teaching with his answer. And I want to save some time at the end to address some of those big

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Marian dogmas that are pushed by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, because the way that Luke kind of lays this out here, it really diminishes the emphasis that the

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Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox will put upon Mary. So I'll get to that as well. But first, let's come back up to verse 19.

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Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd.

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Remember, we've read here in Luke eight, how Jesus was going through Galilee. There were even some women accompanying him and his disciples as they were going about teaching and great crowds were following them.

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So as they're still in Galilee, which is where Jesus family lives, they attempt to see him.

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But because of the great crowds, they cannot get to him. Now, it's interesting to consider that in Luke's gospel,

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Luke gives more real estate, if you'll pardon the expression, to Mary than any of the other gospel writers.

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We know more about Mary because of what Luke has written than what we have in Matthew, Mark and John combined.

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In Matthew and in Mark, we didn't even get a quote from Mary, believe it or not. There's no dialogue that's mentioned from her in the first two gospels.

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And when we get to John, there's, of course, the exchange that Jesus has with Mary at the wedding feast at Cana.

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And then you have the cross narrative where Jesus says to John, who's writing that gospel, that he is going to be the one who's going to take care of his mother.

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And so there certainly are some things in the other gospels about Mary. All four gospels mention

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Mary, but only Luke gives us that birth narrative that we even know of the angel coming to Mary and saying that she is going to be with child, her going to see her cousin

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Elizabeth. We've got the song of Mary, the Magnificat, and how beautiful that is. Then you've got, of course, the shepherds who come and see baby

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Jesus in Luke chapter two and Mary pondering up all these things in her heart. There's the exchange that a 12 -year -old

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Jesus has with his parents after he's run away from them and is teaching in the temple.

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So Luke gives a lot of narrative space to Mary. We get to this here in Luke chapter eight, and it really kind of seems like Jesus blows her off, right?

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And Luke really kind of diminishes her importance here with what is said in this manner and in this way.

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So again, Jesus' mother and his brothers come. They can't reach him because of the crowd, and he was even told, he's even told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you.

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But what is Jesus' response to this? He answered them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.

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And we saw the same thing in Matthew, had this exact same kind of exchange.

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My mother and my brothers are those who do the will of my father who is in heaven is the way that Matthew put it.

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And like I said, this response that Jesus gives, this is in context with what we've just read in these parables.

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Yesterday, we looked at the lamp under a jar and what that symbolized was the word of God that has been given to a person who hears and believes it and it has illuminated their lives.

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Even their sin, they've had a light shone upon so that they may see it and Christ may root it out of them.

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And then they would go out with the message of the gospel to others, shining a light in a dark and dying world.

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And so that's what's demonstrated there in the parable of the lamp under a jar. Jesus says in verse 18, take care then how you hear for to the one who has more will be given.

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To the one who has understanding, you'll receive more understanding. But from the one who has not, who doesn't have an understanding of the word, even what he thinks he has, the understanding he thinks he has, even that will be taken away.

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So as Jesus has been talking about the message of the kingdom in these parables, remember the seed represents the message of the kingdom in the parable of the sower.

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And he says, take care how you hear in the parable of the lamp under a jar. So here with this exchange regarding his mother and his brothers,

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Jesus' response is, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.

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Still the same sort of message that we were reading of regarding God's word in the two parables that Jesus just taught.

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Now, what Jesus also emphasizes with this response here is that his spiritual brethren are more important to him than even blood relatives are.

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And that's the way that it should be in the body of Christ. It's the way that it is even in my own family.

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I'm a pastor who lives far away from my parents and my wife's parents, and we're not trying to get away from them.

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I actually, on multiple occasions, had tried to find ways that we could either move closer to them or get them to move closer to us, and I'm still trying to coax my parents to come out here.

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Becky's parents still travel a little bit, and so they might come out here and visit us. It's not like I'm trying to get away from my mom and dad.

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But my siblings, all five of my brothers and sisters, are not walking with the Lord. And we no longer, as a family, try to shape our traveling plans in the year to coincide with their schedules so that we can get together as families.

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There's other people we would rather visit that we are closer to spiritually. They are our spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ whom we would rather spend time with than even pagan siblings who don't just have a difference of opinion.

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I mean, it's not like they're just in different denominations or something like that. I have brothers and sisters that actively hate

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God. And so my own church family is closer to me than those brothers and sisters that I grew up with.

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It's hard to say that. It's not an easy thing. It's always painful to talk about. And whenever we, as a family, are taking prayer requests and we pray together, my children will still bring up my brothers and sisters, their aunts and uncles will bring them up in prayer and say, we need to pray for them, that they would come to know the

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Lord. I so love my children's hearts for that, that they would desire to see my own blood brothers and sisters who share the same parents that I have, that they would desire for them to know the

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Lord. But yeah, when it comes down to it, my own church family that I'm with multiple times during the week, not just on Sunday, but we get together other times as well.

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This is more my family than those who share the same parents with me.

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And Jesus is making that same point here. We're going to hear this come up again in Luke's gospel.

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So hold on to it, because this is a point that will come up again later. My mother and my brothers,

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Jesus says, are those who hear the word of God and do it. Now, Jesus is not blowing off his mother and his brothers here.

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And this would be the second time, the second time in Luke's gospel that Jesus has blown off his mom, right?

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Because previously when he was caught teaching at the temple at the age of 12, his parents are looking around all over the place for him.

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What happened to Jesus? And it took them three days of searching before they finally found him.

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So we were talking about that too when we were in that portion of Luke. So here we have that again,

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Jesus' mother wanting to see him, and it sounds like he kind of blows her off. But again, the emphasis here and the importance is understanding that our spiritual relations are even more important, are closer to us than our blood brothers and sisters.

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The people who are your brothers and sisters in the Lord, you're going to be spending a lot more time with them than you will those family relations who don't know

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Jesus. That's a very temporary relationship, all things considered. But the relationship you have with those with whom you will be sharing eternity, you're going to be with them for a long time.

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Look around at the people that you're sitting among in church. I hope you like them because you're going to be with them for a while.

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That doesn't mean that there's not going to be people in our spiritual family, even in the church family that that annoy us.

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Surely, you know, some folks even in your own church that you'll cry at their funeral, but you'll never go on vacation with them.

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And if you can't think of anybody like that, it might be you. Now, I'm just teasing.

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Just like with any family, you've probably had siblings that annoyed you, right? It happens even in the body of Christ.

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But we love each other anyway. There are people in my congregation, I would die for them.

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I love them dearly. The things we've even been through together over the course of the past year, though I haven't even been at this church for very long, just a little more than a year now.

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But the stuff that we've been through together in Christ Jesus brings us closer and closer together as a family.

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There are people that I encounter half a world away when I travel and I end up in another place and meet brothers in the

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Lord there, and we have already so much in common because we're both sinners who have been saved in Christ Jesus.

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One of my elders from my church, Alan, just recently went to Asia. I can't remember where in Asia, Thailand, I think was where he ended up there.

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He went to a church there in Thailand. And when he told them what church he was part of and who the pastor of that church was,

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Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, when he told them who the pastor was, they were like, oh, yeah, Gabe Hughes. I know him.

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I watch his videos. I mean, going to a totally different place and still finding something in common with one another.

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Just yesterday, as a matter of fact, we had a lunch with several pastors and there was a guy there that we had never met before, and he was kind of sharing a little bit about his background.

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And we came to find that he had been ministering in the church in Zambia that Alan came from.

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And so just through the process of conversation, it's like, oh, we know some of the same people and started talking about that.

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It's just amazing how God has brought people together from every tribe, tongue and nation on earth.

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We read about that in the book of Revelation. He's doing that even now. It's not just something that's a future reality when we get to heaven and we're all gathered around the throne singing the praises of our

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God. We encounter that even now, people from every nation who have come to know the

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Lord through the gospel that has gone out to the ends of the earth. And there's still more people that need to hear it.

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And as the gospel goes out, more get added to this family and brought into the family of God and even people of a different skin color than you, of a different language than you in a across a different ocean in a different country.

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They even they. Are closer to you in relation, though, you might have to have a translator to help you understand what that other person is saying, they are closer to you than your own blood brothers and sisters.

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Then your own fellow Americans or fellow Canadians or fellow Australians or Brits or wherever you are listening to me from, no matter where you live, you might fly the same flag, but that does not make you closer to your neighbor.

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Then Christ can draw neighbor and neighbor together. That is a bond that is deeper than blood and soil.

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And again, that is a family that is growing and with whom we will be spending eternity together, so love them now because we're going to be with each other for a long time.

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That's the point that Jesus is making here. My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it, who know

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God's word and not just not just having heard it, but doing what it says and what that demonstrates is that they belong to God.

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It's not that they're earning something by their doing. Well, you've earned a spot in the family because you've you've heard

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God's word and you're doing it. No, they're doing it demonstrates that they are part of this family. Just like there are probably certain habits, maybe certain jokes, certain traditions that you might have in your family, certain characteristics, physical characteristics you have when somebody looks at you, they know whose child you are.

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So it is with those who are in Christ Jesus, there are certain things that when we do those things, other people might look at us and know whose child we are.

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Because we know God's word. And we do it. Now, I said that toward the end here,

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I also wanted to save some space to talk about some of these Marian dogmas that Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy put such an emphasis on and just encountered this yesterday, as a matter of fact, a video that I saw circulating on social media talking about four main dogmas of Mary, her immaculate conception, which doesn't have to do with the virgin birth of Jesus.

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The immaculate conception is that Mary at her conception was kept sinless and then she lived a sinless life, which which totally diminishes or even negates the whole reason for the virgin birth.

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If God can just keep someone sinless from their conception, then why did

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Jesus need to be virgin born? He could have just kept Jesus sinless from his conception.

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So anyway, yeah, the whole immaculate conception thing and Mary being sinless, it's just absurd.

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It again, it takes away from the importance of knowing that Jesus was virgin born and he himself was without sin.

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Apparently, there's another one who has godlike quality as well, and they give that to Mary. So you have the immaculate conception doctrine.

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There's also the assumption of Mary doctrine, because if she's sinless, well, then her body can't die.

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So they came up with the assumption of Mary doctrine to say that her body was assumed into heaven and is no longer on earth.

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And Roman Catholics, even though this is a dogma that was established in the 20th century,

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Roman Catholics will say, if you deny the assumption of Mary, that's damnable.

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It's a damnable heresy. The wrath of God will be upon you, according to the consequences that are written in this particular dogma.

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If you deny the assumption, the bodily assumption of Mary. So you have the immaculate conception.

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You have the assumption of Mary. You have the Theotokos doctrine that she is mother of God. And then you also have that she's queen of heaven.

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So she has been crowned the queen mother of heaven, and if you don't acknowledge that, that's damnable also, if you don't recognize her queenship as the queen of heaven and earth.

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All this emphasis that Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy puts on Mary, that Jesus himself.

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Did not put upon his own mother. And we have it right here.

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In fact, that when his mother and his brothers came to him, Jesus doesn't go to them, but uses this as a point to say that those who are his mother and his brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.

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Now, we don't have any reason to believe here that Mary didn't hear the word of God and Mary wasn't doing it.

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But we know that Jesus brothers did not believe him. You look at John chapter seven when they're trying to push

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Jesus away to go to the feast. You go be with your disciples and show great miracles to them. They don't believe who he is.

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And no matter what you've heard taught in the Marian dogmas, Mary did not fully understand who he was and what his mission was either.

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I mean, the whole thing with with Mary telling him at the wedding feast that they are out of wine,

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John Chrysostom, when he was teaching on that and teaching on there was another

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I can't remember it was somewhere in Matthew. I think it was. But anyway, when John Chrysostom cited that account, the changing the water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana in John chapter two,

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Chrysostom said that Mary was being arrogant. Trying to order

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Jesus to do what she wanted him to do. So when you when you hear from like Roman Catholics who will say that the early church fathers believe these things about Mary.

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No, they did not. They did not believe that Mary was sinless. Chrysostom called her out as being a little bit full of herself and Jesus had to humble her.

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So, no, they did not teach those things that Roman Catholicism and Greek Orthodoxy put such an emphasis on today.

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And again, what Jesus says right here really drives the point home. These elevating

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Marian dogmas that the Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox will try to make issues of salvation.

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You have to believe these in order to be saved. You don't find any teaching like that anywhere in the

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Bible and wasn't even taught by most of the early church fathers. And here

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Jesus is saying that his mother and his brothers, how do you how do you get into the kingdom of God?

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How do you get adopted into this family? How could you be so close to the

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Savior himself? Jesus tells you right here, it's not by being his earthly mother or brothers.

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It's those who hear the word of God. And those who do it. And when you understand that you can be closer to the

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Savior than even his own mother was. Now, again,

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I'm not saying that Mary was unsaved, far be it. That is not my point at all.

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We know that Mary was saved and even that Jesus' own half brothers born of Mary and Joseph came around and knew

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Jesus. James, who wrote the letter of James in the

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New Testament, was Jesus' half brother. So was Jude. So we have them with Mary in the upper room in Acts chapter one.

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We know that they were followers of Jesus and ended up becoming heralds of the gospel themselves.

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But what makes them significant to the story of the early church is because they also were

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Christians, not because they were related to Jesus. But because they believed in him, that's what makes them significant.

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That's what makes them our sister and brothers in the Lord, also

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Jesus' own earthly mother and his earthly half brothers are also our sister and brothers because we have been adopted into the same family in Christ Jesus, because we have heard the word of God and we do what it says.

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Let's finish their heavenly father. We thank you so much for what we've been taught, and I pray that we are testing everything according to what your word says, not these crazy dogmas and teachings and things like that, that are outside of scripture that people try to impose upon us.

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And we'll say, you have to believe this in order to be saved. What does your word say? Let us not stray from these things.

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But we care for one another and we look after each other, especially those who are of the household of faith, those who have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ through the hearing of the gospel.

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And we we didn't just hear the gospel once and believed it and then we're saved, but we are continuing to grow in the knowledge of your word and doing what it is that you have said for us to do in Jesus name.

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It's in his name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.