Joining the Family

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Don Filcek; Matt 12:46-50 Joining the Family

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Welcome to Recast Church.
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I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. I just want to welcome you, and I'm very glad that you've come out on this extremely blustery winter morning.
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How many of you at least at one point your car slid a little bit on the way in here? A handful of you. Obviously, we know that many of you who call this your church home would already know that we don't cancel, but we do ask you to use your own wisdom and caution knowing your context, your driving skills, your driveway, your vehicle, whether or not you can get in safely on any given
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Sunday. But I will be here, and if there's only two of us, then I'll preach to you. That's motivation right there, isn't it?
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I'm glad for the opportunity that we have to get together, though, and the freedom that we have to get together on a morning like this, to gather together for a couple of different purposes, but all focused on God.
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Ultimately, we've gathered together to be God's people. That's part of what it means. You can't be
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God's people by yourself. You couldn't sit at home in your pajamas and take in a podcast and then eat a piece of cracker and drink a little bit of juice by yourself and be the church.
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You have to go somewhere and gather together with God's people to be the church. So we've gathered together and we have come together to worship
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Him. Also, equally this morning, we have gathered together in part to see the cute kids that God has blessed us with.
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I know some of you, I see some new faces here with us this morning that I know are here in part because we're having a kid's
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Christmas program. This is our chance for our children. I don't know if you think about it this way, but this is a chance for our children to serve us.
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This is a part of them learning to serve, part of them learning to be engaged and involved in the church at large, and they are going to serve us by reminding us of the meaning of Christmas this morning.
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So, although we get an opportunity to take in these cute kids, also I hope that for us this morning it's a reminder to us that we're able to hear the message that the cuteness doesn't eclipse the message that they're trying to bring to us, although there is going to be plenty of cuteness this morning.
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I'm really grateful for the many volunteers that it takes to make our Recast Kids ministry a success.
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I'm especially grateful for our Recast Kids director, Jackie Klein, who's up there getting the kids together with the teachers and the volunteers and all of that.
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And so, just very thankful for all that it takes to run a children's program here.
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And I want to point out our goal in running this program every Sunday throughout the year is to support families as they seek to grow in faith, community, and service.
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I say support because we don't think of what we do as the primary spiritual teaching.
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Now, I hope that you don't either if you're a parent here, that you don't see primarily, oh,
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I take them to church, they get a message there, that's enough. We see the primary spiritual teaching that these kids will receive is in the home.
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It is from you as parents. It is the content of the things that you say, but I think many of us know who have children that it's also primarily the things that we do, living this faith out in front of our kids.
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And so, we see what we do as supplemental to the most important spiritual teaching of all, that is parents teaching and modeling their faith to God in their household.
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This morning, I was planning to continue on in my series in the book of Matthew, and just kind of cut it down and shorten it just a little bit.
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And it was ironically, God ordained that the next section of Scripture on my plate today, just as I'm going through the book of Matthew, corresponds to Jesus speaking directly about the family.
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And here we have our kids program, and we didn't coordinate that, it's just God coordinated that. But as I read this text, and as I'm going to read this text here in a moment, it might not sound like the best text to be read during a children's program.
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Because when we read Matthew 12, verses 46 through 50, it's again a short passage, we might initially take it at first reading to sound like Jesus is dissing his family.
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As a matter of fact, I would guess that many of us at first reading when we've read this, if you're familiar with this account in Matthew, if you've read it before you might have thought, man, that's kind of harsh,
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Jesus, really? I personally have read it many times over the years, and without digging too deeply, it does indeed, and has to my ear, sounded harsh to Mary and to her other sons,
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Jesus' half -brothers. But let me truly help us all to set the stage by pondering the following question.
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What parent would be disappointed to have a child raised up who valued the glory of God more than them?
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More than the parents? What parent wouldn't want a child who sought the honor of God above all things?
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Would it be a downer if your children loved
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God more than you? Would that be a downer? I don't think so. So I want us to consider that question as we read this text this morning.
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So if you're not already there, again it's Matthew 12, verses 46 through 50. If you don't have a
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Bible on your lap, I would love it if you would just raise your hand and let us know that, and somebody will bring you a
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Bible, we'll get you a copy of God's Word. But we want everybody to have a copy of God's Word on your lap, or a means to navigate there.
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I recognize some of you, it's a device. I'm not offended if you've got your device out unless you're texting or playing video games.
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But aside from that, if you've got a device out reading the Word of God, man, technology is a great benefit to us.
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But follow along, please. Matthew 12, verses 46 through 50. We're going to read this together, and I want to remind us as I do every
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Sunday that recast, this is God's Word to us. This is what God has set aside for us to hear together this morning in the reading, in the gathering of his people.
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While he was still speaking, remember that he is Jesus here. While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him.
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But he replied to the man who told him, Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said,
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Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us this morning. Father, I want to thank you so much for family.
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It is an institution that you have ordained on this planet. It is something that you have brought together for the nourishment of community, for the nourishment of society, and for the nourishment of individuals, and for the rearing of godly offspring.
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Father, there are so many benefits and blessings to family, including some of the difficult things that we face. We recognize that family has all different kinds of meanings and all kinds of problems and all kinds of blessings, and it's a grab bag of different emotions even as we think about our family experiences.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us as we get a chance to see these kids and the program that they've put together,
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Father, the effort that they've put in. Father, I pray that you would reward that with calm nerves and just the opportunity that they have to lead us and to show us the true meaning of Christmas and to think through that.
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But, Father, that you would be working in families here for strength for fathers, for encouragement for mothers, for obedience from children.
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Father, that you would be working out your life in families here and your salvation in families here.
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Father, I pray that you would be honored and glorified by the singing that we're now going to do and that it would be so much more than just singing from our vocal chords, but it would be singing from our hearts rejoicing in the salvation that we have through Jesus Christ who we celebrate during this holiday season.
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And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen. You can go ahead and be seated. And I would encourage you to get comfortable.
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Remember if at any time during the message you need more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last, you can take advantage of that.
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If the seat you're sitting in gets uncomfortable, I know some people have back issues and those chairs are not helpful to that. If you need to get up and stretch out in the back, there's an area for you to do that.
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But you're not going to distract me, but I do not want those things to distract you. Keep your
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Bibles open, by the way, to Matthew chapter 12, verses 46 through 50. If you're not already there, probably have lost your place there in the shuffle, just so that you can see that the things that I'm going to say over the next 20 minutes or so are going to come from God's word.
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And in the short time we have together in the text this morning, I still want to set a little bit of the context for us because it's very important to understand what
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Jesus is getting at in this interaction here at the very end of Matthew chapter 12.
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If we just take this chunk, and I've said this to you many times, if you take this chunk, you just read it, you're more than likely going to misunderstand it.
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Because it's set in the context of some things that have come before it. There's been some activity and some events that have gone on.
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So earlier in chapter 12, a man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and Jesus cast a demon out of the man and the man was healed.
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And the crowds that were gathered to observe that began to kind of be impressed with Jesus. How many of you would say you'd be impressed if you saw that?
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You knew this guy, he's blind, he's never spoken a word, he can see and he can talk. And you're kind of in the crowd going, okay, who is this guy?
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And they immediately began to question his identity. Is he maybe the Messiah? Which their
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Jewish understanding would have led them to some conclusions that God was going to send one who was going to save his people and was going to do these kind of miracles and things like that.
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And the blind would receive their sight and so they're kind of going, hey, is this the
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Messiah? Is this the chosen one? Well, the religious leaders that were gathered around during the time known as the Pharisees were there in that crowd and they're doing some mental spiritual math and they're going, if Jesus is the
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Messiah then he will increase our authority, our position will decrease, we don't like that.
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So they immediately accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Satan.
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Well, Jesus in the middle of chapter 12 takes it to them and identifies it these Pharisees, these religious leaders, these who's who of the religious elite of that culture.
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He says, you have wicked hearts and it's proven by your rejection of the chosen one of God. He's stating, you need to accept me quite clearly.
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And so they say to him, if you are indeed the Messiah then prove it. Well, he's just done a miracle. And isn't it like the human heart to go, but could you just, maybe one more miracle?
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Maybe one more thing and then I'll believe. Maybe if you just do this for me or you jump through this hoop or maybe you could do one more, more amazing sign and then we would believe.
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Well, Jesus said, I will give you another sign. It's not going to be a parlor trick. It's not going to be something I do right now, but it's going to be the sign of Jonah.
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They're going to bury me. I'm going to die. They're going to bury me and three days later I'm going to rise from the dead. Well, I'm not sure that the Pharisees there at that point understood exactly what he was getting at.
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But last week in our text, Jesus basically told them, focused on cleaning up their own hearts.
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And he says, you've been working on cleaning up your own hearts, but you're not open to letting me come in and clean up your heart for you.
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And that leaves them spiritually vulnerable. And in the middle of talking about that, that's where our text picks up this morning.
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So that's why you need that context to understand. There's been flow, there's been movement, there's an event that's happened in the context in which
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Jesus says these things. Because in our text, apparently in the middle of Jesus talking to the
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Pharisees about these things, someone comes in and interrupts him. And he's reminding them that what they needed most was him and his spirit in their lives.
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And in the middle of that kind of declaration, what you need is me, Jesus is telling them.
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They're all interrupted by a messenger who comes in shouting and saying, your mom and your brothers are outside and they seek to speak with you,
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Jesus. They want to talk to you. Now our text this morning is straightforward and short. I think you can get it.
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You can understand the events and the activities that are going on there. Jesus is made aware. Obviously he's in a house or a building in a room.
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And he's made aware that his mother and brothers want to speak to him. They're outside, he's inside. He turns to the crowd in the house and asks two rhetorical questions to the crowd.
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Not to his mom, not to his brothers, but he just asks the crowd, who is my mother?
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Who are my brothers? Are you my mother? There you go. So, thank you for that wonderful slide that led you probably not in the right direction.
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But, who is my mother? Who are my brothers? And he answers his own question, rhetorical questions, then he answers them, demonstrating to us that he's trying to teach something here.
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I hope you get that. But he gestures to his disciples who are standing by in the house and he says, these are my mother and my brothers.
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They're my kin. They're my family. Don't get hung up on him calling a bunch of dudes his mom, okay?
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You could get hung up on some of the nuances and the terminology, but he's just identifying that this is my family right here.
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These disciples are my family. And he clarifies that anyone, by the end of this text, anyone can be his brother, sister, or mother, in other words, a part of his family by doing the will of his father who is in heaven.
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Pretty straightforward text. The components of this text are not confusing. But why
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Jesus responds in this way needs our careful attention this morning in the time that we have. And I want to spend the rest of our time this morning asking and answering three questions of this text.
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First, let's consider this question. Was Jesus against his family?
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Now, you might read this at first blush and kind of think, yeah, he's not being very positive towards his family here.
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I mean, how many of you, if you wanted to see your son and he was like, these are my family in here.
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I mean, who are you guys out there? Would you be a little bit disappointed by that? I mean, just being honest, I think we might be.
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And so, I want to be clear that the Old Testament law that Jesus understood, that Jesus had a really a part in writing, it's clear that he was to honor his father and his mother.
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And what Jesus does here could be misconstrued as being dishonoring to his mother. And so, is Jesus here kind of skating close to the edge of the law here?
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But the fair assumption by most scholars is that this house is so full that Mary and her four sons, by the way, they're named later in Matthew chapter 13, just so that you know,
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James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, half -brothers. It's obvious that Mary had other sons after Jesus was born.
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He was obviously the first and he was born in a very unique way but she went ahead and married Joseph and they had children together,
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James, Joseph Jr., Simon, and Judas. And they couldn't elbow their way in this room, okay?
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It's packed. The image is that it's tight in there and a lot of crowds would follow Jesus wherever he went and he was always pressed in.
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The phrase is pressed in by the crowds and so they couldn't get in there. So, they're currently left outside asking for access to their son, their brother.
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Meanwhile, in the house, Jesus asked those two questions that I mentioned. That at face value, they look like bad questions.
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People will tell you that there's no such thing as a bad question. But this one, they kind of look like bad questions at the start.
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Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? And I wonder if someone in the crowd wasn't that guy who always races to answer every question.
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You had one in your class. You know, you see him. There he is. He's the guy who's like, oh, I know this one. I know this one.
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I've got it. I've got it. And the teacher or professor is like, anyone? Anyone? Anybody got it?
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But he's like, I know. I know. I know. Call on me. Call on me. Mary. Mary is your mom.
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Did I get it right? Do I get extra credit? Do I get bonus points? I mean, it's Mary, right? Mary. And then your brothers, you know, they're here.
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James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. Do I get extra credit? I wonder if there wasn't somebody like that because the question is so obvious in its answer, isn't it?
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That you know that Jesus is doing something other than asking an authentic, real question. I hope you can see that.
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Unless you believe that Jesus has been clunked on the head and he's got amnesia or something. I mean, has he forgotten who his mom is?
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Could somebody, I mean, somebody just told me my mom is outside. Can somebody please remind me who my mom is? I don't think that that's what he's getting at.
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Jesus is not in this context. I want to be clear. Jesus, I do not believe, is replacing his mother with others.
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He is not replacing his brothers and removing them from a part in his life, a special place that only a brother can really have.
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He's using a situation to further get to the heart of the Pharisees who have just rejected him. Again, this context matters.
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Jesus is not removing from his family his mom and his brothers, but Jesus is working to attempt to add to his family you and me, and those in the crowd, and anyone who would come to him as his disciple and do the will of his
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Father. Remember that Jesus from the cross, here's some things that we need to keep in perspective about family and what
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Jesus is doing here. Is he against his family? Well, remember that from the cross, he will make provision for his mother to be cared for.
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From that place of suffering where many of us would be thinking about a lot of other things, he's saying,
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John, could you take care of my mom for me? He's making provision for her.
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He loved her. Two of his four brothers will go on to write books of the
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Bible. James and Jude, who you ever wonder about the Jude in the
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Bible? I imagine he didn't like his name very much and shortened it for the rest of his life, right?
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He probably didn't like being named Judas so much and we have a book of the Bible that he wrote called
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Jude. But he was a brother. He's one of these brothers who's standing here, called and known by the name
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Judas at this point, and he will eventually write scripture and speak cosmologically about his brother.
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He will speak like he is God in flesh. Now, many of us might look up to a big brother, but you're probably not going to be too quick to call him
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God, right? But James and Jude were going to do that.
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He was not here dishonoring his mother. He instead is using the very high value of family, very high value of relationship to call all in that room to something very, very important and to call all of us in this room to something very, very important.
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Something that's even more important than family. Family's a good imagery of it, but it's the thing that family was made to image.
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And that is the family of God. The thing that the family was made to image.
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And so that leads to the second question, then what was he saying to that crowd? If he's not against family and he's not saying something bad about that, what is he saying?
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And in verse 49 he answers his own rhetorical question by stretching out his hand towards his disciples and pointing to them as his mother and brothers.
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He's saying, this is my family. Jesus gestures specifically to those who have entered into a willing relationship with him by following his lead and he declares them to be his close family.
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His disciples are his family. This is a substantial move in the face of the rejection he's been facing over the entire chapter.
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Who is the family of Jesus? Those who have forsaken all things to follow him.
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Those who have entered into a life of walking with him and following his life. Those who could be called disciples.
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So in a nutshell, Jesus is saying to the Pharisees who have rejected him and his spirit, the way into the family of God is through me, says
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Jesus. And only lives connected to him and discipleship will be welcomed into God's family.
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I honestly imagine that, and I imagine this and because the text is absent
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I need to be careful so you need to understand when I'm imagining things and when it's coming from the text. This doesn't come from the text but I honestly think it's quite possible that Jesus in this context did not diss his family.
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That maybe, quite possibly, unrecorded for us as scripture is the next conversation he has with his mom that he actually states this as his last thing kind of getting one last comment into the
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Pharisees before he goes out to talk with his mom and his brothers. It's possible the text is unclear what he did next.
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There is one last thing I need to say and I think needs to be said in answer to the question, what was
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Jesus saying to the crowd that day? I do believe that Jesus was indeed indicating that membership in the family of God is indeed more important than earthly familial ties.
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It is. Now, family matters a lot, right? We can talk in terms of focus on the families, the name of an organization that many of us are familiar with.
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There's a lot about the family. How many of you would hold your family in high esteem? You're supposed to raise your hand, everybody.
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That's the right thing to do. That was more than anything just an exercise of your arm because you were supposed to do that. But yeah, family is indeed important but there is indeed something that is more valuable than that.
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Membership in the family of God is much more vital than that. It is much more enduring than that.
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Much of Jesus' other teaching does indicate by the way, that his kingdoms breaking into the world would cause strife in some families.
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Maybe some of you experienced that over the holidays. Maybe there are times when you will get together over Thanksgiving or over New Year's or over Christmas where you have conversations that you've had over and over again to the point where you're like,
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I don't even really, there are no fly zones whether it's politics or religion or different areas that you're just like, we don't talk about that at our family gatherings because it's volatile and it blows things up.
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And you maybe are a recipient or have experienced the fact that the kingdom of God's breaking in does indeed divide.
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Jesus spoke in terms of brothers opposing brothers, fathers opposing sons, sons opposing fathers.
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All of these broken relationships that can result from complete and utter incompatibility in the understanding of who
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Jesus Christ is. And that can be tough. Think in terms of maybe a little bit more subtle way that we have in Scripture where James and John are standing on the seashore and they've just hauled in a bunch of fish and they're working for their dad
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Zebedee and they're all in the boat counting fish and the nets have torn and there's going to be mending that's going to need to be done and there's work and Jesus steps up to that boat and says, come and follow me and James and John leave poor old
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Zebedee in the boat to fix the nets and count the fish and clean them. How many of you love fishing and you don't like cleaning fish?
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Anybody with me on that? Fishing is fun but cleaning them is a mess, right? And so Zebedee, James and John get the haul and then they leave their dad there and the simple lesson is that the king is worthy of any sacrifice, of leaving and going.
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And there's parables of this, there's case studies of this that Jesus spoke about and so he is indeed saying that the family of God is a unique new thing that breaks in.
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It's not necessarily incompatible with your family but it can cause problems in your family, it can disrupt things.
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Third, the final question I would like to answer from this text is how can we get into his family?
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How can we become a brother or sister to Christ? This text is not against his mother and brothers but instead this text is for us.
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It's for us all. You see, think about it this way, Jesus is too big a deal to be squandered as a blessing merely to his immediate family.
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He has plenty of room to hold anyone in his arms who will come to him and accept his call to discipleship.
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And according to verse 49 and verse 50 there are two ways of stating the same things in these two verses.
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In verse 49 Jesus points to his disciples, calls them his disciples and says, they have it.
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They get it. They're in. They are in my family. And the title that he uses for them, disciple, defines the entry point.
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They are life students of the master. They have pledged loyalty and commitment to sitting under his authority, under his teaching, under his guidance.
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And verse 50 says something that I think is meant to be parallel to that concept of discipleship. Jesus says in 49 that these disciples have it pointing to them and then in verse 50 he says anyone can have it.
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Anyone who would do the will of his father in heaven is welcomed into his family.
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Now at first blush that might sound to your ears like cleaning up your act, doing a bunch of good things.
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Does it mean cleaning up your life and obeying God? Is that what doing the will of his father is? But Jesus just emphatically stated to this same crowd that they can clean up their act all they want and still be vulnerable to evil.
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That was just last week. That was just sentences ago when Jesus, I mean remember this is spoken in one sitting with people in a house.
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Is he contradicting himself? Is he saying you can clean up, clean up, clean up, clean up your act, sweep, sweep, sweep your heart and still be vulnerable because what you lack is me and then in a moment later just say well what you need to do is you need to just obey and do more.
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Is he contradicting himself? I don't believe so for a second. Jesus has told them that they can't clean up their act enough to be okay.
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The entirety of chapter 12 since verse 22 has been the Pharisees rejecting not the law, not the rules.
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What have the Pharisees been rejecting? Jesus. They've been rejecting him and Jesus has been explaining how dangerous it is to reject him and calling all in the presence of that room and all of us here in this room to accept him.
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And so the way to enter into the family of Jesus is to come to him and accept him as your
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Messiah, as the chosen one, as the one who can wash away your sins. This is the will of the father that salvation would be found in his son.
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To obey the will of the father is to believe and trust the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as we come to communion this morning
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I think we have a couple of things that we all need to consider. First, ask yourself this very fundamental and simple question.
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Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Am I a disciple of Jesus Christ? Some sub -questions that help with that.
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Is he your teacher? Is he your master? Are you seeking out his wisdom to know how to roll in this life, how to work with your family, how to work with your employer, how to navigate the major decisions that you need to make in life?
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If that describes you this morning and you would say, yeah, I am. I'm seeking out wisdom from God and I'm trying to follow
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Jesus Christ and I've embraced him and accepted him as my king and my lord. Then I'd encourage you to come to one of the four tables during this next song.
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There's a table set up in the four corners of the room here and take a cracker to remember the body of Jesus Christ that was broken for you.
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And take the cup of juice to remember his blood that was shed for you. You see, we remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ each week to bring our hearts back to the central place of thankfulness and gratitude.
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Jesus himself paid a debt he didn't owe to cover a debt that you and I could never pay.
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Some of you here, you're here and discipleship doesn't define your life. It really doesn't.
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You are not really sure if you're in the family of God. You have a lot of questions about all of this. And I would encourage you this morning to skip communion.
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Just take in the song during this time that Dave's going to be playing for us. But while the song plays, consider what is stopping you from entering the kingdom of God and entering his family by accepting
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Jesus Christ as your king and savior, maybe even this morning. If you make a decision to follow
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Jesus in that way this morning, I would love for you to let me know. Just come and talk to me so I can pray for you and maybe even help you along in that journey.
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But lastly, for all of us, for all of us here this morning, consider who
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Jesus pointed to as he modeled his new spiritual family. Who did he point to in that room?
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Who did he say, these are my mother and brothers? He pointed to the disciples, didn't he?
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What do we know about those guys? They're rascals. Thomas, who will just weeks later refuse to believe the resurrection of Jesus Christ until he could see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands.
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Doubting Thomas. And Jesus says, this is my brother. This is my family.
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Peter, who would deny even knowing Jesus to the extent of cursing the person who is asking the question, of course
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I don't know him. I've never even met the man, says Peter to the one who would save his soul.
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Family. James and John who sought to gain the upper hand of authority over the rest of the disciples.
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Well, can we sit at your right hand when you gain your authority, Jesus? Can we be the ones who are over the rest?
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Can we be the ones in charge? These guys are not pointed to in that room because they're such clean and moral examples.
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They were pointed to because they entered into a lifelong journey of following Jesus through all of the ups and downs of life.
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My prayer for my kids, my prayer for your kids, and my prayer for all of us is that we would love
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Jesus even more than parents and family. Let's pray.
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Father, I do pray that you would help us to learn the lesson that you desire to communicate to us that you indeed have instituted family and it's a beautiful thing and it can be great when it's working great and it's terrible when it's broken and not working great.
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It can be a great downer during the holidays and it can be a great uplifting thing during the holidays. And sometimes both within the same day.
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And so Father, we know that our trust can't be placed in family. But by entering into a different family, our hope comes in the form of having
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Jesus Christ as our brother and you as our father. Doing your will, which looks like submitting to your son.
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Father, I pray that if there's anybody in this room that has never taken that step of faith to say, I will put my trust over on Jesus Christ, I pray that today might be a day of salvation for them.
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And then Father, for those that are here that are already in with Christ and are in that discipleship relationship,
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I pray that even in the taking of communion as we reflect on his sacrifice for us, that we would gain strength, not some magical strength from eating a cracker or drinking some juice, but we would gain strength in our minds and in our hearts by recognizing that we are not capable of winning this ourselves.
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But it's an invitation to discipleship. It's a lifelong journey where we have been declared acceptable to you.
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Just like those disciples in that room who were invited into your family despite their faults, their brokenness, their messes.
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Father, I thank you that you've invited us. We're messed. We're jacked up. We are messes.
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And yet, we have experienced your love through Jesus Christ. I pray that that reality would settle on us over these holidays in a way that is powerful and helps us to look past the giving of gifts, the receiving of gifts, the tinsel and all the decorations to the reality of hope that we have in Jesus.