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well uh good morning brothers and sisters i'm so thankful to be preaching this morning um if you have your bible and i hope you do uh we're going to be jumping forward a little bit in the book of mark uh so turn to mark chapter three 3. if you're just joining us this morning we've been going through mark for the past month and we'll actually be staying in mark until easter and probably for a couple months after i believe and so because we're going to the end of mark around easter we're going to be mainly focusing on some key passages and themes throughout mark until we reach easter and then we're going to go back and hit some other key themes and passages after easter so if you're familiar with the book of mark you'll notice that it's a very fast-paced gospel mark is very fast-paced in his storytelling he uses words like immediately i think he uses immediately like 41 or 42 times in the book and he makes some stories that we're familiar with a lot shorter like jesus's baptism his temptation things like that and so basically because of our preaching schedule coming up we're going to be taking mark at an even faster pace than he presents it um so since we've skipped over the rest of chapter one and all of chapter two and the beginning of chapter three uh we're actually going to briefly recap what we've kind of gone over so far and what we haven't read um because it's very important to what we're going to be reading today so uh let's just hit the ground running so mark chapter 1 starts with introducing jesus as the messiah the son of god and god himself we saw jesus's baptism temptation the beginning of his ministry with a message of repentance because jesus said the kingdom of god has come through himself then we see him call his first disciples and then so jesus even begins to do many miracles he casts out many demons he's preaching and teaching with authority even touching and healing a leper something that was unheard of and so we finish mark chapter one with very high spirits and everything seems great until mark chapter two what we see in mark chapter two from verse one all the way through mark chapter three verse six so all of chapter two and the first pericape or story of chapter three uh so mark two and mark beginning mark three and i encourage you to go read those passages for yourself that section of verses it's like five pericopes or stories um we see uh this escalation of tension between jesus and the religious leaders we see jesus not only heal but forgive a paralytic thus equating himself with god then we see jesus call a tax collector to follow him and become his disciple jesus even eats and fellowships with these tax collectors and sinners which upset the pharisees after this people are upset because jesus disciples never fast ritually like the disciples of john the baptist and the disciples of the pharisees next we see jesus and his disciples go pick some grain in a field on a sabbath which was considered work by the pharisees which working on the sabbath was obviously a big no-no but jesus responds that he is the lord of the sabbath and that the sabbath was made for people not the people for the sabbath and finally the big nail on the coffin or in the coffin it actually comes at the beginning of mark chapter three so in my opinion i think mark chapter two should have extended to the beginning of chapter three but i digress uh on the sabbath again a man with a withered hand comes into the synagogue where jesus is and jesus heals the man on the sabbath so god works works through jesus on the sabbath the pharisees are so upset by this that they decide enough is enough and that jesus needs to die escalated pretty quickly but jesus has so what we see in chapter two in the beginning of chapter three is that jesus has so flipped and challenged their categories and perceptions of who the messiah is supposed to be that they literally cannot cope uh with each event in those five stories of the beginning of mark two all the way through mark three six the tension rises the boxes are broken and the pharisees can't wrap their minds around it and thus they decide jesus needs to go and it's in the context of this tension that we pick up in mark chapter three starting in verse seven and there's a lot here and i want to briefly touch on everything but i want to mainly focus on one or two points here so we're going to read through i'll revisit each story and then uh we'll we'll go from there and see a common thread through these verses so starting in mark uh chapter three verse seven it says jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great crowd followed from galilee and judea and jerusalem and edumia 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 crushed him for he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him and whenever the unclean spirit 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 onto 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 twelve 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 i always can never pronounce this uh boa nerguez sure we're gonna go with that that is the sons of thunder uh andrew and philip and bartholomew and matthew and thomas and james the son of alphaeus and thaddeus and simon the zealot and judas iscariot who betrayed him then he went home and the crowd gathered around 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 came who came down to him from jerusalem were saying he is possessed by beautiful and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons and jesus called them to him and he 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 then that house will not be able to stand and if satan has risen up against himself and is divided he cannot stand but is coming to an end but no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man then indeed may he 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 were saying he has an unclean spirit and his mother and brothers came and standing outside they sent to him and called him and a crowd sit 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 out at those who sat around him he said here are my mother and my brothers for whoever does the will of god he is my brother and sister and mother so let's go back to the beginning and let's break some of these down focus on each one really briefly and then get on to the kind of the key theme so verses 7-12 this passage is kind of like a summarized foreshadowing of what is happening and what's going to be happening uh we see this kind of overview scene a few times throughout mark and other gospels and so let's take a couple minutes to unpack what mark is communicating here so first we see jesus withdraw that is he withdraws from the pharisees since they obviously want to kill him he withdraws with his disciples so even in that fleeing and and withdrawing because his time had not yet come jesus is still taking the time to disciple his disciples to do life together with them second we see that a a great crowd mark says followed from a variety of different places and what's the significance of these places right whenever we read the bible we kind of glaze over places because you know it's not like it's new jersey we don't know these places so it's kind of just like all right foreign places i know some of these but whatever so let me just very briefly touch on them so galilee is a region in the northern part of that of israel during that time period um the the northern part of israel that that whole land um judea was the southern portion of israel formerly known as judah in hebrew but judea is just the greek version of that jerusalem is the capital of judea edumia is even further south of judea the phrase beyond the jordan is obviously to the east of the jordan sometimes called perea and a couple other names in that general area that's where uh in the old testament uh two and a half of the tribes of israel actually lived to on the other side of the jordan uh and then tyre and sidon these are cities that used to actually belong to the tribe of asher i think in the old testament times of the judges but they were eventually taken by phoenicia so what i find fascinating about this is that mark is essentially alluding to how all of the 12 tribes of israel were coming out to seek jesus like these are jews from all over the place from all these places that sound scattered but really he's going back to this old testament imagery of like you're familiar with these places they're all coming to seek jesus and while tyra and sidon were mainly gentile cities and there were probably jews living within those cities as well that were coming out to seek jesus the picture from the old testament that we should also think about is how the kings of tyre and sidon both helped king david build his palace and king solomon build the temple in jerusalem so possibly one of the points mark is trying to subtly get at here is that he's painting the picture of jesus as the true king of israel as he has been painting that picture in the previous stories and the third key thing in this overview passage is again the massive amount of people trying to seek jesus so much so that they could crush him um and so he had to get into a boat and preach from there i mean see that in other gospels as well so we see mark painting that picture of jesus as the king of israel uh then in the next section verses 13 through 19 this is very important for us to see first it says that jesus went up onto the mountain i'm going to briefly touch on this we've talked about this before the idea of the cosmic mountain theology it's in almost every ancient religion almost every ancient culture you see this idea that humans in order to be with the gods they would have to go up onto a high place onto a mountain whether that's a a natural mountain um or a man-made mountain think of like ziggurats and you know pyramid-looking structures those were like pseudo-cosmic mountains that they could go up to the top and be with the gods and that's the same thing we see all the time in the in the old testament as well is when people would ascend the mountain they would go and be with god it was to do something with god so we see key figures like that like moses and elijah and i think that mark's trying to get us to see this moses imagery of jesus going up on the mountain just like moses did after the exodus to receive the covenant that god was making with israel but here's what's interesting while jesus is presented as this new moses going up the mountain he is also simultaneously portrayed as god and we know this because of what we see him do it says that he jesus calls people to himself does that make sense the the dots that that mark is connecting usually it's god up on the mountain calling people to himself but now jesus is on the mountain calling people to himself so mark is showing him as the new moses the messiah but also god himself again he is appointing 12 apostles which is obviously symbolic of the 12 tribes of israel so here jesus is almost reenacting the exodus story where god calls the 12 tribes out of egypt because he desires them and then he wants the nation of israel to be god's representatives and what does jesus set the apostles apart for well the word apostle means sent one but we also see in verse 14 that jesus wants them to be with him he wants to send them out to preach and then specifically gives them specifically authority to cast out demons we'll come back to this point of of of what it means to be with jesus um but i just want to point this out this new israel imagery because it's very important for showing how jesus fulfills the old testament story uh verses 20 and 21 after this we see jesus and his disciples go to a house and eat but because of the massive crowd they can't eat and jesus's family hears about what is going on with jesus they think he's gone crazy so they go out to seize him so like bring him back home and be like hey you got you need a break like you gotta figure your life out uh then verses 22 through 30. again i'll touch on this briefly um because the blasphemy of the holy spirit is always something that everyone is concerned about we wonder you know like have i done this right have i blasphemed the spirit if i have jesus says that the person who does this won't be forgiven so if i've done this does that mean i won't be able to be forgiven but this is where context and bible reading is so crucial because sometimes we glaze over familiar passages like this because and we're we already know that the thing is coming but we we just don't pay attention to the details sometimes we goes over these passages so here's my short answer jesus is saying that the blasphemy blasphemy is speaking wrongly about god jesus was saying that the blasphemy that was being committed by the pharisees was attributing the work of the holy spirit through jesus to actually being satan working through jesus and mark even makes this more clear because in verse 30 he points out 4 he says 4 they were saying thus he's linking the blasphemy that jesus is talking about to their acu their accusation against jesus and the spirit so jesus's point of what he's saying and all this and what the blasphemy of the holy spirit is is this because they were falsely attributing the spirit's work to satan they would never receive forgiveness but they are guilty of an eternal sin as jesus puts it now then we have to ask the question is this a one-time thing that the pharisees were doing that makes forgiveness impossible or is it the result of repetitively denying the spirit's work and also can we commit this today so i'll say two things very briefly about that the first one i'd argue that it is the blasphemy of the holy spirit and not receiving forgiveness is the repetitive denial of the spirit's work through jesus which is what made forgiveness impossible for the pharisees you could even argue that it was the pharisees own repetitive denial that so hardened their hearts against the spirit pointing them to jesus that the impossibility of receiving forgiveness was their own doing so that's the first thing it was it was repetitive they kept denying what the spirit was doing through jesus but then secondly can we commit this today um my advice would be this because there's still debate about this but my advice would be this don't reject the the holy spirit's work don't reject what he does now we need to be careful though because while we don't want to put the holy spirit in a box we also want to make sure that we uh that things that we hear about or things that we believe line up with what the bible teaches if we hear someone say the holy spirit told me and it's followed by blatant heresy or a sketchy theology probably not the spirit if it goes against what the what the bible says um and and that's okay to lovingly say to a brother or sister in jesus you're being submissive to god through his word we are we are flawed human beings who can think that we heard the spirit but it was actually our own desires and this is where grace and love comes into play we need to make sure we do this with love and respect and gentleness when we want to correct maybe somebody who believes something about whatever um yeah so that's that's what i'll say about that don't box the spirit in but make sure that that lack of box is still lining up with the bible you get it and then verses 31-35 we lastly see jesus's mother and brother show up but jesus reorients his family not to flesh and blood but he says to those who do the will of god now it's this point where i want to get into the meat of what we're talking about today if there's a main point like like a sermon title that you want to give this main point here it is disciples of jesus are brothers and sisters that's it i want to break that down into two parts that disciples of jesus are brothers and sisters i'm going to break that down first focusing on us as jesus disciples and then us as brothers and sisters in christ so firstly in verses 13 through 15 when jesus calls the twelve apostles we see the heart of being a disciple of jesus or rather how jesus disciples us the heart of being a disciple of jesus is found in verse 14 and here it is to be with jesus i think that we often think of discipleship as a program or a class or a part of the christian life however discipleship is all of the christian life while i could shamelessly plug the various great books on discipleship that i've read and there there are a lot we need to start here is that discipleship is being with jesus and the meaning is twofold here yes it's about you as an individual spending time with jesus but it's also about us spending time with jesus together and not just in an in church type of way but outside of the church doors discipleship without jesus is just a basically a philosophy class at best or a good works gospel at worst if we're not with jesus in his presence reading the bible together in prayer growing by observing jesus and spending time with him if we're not with jesus then whose image are we being conformed to if we're not with jesus repeatedly with jesus in his presence again through the word through prayer then whose image are we being conformed into and even when we talk about things like you know the apostles were sent out on mission how can you be on mission if you don't even know the one who sends you or you're not nourished by the one who sends you or you don't observe the one who sends us that's a baseless foundation again that's why i said that's at worst a good works gospel that we pat ourselves on the back think we're doing the lord's work but we don't even know the lord right like the the horrifying passage in the sermon on the mountain in matthew 7. like jesus says depart from me i never knew you even though they said lord lord we casted out demons in your name he said i never knew you we have to know jesus we have to be with him and that's what discipleship is all about so i guess i question we need we need to ask ourselves is this does being with jesus sound refreshing to you and even to add on to that does being with jesus with others sound refreshing to you if it doesn't you might need to reorient some things in your life and adjust your perspective asking why jesus why being with jesus doesn't sound refreshing reading the bible praying resting with jesus these th things aren't things to add on to our lives but they're the means by which we find rest in jesus again if these things sound tiring or exhausting then it's not them that's the problem but it's your heart it's my heart we all every christian struggles with this so this isn't condemnation this is self-assessment and that's healthy we need to take a step back and if these things sound exhausting or too much we really need to readjust some things the heart of jesus and let this let what i'm about to say be fuel to push you into loving jesus more and desiring to be with him the heart of jesus is one that is kind and compassionate meek and listening gentle and lowly tender and beautiful if this imagery gentle and low the and tender and beautiful sounds too flowery to you then i think you might need to spend more time with jesus because he himself calls his own heart his affections his desires gentle and lowly as he says in matthew 11 and god says that he is a god who is compassionate and gracious slow to anger abounding in steadfast love and or loyal love and faithfulness in exodus 34. what a good and gracious king we have why would we not want to be with him obviously like i said we're flawed humans and many times we value what we can do over how we can be that is we can focus so much on the checklists of bible reading the time spent praying our spiritual gifting and how we use that our missional efforts or anything else that we forget the joy of being with jesus so my encouragement is is ask the spirit to help you find rest in jesus today pray that being with jesus would bring refreshment and joy and not just being with jesus by yourself but being with jesus with others again outside of sunday mornings yes a great way of doing this is obviously with missional communities and host homes on sunday mornings and our 4 p.m sunday gathering at the church but even just with the more intimate expressions of of gathering together such as our the the small dna groups as well of three or four people that's a great way to be with jesus together secondly and lastly is the emphasis of uh the emphasis on the family of jesus in this text jesus declares who his family truly is those who do the will of the father if we zoom out a little and look at the whole new testament we see this teaching is clear if you are a follower or a disciple of jesus i.e a christian then you and i we are brothers and sisters in jesus and i've talked about this before but this is a doctrine that i believe we have lost the significance of today for many of us this idea of of christians being brothers and sisters in christ is a cutesy little title that we read about it and that's where we leave it at the hill we we have what we call a a threefold identity as a church we are family servants and missionaries and this idea of the church as family was so important to the early church that outsiders in the second century actually thought that christians were incestuous because they were marrying their brothers and sisters now while we could chalk that up to the title of them calling each other brother and sister the bible and other documentation of the bible outside of the bible makes it very clear the early church lived like a family so here's the big question do you see the church as your brothers and sisters if you're not sure here's a follow-up question with the church are you looking for reasons to leave or problems to point out that might sound a little harsh but it's kind of the elephant in the room in every church many people at churches are basically looking for reasons to leave or they're eager to point out problems or different things like that the pastor says something or the elders decide something or the music sounds like that and so they leave but let's put this in the context of family if your child or sibling did something that you don't like do you just leave them and somebody might say well yeah matt that's that's my real family not my church family but where's the separation between these two in the bible is there one yeah in some element obviously but the separation doesn't change the value of one over the other rather the value is equal hence why when you read titus 1 and first timothy 3 why elders are disqualified if they're not keeping their kids under submission or under control because the the logic is clearly if they can't even look after their own family in their own household then they can't look after god's family in god's household so again here's the question for you in your time here at the hill do you see others as your brothers and sisters i don't care about who said what to you or whatever because we're responsible for our own actions do you see us as your brothers and sisters or is this kind of just a social club that you can leave anytime you want then again i don't mean to sound harsh but that's the reality is that we've lost what that means and no wonder why people can church hop without a second thought and why people use the phrase all the time like i'm just not being fed there like who did you actually get to know over the you know couple months that you were there or the year or two that you were there that's not to be critical of anybody and i'm not thinking of any import people in particular because i've met so many who say things like that but my challenge my encouragement is is obviously twofold and this is what i want to close with as you spend time with jesus this week pray for him to open your eyes to us as your family we are all brothers and sisters in jesus find ways to spend time together treat each other as family and reflect on how jesus unites us as a family so that we all can be with him learning his heart and learning how to show it to each other praying that we would be united in a bond of love and peace by the holy spirit and jesus i pray that you that you pray that and you seek that this week that it wouldn't just be cutesy theology it wouldn't be just another title it would be just another bible study but it's a reality that we live as brothers and sisters who are disciples of our brother our king our savior jesus christ that we desire to be with him that reading the bible together is not taxing that praying together is just so natural because he's there with us that we would love each other as christ first loved us so let's pray father thank you for this time to know you more through your word to be with you through your word to spend time with you together as brothers and sisters father i pray for those who feel hurt or neglected by us as their brothers and sisters god i pray that you would open our eyes to see our hurting brothers and sisters and to reach out to them but also that they would reach out to us love is being vulnerable towards one another and i pray that you remind us of that that we would be gentle that we'd be kind we'd be gracious we'd be patient we would bear all things together because of the love that we have first from jesus and then to give to one another so lord thank you for this time refresh our delight and being in your presence because as your word says at your wonderful right hand our pleasures forevermore so thank you lord for this time it's in your name we pray amen hope you guys have a wonderful week don't forget there are discussion questions on the app um continue to uh sign up attend host homes missional communities uh email pastorduff the hillchurches.com if you are interested in that um if you want to attend on a sunday morning i know our host home we have a blast we get into this we pray with each other we we sing songs of worship together we obviously listen to the the message and we we eat a meal together um and so and same thing with some of the other missional communities that are gathering i know not not all are but you know we're yeah we we would love to open our homes to you guys um so email pastorduff thehillchurches.com um and yeah love you guys hope to see you soon and praying for you all