Mark 3:7-35, On What Side Are You?

Mark chapter 3, starting verse 7 to the end of the chapter, hear the word of the Lord. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Abimea and from 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 a 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.

And he strictly ordered them not to make him known. And he went up on the mountain and 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 the 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 name

Borogenes, that is sons of thunder, Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus and Theodius and Simon the

Canaanite and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 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 were saying, he is out of his mind.

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul.

And by the prince of demons, he cast out demons. And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can

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.

And no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man.

Then indeed, he may plunder his house. 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 had said, 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 about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, football season has started again, much to my joy.

What side are you on? You've got to pick a side, right? A few years back, someone told me

I've got to pick, I've got to choose one or the other. It's got to be North Carolina or Duke. What about NC State?

On the other side of the state line, people will think, well, it's got to be either Virginia or Virginia Tech. On the other side of the country,

I once had Thanksgiving dinner with a family in San Diego. And I heard the mother of the house kind of across the room.

I heard her say that her favorite team is San Diego Chargers. Of course, we were in San Diego and she absolutely hated the

Oakland Raiders. Could not, cannot stand them, despise the Oakland Raiders. Later, she asked me who

I liked. And I said, I like the Raiders and whoever's playing the Chargers. She picked up that I was joking.

Otherwise I would have been kicked out on Thanksgiving. Then of course, there's lots of people who just don't care.

Some issues aren't so divisive, making you choose one or the other. You don't have to choose between Chinese food and Mexican.

You can like both or Italian or Indian or Japanese or American or all of the above.

It's just not a divisive issue. Now, some people are trying to make getting the COVID vaccine, a divisive issue, getting companies to force their employees to get it.

And now I've been vaccinated, but I don't see why it should be a divisive issue because people make decisions for themselves and they know their own works for them.

They think now vaccines work and they seem to work in preventing major illnesses. These vaccines, then, then why force other people to get it?

If they don't want to, you know, the divisive person will say back well, because the unvaccinated will catch

COVID and spread it to you or other vaccinated people. Well, that's unlikely. If the vaccines work, that's unlikely.

The vaccine will mean that I probably won't catch it. And even if I do, I'll have a mild case, but I don't want any case.

You'll say back, heard someone say that. I don't want any case. I don't care if it's a mild case. Well, so you want to force others to get a vaccine they don't want because you don't want a very small chance of getting a mild case of COVID.

Really? Really? You're going to force others to make that choice because of that.

The fact is there are just divisive people and who will make any issue divisive.

You've got to agree with them on everything or, or whatever their pet topic is. And they, or they will divide over, over you, with you.

They will judge everyone by what side they are on pro North Carolina or anti pro Chinese food or anti pro vaccine or anti on some issues.

You know, just can't you let people be different, but sometimes there are some issues and which you have to pick a side, which are divisive.

You have to go one way or the other. There's no variety of, of things.

It's not like football teams or ethnic food or matters of taste of opinions. There really are divisive issues.

Now, one of the peculiarities of our modern American culture is that if you disagree with some people on some divisive issues, particularly,

I think now abortion and homosexuality, they will say, quote, you are on the wrong side of history.

It's become a favorite phrase, wrong side of history. That is, they are sure that in the future, people will look back on you because of your stance on those issues.

And they will call you your grandchildren or whoever they will call you a bigot for not agreeing with them.

It's a particular, strange, particular self -righteousness from people who often don't have any other kind of righteousness.

Now, the Pharisees were self -righteous because they kept the law as they understood it. People, they are self -righteous just because they decide their views are the righteous ones.

People today are immoral from any traditional or biblical point of view, but they are absolutely convinced that they are, quote, on the right side of history.

They think they're like the slavery abolitionists or the civil rights movement that like that, that was on the right side of history.

So they think they are. And so to differ with them, to believe that human life from conception should be protected or that marriage is what it always was, they think it's not just to have a different opinion, it's to be wrong.

It's to be not just wrong in your ideas, it's to be wrong morally, to be what is, what is the modern equivalent of being demon possessed, at least in their mind.

It's to be a bigot. But what side are you on? Sometimes you have to pick a side.

And if you pick the wrong one, you will indeed be on the wrong side of history.

Most people are actually right about that. There will be the wrong side of history on some issues.

And worse, you'll be on the wrong side of the one who authors history.

We see that here in this passage in five parts, but only four points, four choices of who you can believe

Jesus is. And you have, you have to pick one. You can't just opt out, can't be like football, say,

I don't like football. You're going to have to pick one, four choices in five parts.

Jesus is pick one, either a legend or second, a lunatic or third, a liar or the

Lord. First, is Jesus a legend? Well, that's what

Bart Ehrman, who's an agnostic professor at the University of North Carolina, thinks. Not that he believes Jesus is fictional.

He doesn't mean by that, that he never existed. In fact, Bart Ehrman recently wrote a book opposing the idea that Jesus never lived, that Jesus was just someone made up by the church.

He notes, for example, that one letter in the New Testament book of James is from Jesus's brother.

And Bart Ehrman says that if Jesus never existed, surely his brother would have known that. But Ehrman thinks that Jesus is a legend and that, sure, he would say he's a real teacher.

But over time, stories got made up about him. They got embellished and exaggerated and things just added to them.

I remember reading part of Ehrman's book and thinking, okay, Ehrman has thought of an exception to C .S.

Lewis's famous trilemma. If you've read C .S. Lewis, in mere Christianity in particular, Lewis said that you have to choose.

There's three choices, Lewis said, about who Jesus has to be. Some people want to say, I don't believe he's God or he's not the

Lord, but he was just a good teacher, like Confucius was a good teacher. And Lewis came along and said, you can't say that because of what

Jesus said about himself and how he taught. You have to say, you have three choices. That's why it's a trilemma.

Jesus is either a liar because he's saying that he came from the Father when he really didn't, or he's a lunatic.

You know, it's like someone who thinks he's Napoleon, someone with delusions of grandeur, or Jesus is

Lord. He is who he said he was. You have to choose one of those three.

None of this kind of, I respect him, but he's not the Lord. No, you have no more of that. You have to choose, liar, lunatic, or Lord.

That's the trilemma. Now, Ehrman comes along and says, oh, he was a legend. There's another choice, a legend.

He was a popular teacher, and after he was gone, people made up stories about him.

And I thought when I read that, oh, hmm, so Ehrman thought of something new.

I wonder why C .S. Lewis, I thought, wonder why C .S. Lewis didn't think of that when he came up with this trilemma.

Now, we need someone, I thought, hmm, we need someone who is an expert in legends. That is, in literature, how literature develops around historical figures, what legends look like, how they read.

We need someone like a literature professor, that's what we need, who specializes in legends to examine this proposal that Jesus in the

New Testament is a legend. Hmm, we need someone like that. Who could that be? That's what

I was really thinking, and then it just dawned on me. Oh, okay, you know, of course, that's who

Lewis was. C .S. Lewis was, in fact, that person. His day job, we often think of now as like an apologist, kind of a minister, like an evangelist, but his real job,

C .S. Lewis's job as literature professor, both at Cambridge and Oxford, specializing in, can you guess?

Legends. Lewis wrote that the Bible, especially the Gospels, like this passage, don't read at all like legends.

They read nothing like legends. In fiction, for example, in fiction, nothing appears for no reason.

There's just no detail just thrown out there just for no reason. Now, in real history like this, there are little details.

They're just kind of reporting facts that that's just what happened. Like here, in this first story from verses 7 to 12, why does it say that Jesus withdrew with the disciples to the lake?

Why does it tell us that? Is it supposed to be symbolic for something? Is we're supposed to find some hidden meaning to that and apply it to our lives?

Maybe we need to go withdraw to the lake sometimes. We need to go to Heiko Lake and spend a few hours every now and then.

No. Or why does it tell us where the people in this huge crowd, where they came from?

It says they came from Galilee, that's the local area, or Judea, that's southern Israel, Jerusalem, Idumea, which is what in the

Old Testament is called Edom. It says they came from the other side of the Jordan, means east of the Jordan River, and that they came from Tyre and Sidon, that would be west of them on the

Mediterranean coast. Now, are those places supposed to be symbolic for something? You look for some hidden meaning in all those places?

No. That's just the facts of where they came from. Now, Peter, the gospel of Mark probably comes from Peter.

And Peter, as an older man, about 30 years after these events, is probably telling all this to Mark.

And Peter just kind of remembers. I remember bumping into people from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and Tyre and Sidon from all these places.

He remembers all that. Why does Jesus say in verse 9 to have a boat ready to escape in case the crowds get so out of control that they crush him?

Why that? What's it that there for? Because that's just what happened. It shows us how large and how packed this crowds were and how they were so intense coming in on Jesus.

And it shows that Jesus was a real man and had to make provisions for his own safety. Now, fiction doesn't have such details.

Legends, you know, legendary people don't make escape plans, do they?

They don't need that. They're above all that. Modern people assume that whenever they read about healings and about demons being cast out, well, that just must be a legend because they never experienced it.

They just assume it must be something made up. In biblical scholarship, for example, modern biblical scholarship, they call it pre -critical.

I've heard scholars say this when I was getting my own doctorate. That's pre -critical. That is, now we're so sophisticated because we know better in our modern age.

Well, we know that miracles don't happen. We're critical. So anyone who accepts them is pre -critical.

I call them a Neanderthal, but in a sophisticated way. They're on the wrong side of history.

They're unsophisticated. They're naive. They're kind of childish.

We've, critical people, have grown past that. The most read theologian of the 20th century was a

German man by the name of Rudolf Bultmann. And he said that you cannot believe in the resurrection and in electrical lights.

Well, why not? Because, he says, electrical lights come from science. And the resurrection and other miracles, like here, casting out demons, healing, is what people believe before science.

I would say, so why can't we believe in a God who creates the laws of nature, which we can find out by science, and so get electrical lights.

And we believe in a God who can override the laws of nature and do miracles when he wants to.

Now, modern people will look down their nose at that. God can do miracles. That's pre -critical.

There's another C .S. Lewis term for that, for that attitude. Chronological snobbery.

I love that term. Chronological means like on a time frame. Because we live after them, we must be more sophisticated.

We must be smarter people. The fact is, modern people are arrogant snobs who think everything that they believe, that we believe now, is better than what people in the past believed.

Just because. What's the word for someone? By the way, there's a word for someone.

Hmm, I forgot what it was. What's the word for someone who believes that they are right? Just because.

There's a word for that. Anyway, never mind. The modern person reads this first section from verses 7 to 12 with all the healing and the casting out demons and unclean spirits crying out, you are the son of God and Jesus demonstrating his authority over them by by strictly ordering them to be quiet.

The modern person reads that and just assumes that's on the wrong side of history. It's pre -critical.

It's a legend. But it doesn't read like a legend we already seen.

And if the only thing, think about it, the only thing that modern people have to go on to say that it's, quote, a legend, is that it reports things that are beyond their experience, things that I've never experienced.

Therefore, it must be a legend. Who says your experience is the is the rule that we judge things by that only because we've never seen a miraculous healing or demon being cast out, that it must not be real, that their limited experience, their limited experience is the measure of what is true or what is false, what is real or what's just fiction, what's a legend.

If that's the way they think, and that's the way most a lot of modern people thinks, particularly the scholars. Then they're snobs.

Worse, they are. They are what they call everyone else. They're bigots.

The first choice is that Jesus is a legend, but that doesn't make any sense. It means nothing like a legend, and it's based on nothing other than that modern snobbery, the bigotry.

So on what side are you? Well, second, from verses 13 to 19, it's kind of an interlude there showing who

Jesus really is. He goes up to a mountain to get away from the maddening crowd, and then he called to himself, out of that mass of people who were following him, 12 sent ones.

That's what the word apostles mean, called them apostles, and he called for them. He called them for two reasons.

In verse 14, first, to be with him, that is to be his close companions, those that he would especially invest his time and attention in, who would be trained by him.

And second reason, that he might send them out to preach. Now, first, in kind of these short -term mission trips all around Israel, while Jesus was still with them, and then when the bridegroom, as he described himself earlier, when the bridegroom was taken away, they would be sent out for the rest of their lives.

Now for that, in verse 15, he gave them authority to cast out demons, to do what he's been doing.

So as the kingdom of God advances, the rule of God goes forward, the kingdom of Satan is pushed back.

Then Mark lists the 12 apostles, and the list shows again that this isn't a legend, and it shows that by what it says and by what it doesn't say.

You expect in a legend that all its heroes would be heroic, right?

The heroes are great people, they do great things. Why is it that the first apostle listed here, Peter, why does he later deny

Jesus? Why would you make that up? If this were a legend, why would you make up that the leader of the apostles is so weak that later he denied

Jesus? That doesn't sound like the thing you would make up if you were making up a legend, does it? And the last apostle here listed here is the one who betrays

Jesus. Jesus also named some of the apostles. He named Simon Peter, gave him that name,

Rock, and James and John, he named them Sons of Thunder. Who goes around naming people, by the way?

Second, he doesn't sound like a legend for what it doesn't say. Now most of these men we know nothing about except their name.

You think about that, why is that? What did Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Thomas and James, the son of Alphaeus, apparently

Matthew's brother, and Theodius and Simon the Canaanite or is he the Zealot? We don't even know that for sure.

We know so little about these men. Sometimes that word is translated Canaanite or sometimes it's Zealot. What did they do?

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that each of them did a lot. One day we'll probably all find out just great stories, enormous amount of stories of what these men did.

But if this were a legend, you'd expect at least a little bit of it for each one.

You'd expect some flesh on the bones, wouldn't you? So a little bit of detail, a little bit of character. We have some stories from church history about these men and some of those might be legends because church history is not inspired, it's not perfect.

Some of those might be legends. But here in this passage, we have only names. Legends don't do that.

Now, if you've ever read or seen the Lord of the Rings, it's like a legend, right? This passage here, this lecture of the apostles is like the

Fellowship of the Ring. Ever seen that or read that? That is the band of men who were chosen to go together on their mission.

But for each one in the legend, we get some detail. You think about the difference, there's some detail.

You learn a little something about the elf and the dwarf and the ranger. There's some description of who they are, something about their personality because it serves the fictional story.

You don't just name names in fiction, but you might in history.

Who chooses 12 apostles? Not a legend or a lunatic or a liar.

Why 12? Well, Israel had 12 tribes, but literal national

Israel didn't turn out to be the faithful servant of the Lord. So Jesus calls 12 from the old Israel.

He calls them to re -found Israel from the old to carry on as the true

Israel. Who can found and re -found Israel?

Not a legend or a lunatic or a liar. On what side are you?

Then in verse 20, he comes down from the mountain to his home base in Capernaum, and now the crowds are so packed.

He and his apostles, they can't even eat. I mean, there's just people right in front of them. You don't have a place to put your plate. Just one of those details is there because it's history.

It's not a legend. And when Jesus' family in nearby Nazareth hear about how

Jesus is, is now all the rage, what he's doing and what he's teaching, how he admits that no one could forgive sins, but God alone.

And then he proves that he can forgive sins in verse 21. They went to Capernaum. That's the family went to Capernaum to, it says to seize him.

That is to take him by force. If they could take him under their control legally, we might say today, take custody of him to put them under their charge, their guardianship, because they say he is out of his mind.

Literally he is beside himself. They made their choice. At least at this point, he's a lunatic.

Now we could try to soften this as much as possible because one of Jesus' brothers, James, he becomes an apostle and Mary is among them as his mother.

We like to look at them as turning out well, but we can soften it. And let's say, let's say they, they really thought that they were acting in his best interest, that they really thought that they were motivated by family love.

I'm kind of like Britney Spears' father. If you've been paying attention to that at all, Britney Spears' father has legal guardianship over her because the courts have found advised by psychiatrists that she is not capable of making decisions for herself.

So Mr. Spears thinks that he is acting in her best interest. Now here,

Jesus' family probably thought the same, that they were acting in his best interest. And they're just trying to do what's good for him, they think.

If necessary, they'll even resort to force. They're going to seize him to be his guardian. We don't really give them the details of how they never really got through to him, but they didn't.

They probably wouldn't put it so bluntly as to say he's a lunatic. They probably wouldn't say that. They would probably be offended to hear me saying that they thought that, but they did, to say he's crazy.

Maybe they have nice -sounding words, nice -sounding talk about him getting, he's getting too extreme.

Brother Jesus is getting too far out there. He's letting it get to his head. All that fame and attention has gotten to him, has put him out of balance.

The wild -eyed followers have deluded him. They're leading him astray. We have to take him away from that unhealthy environment for his mental health.

They probably said something like that. That's what we would say today, right? But the truth is, bluntly put, that for now, they've decided he's a lunatic.

On what side of you? Now, some say he's a liar. Starting in verse 22, the scribes from Jerusalem says, they were saying, and notice that is a present continuous verb, they were saying, meaning that they were saying it continually.

They didn't just say it once. They said it over and over again. He is possessed by Beelzebul, which is another word for Satan, or someone like Satan, prince of demons.

Jesus called Satan the father of lies. And so Jesus has claimed to be bringing in the kingdom of God, to be doing the father's work is false.

They are saying he's lying. They say he's doing Beelzebul's work by the prince of demons.

He cast out demons by casting out demons. He is actually giving evidence. They were saying that he's demonic.

That's where they came down on Jesus. He's a liar because he's satanic.

Well, this leads to three issues in quick succession. First, the absurdity of it.

Second, the proof what he's doing is what is really proof of. And third, the unforgivable, the unforgivable sin.

First, he takes apart their accusation, basically saying, let's think about this. Be rational about this.

He cast out demons with the power of the prince of demons. In verse 23, Jesus says, well, then think about this.

How can Satan cast out Satan? Now I suppose he could, but if he did,

Satan cast out Satan, that is a demon, lower ranking demon, gave up territory, gave up a human soul that it has gave it up willingly because Satan, a higher ranking demon tells him to.

That would mean that the demons are resisting the demons. That would mean that there's a civil war in Satan's realm and Satan dumb.

They're fighting each other. He's divided against himself. So his kingdom is about to collapse.

If the house or family is divided against himself in verse 25, if the members of a family are just fighting each other, that family will soon split apart.

They will dissolve. So Jesus is saying, think about it. If what you're saying is true, then

Satan's kingdom is collapsing right now. Satan is really casting out demons. Like you scribes are saying, then his rule is ending right now.

Of course, we know that cannot be happening. And so the accusation is absurd. Jesus has shown the absurdity of what they had decided about Jesus.

Now in verse 27, he explains how he is casting out demons. And it's a little parable says

Jesus spoke to them in parables. It's a parable that gives proof of who he is.

How is Jesus casting out demons? No one can enter a strong man's house. The strong man here is

Satan. He's the one with power with strength over his house. The house is this world as in first John chapter five, verse 19, the whole world is under the power of the evil one that is in this world.

He's the strong man. Satan is the one who is stronger than everyone else in the world.

Unless, unless someone from outside the world comes in, no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods.

Now his goods are people like those that Jesus has been casting demons out of.

They were Satan's goods. They were his property. He had them in his power, but now they are being set free.

Now they are believing in Jesus. How is that happening? The scribe said it was happening by Satan's power, but that's absurd.

It makes no sense here. Jesus is explaining how it is really happening. No one could come into Satan's realm and take his things just like no one could go into the strongest man in the world, whoever he is, or the boxing champion of the world into his house, whoever he is, and take his things.

Unless he first binds the strong man, someone coming into Satan's house, that is this world to get his things, his people has to first tie up, disable, incapacitate, shackle, arrest.

What term do you like? Satan, bind Satan. Then indeed, if he's done that, then indeed he may plunder his house.

So since Jesus is indeed plundering Satan's house, he is in the process of doing that here in Mark chapter three, still in the process of doing that right now in our day.

He's in the process. He's taking Satan's things. He's taking people who used to belong to Satan, who live like Satan, who love

Satan's lies, who had an ego like Satan, who I thought I will be exalted.

I'm the greatest who were lovers of the world, who lovers of the flesh lived according to the flesh.

Jesus is now taking them and making them his disciples. And that is proof that Jesus has bound the strong man, that he's tied up Satan.

Got it? Now, some Christians today, they misread this passage. They think it's telling us what to do, as though this passage is telling us that we need to bind the strong man.

But that's wrong. You're forgetting what's going on here, what Jesus is responding to. It's not, this passage is not telling us what we need to do.

We can say to Satan, I bind you. If that was the case, why does he keep getting, supposedly keep getting loose?

And why do we have to bind him every day or whatever? Actually, I heard someone ask that question. Why does he keep getting, why do we keep having to bind him?

Well, we don't. You've totally misunderstood the passage. Jesus is here telling us what he has already done, what he's done here in bringing the kingdom of God.

Satan is bound. Jesus did it. That is, people are now breaking free from Satan to believe in Jesus.

Jesus has made it possible to get free from Satan. Before we couldn't do that because he was stronger than us, but now he's bound.

That's why now we have Jim Jr. We have Jim. That's why we preach the gospel. That's why we tell the gospel to our children and we can hope and we can pray and we can see that they get saved because Satan cannot hold them anymore.

Jesus already bound Satan. That we plundered his house of his goods, of the people he holds, is proof of that, is proof of what

Jesus has done. Satan is now for us like a mean dog, you know, the meanest dog you can think of, like a

Rottweiler that's been badly treated, but it's tied up, right?

It has this little circle, it's tied up in a tie out in the ground in the yard and all it could go is in this little circle in this yard that it's been tied up in.

Now, as long as you stay out of his circle, Satan can't hurt you because he's bound because Jesus brought the kingdom of God and bound

Satan. Now, if you go in his circle by sinning, by living his way, by being like him, well, then he can then, yeah, he can then maul you if you're going to get in a circle.

But the good news is you can stay out of a circle because Jesus bound him.

You understand? That's what it means. Satan is bound. Finally, the scribes demonstrate, perhaps, perhaps, and actually say exactly, but it seems to be, they've not already crossed the line that they're coming close to it.

They demonstrate the unforgivable sin. Amen. Jesus begins in verse 28.

It's translated here as truly Jesus' way of saying, stop, pay attention to this.

This is serious. This is absolutely true. Amen. All kinds of sins will be forgiven.

At the end of history, at the judgment, there will be some of any kind of sin you can think of that is forgiven, right?

When you're in the kingdom of God, when it's near perfectly in eternity, I guess I don't know what we'd be doing and mingling around with people.

There will be people of every kind of sin who committed it that you can think of that had that sin forgiven.

If people are now, if people are not repentant, don't get us wrong. If people are not repentant, they won't be forgiven. But any kind of sin that you can imagine will be repented of and forgiven.

Whoever, even if they blaspheme or they slander Jesus, like Bert Ehrman does by calling him a legend, or even like here in this passage, his own brothers do like calling him crazy, or they slander you or me as infuriating as we find that all of that can be forgiven.

And there will be examples of it being forgiven at the judgment, at the end of history, except in verse 29, the one exception, one sin that you'll never be able to find someone who's been forgiven of whoever blasphemes the

Holy Spirit never has forgiveness in eternity.

When history is over, there will be not one example of anyone who has blasphemed the

Holy Spirit, who like these scribes here called the Holy Spirit Beelzebul, the power of Satan, who slandered the

Holy Spirit by calling his work satanic. Or maybe today we call his work. It's just psychological.

It's just natural. It's natural explanations for a law. All blasphemers of the Holy Spirit will be on the wrong side of history.

That's because the Holy Spirit is a person and you blaspheme him.

You offend him. He's a person. He's not just a force like electricity. You can insult electricity all day long.

It doesn't care. He's still running. And some people think of the Holy Spirit is just a force like electricity. No, early spirits, a person.

So you blaspheme him, you offend him. And he's the one you rely on to soften your heart, to give you faith.

You think you just make it up yourself? No, he's got to give you that faith. It's a gift from him. He's the one you rely on to be able to repent and to pray.

Have mercy, Lord. If you so infuriate him by calling him satanic or just a psychological reaction, he can withdraw from you and you'll never be able to or even want to repent.

The unforgivable sin is insulting the Holy Spirit. So be very careful of your judgments.

That's why Jesus said, judge not. Don't go around judging that this is satanic. You know, be careful of that.

Now, unless someone really says Satan is Lord, then you can judge it. But don't go around passing judgment of satanic or if that's just natural, if it reports to be in the name of the

Lord, doesn't mean you guys have to believe it, but just you're not to judge. Don't be guilty of an eternal sin, a sin which has an impact that lasts forever.

If you're able to come down on the right side of that divisive question about Jesus, about who he is, that's because the

Holy Spirit enabled you to come down on the right side. It's not because you were smarter, you were more noble, you were just raised in a better family.

You made the right choices. Something about you. No, it's because the Holy Spirit gave you that gift.

He gifted you with faith and repentance so that you could turn from your sin and be forgiven.

You could turn from any sin and be forgiven. But if you blaspheme, that is you slander, you insult the

Holy Spirit, don't expect him to give you any gifts, not even faith to repent with.

If you are on the right side, you're on that right side of the question about Jesus, that's because the

Holy Spirit put you there. What side are you on?

Starting in verse 31, Jesus's mother and brothers are still on the wrong side.

That this story about Jesus's natural family, you notice how it's interrupted, it's divided by that controversy about how he cast out demons, that Mark does that, shows us that Jesus's family problems went on for a while.

In verse 21, they were saying he's a lunatic, he's gone crazy, they're going to go try to seize him.

And again, in verse 31, they're back to try to intervene as if he needs their help. We see then that among the heartaches and the betrayals, the insults, all the things that Jesus suffered, he suffered an unsupportive, un -understanding, even a hostile family.

Some of you here have suffered that in your own families. Division because of Jesus.

People in your own family, they don't support you in your faith in Jesus. Jesus experienced that first.

Well, at least a hostile, natural family. They come to him again when he's in some crowded house and they can't get through to him, but a message is passed up the audience that his mother and brothers are outside, they're waiting to see him.

Like last week, Jesus's burst expectations, they would have expected that everyone, especially religious people, would put their families first.

Even today, people expect that Jesus would never get between someone's natural family and themselves.

Jesus never gets between their family and people, but he does. And here he shows us what it means to put

God ahead of family, natural family. His natural family is outside and they want to see him and he says to probably to the shock of these people around him, who are my mother and my brothers?

Your mother, your brother outside goes, who are my mother and my brothers? You think it's those people outside that I share, you know, physical

DNA with and spent my childhood with? No. He looked at those who sat around him.

You people, you right here, you are my mother and my brothers.

If you believe my word and you show that by actually doing the word, you're doers of the word, you're on the right side.

You're in his family. You're in kinship with Jesus. Those people, those who believe, show it with obedience, those people are more his family.

Hopefully you people are more his family than the natural family outside.

Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

When Jesus calls us to himself, he calls us to decide once and for all what side we're on.

He doesn't just call us to himself alone. He calls us to a new family, to be a family with all the other people that he's also called to himself, who show that by doing the will of God.

Here, think about it. Jesus is saying that he's come to create a new family.

Who says that? It can't just be a good teacher.

Good teachers like Confucius teach you how to get along with your natural family, how to be good family members, how to cultivate your family.

Jesus comes along and says he is the center of a whole new family.

Who says that? Only a liar or a lunatic would claim that unless who claims to be able to establish a new family, a spiritual family greater than the natural.

Either a liar, a lunatic or the

Lord. Mere good teachers just make your life better, your family better.

He's not just doing that. The Lord offers a whole new life with a whole new family.

You have to choose. What side are you on? If you're with Jesus doing the will of God, that might cause pain, might cause division, might cause conflict in a family that has people in it who haven't yet chosen

Jesus' side. But you should find there on Jesus' side a new family, the church.

What side are you on? If you're on Jesus' side, that's because the

Holy Spirit has given you that gift to let you see that Jesus is not a liar.

He's not son of the father of lies, Satan, but has instead bound the strong man so that he could take you away from Satan.

He set you free so that you could be on the right side. What side are you on?

If you're on Jesus' side, that's because he's proven himself to you that he really is who he claims to be, the son of God, the one who could forgive all kinds of sins, the one who forgave yours to make you his, to make you part of his family.