Belonging with Jesus (Mark 3:31-35) | 9/22/19
Mark 3:31-35 9/22/19 | Will DuVal
The question before us this morning is: WHERE? Where do YOU want to belong? Think back – how much of your life have you spent trying to FIT IN? At the cool kids’ lunch table? On the team that gets picked first in P.E.? At your top-choice college? That dream job you applied for? With the boss and his “inner circle” you’ve been trying to break into? With the cool parents at the PTA. With your in-laws you’ve been trying to impress for YEARS, but they still don’t fully accept you as one of their own? Maybe at West Hills? Perhaps you’ve been visiting for awhile and you’re thinking: “this seems like a pretty cool church; but what does it mean to truly BELONG here?” Come to the membership class on Oct 13th
Where is it, that YOU most want to BELONG today?
This morning, we’re going to examine a series of 5 passages, as we continue our study through the Gospel of Mark this year, and we’re going to see Jesus answer the question of what it means to BELONG... with HIM. To belong TO Him. And Jesus is going to define belonging with Him, in contrast to, over AGAINST, belonging in the WORLD. So I’m going to draw 5 sets of contrasts here. Between what it means to belong in the WORLD, vs. belonging with JESUS. And for sake of time and simplicity today, I won’t ask you to stand and read; we’ll just read each passage as we come to it. But let’s begin together with prayer...
We start in MARK 3:31-35, with Contrast #1: “Belonging” in the world is a matter of YOUR BIRTH; belonging with Jesus is about YOUR REBIRTH. Look with me at MARK 3:31-35:
And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. 32 And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers[c] are outside, seeking you.” 33 And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
Now speaking of “wanting to fit in”, the scene I’M envision here is a little like that moment in every teenage “coming of age” movie, where the kid’s parents go out of town for the weekend, and he decides to throw a party for the entire high school. But instead of kegs and shots, THIS crowd is drawn by Jesus’ MIRACLES and his TEACHINGS; we hear in ch.1 “the whole city was gathered together at the door. 34 And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons.” (vv33-34). We hear “they were astonished at his teaching... and his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.” (1:22, 28). But v31 is the moment in the movie when predictably, the parents arrive back home from vacation early, and can’t even push their way back inside their own house, so Mary and Joseph cut the power to the house. Lights go out, music shut off. The party freezes. Then someone from the front porch yells in: “Hey Jesus – your PARENTS are back!” And in v32 there’s a collective GROAN from the crowd: “Aww, man; party’s over...” And everyone starts heading for the door, when Jesus in v33 yells: “WAAAIT! ... “Who are my mother and my brothers?” YOU GUYS are my FAMILY!”” And everyone looks at each other silently for a moment, then Peter yells “PARTYYYYYY!!” and the music kicks back in and Jesus goes back to healing and teaching.
Now, if that sounds like a different ending than the films you’ve seen, a different ending than perhaps you’d EXPECT here, from JESUS, it is for good reason. This story is RADICAL. In fact, of ALL the “radical” things Jesus does and says in the Gospels, this has got to be up there. It’s difficult for you and me to appreciate just how important one’s biological family of origin was in 1st c. Palestine. In 21st c. America, if you don’t like your family, you say “Good riddance” when you turn 18, and you go follow your heart and your dreams and when don’t make it big in Hollywood, we have governmental social safety nets set up to make sure you won’t starve or freeze to death. But they didn’t HAVE any of that back then. Your family was your ONLY lifeline. Young boys were apprenticed by their fathers in the family trade, young girls were married off to promising young boys of family friends, and THAT was your only safety net: your family. To turn your back on your family in THEIR culture, was literally to risk your LIFE.
But Jesus says, “Family? WHAT family? YOU’RE my family?” Why?
Well, we know from John 7:5 that early in Jesus’ ministry, “not even his brothers believed in him”. It wasn’t until after His resurrection and ascension, in Acts 1:14, that we hear his whole family came to faith in Jesus. And He wants to make it crystal clear here, that belonging with Him is NOT a matter of Genetics. The world says: “family is EVERYTHING.” NOTHING is more important than family, right? The Godfather, Parenthood. ALL the best movies and TV shows attest to this. When we’re lying on our death beds, we won’t regret not having spent more time at the office; what are we supposed to regret? Not having spent more time with our FAMILY.
But according to Jesus, blood is NOT in fact thicker than water. There’s something that is even more fundamental to our identity than our biological DNA. What could be more basic, more DEFINING to who I am as a human being, than the genetic coding that is literally written into every cell of my body? Jesus says: it’s your SPIRITUAL DNA. “whoever does the will of God” is my REAL brother, sister, mother. SPIRITUAL family; What’s he talking about there? What is the “will of God”?
2 Peter 3:9 tells us what God’s will is, HIS desire: “The Lord... [does] not wish that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 1 Timothy 2:4 “[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” THAT is how you “DO” the will of God. It’s not really a “DOING” at all! It’s a SURRENDERING from doing. Repentance – giving up! Stop TRYING to “do” things to please God. What is His will? That you confess you’re NOT good enough, TURN from your attempts at self-justification, and come to a saving knowledge of the truth, that it is only in CHRIST that you can be found righteous, be MADE righteous, by his atoning death on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins. THAT is the will of God for you, in Christ, friend.
Hebrews 11:6 “without faith it is impossible to please [God]”. God’s will for you, is your FAITH. And when we COME to faith in Jesus, He promises He gives us a new identity – 2 Corinthians 5:17 “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[b] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” – and he accomplishes this, John 3, by means of a SECOND BIRTH. We’re all born once, physically. But in John 3, Jesus informs Nicodemus that those who truly belong to HIM, are those who have been spiritually RE-born, not JUST by water, when your mother’s water broke while she was in physical labor; no, we’ve been born by water AND the SPIRIT: “Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (3:4-6) We’ve ALL been born of the flesh. Some of us, in this room, have been REBORN of the Spirit, to ETERNAL life.
Romans 8:8-9 “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not [WHAT?] belong to him.”
So I ask you this morning, friends: have YOU been reborn? SPIRITUALLY born again? There are only 2 types of people in this world: those who have been born ONCE, and those who have been born TWICE. BOTH will die, physically. But only one will truly live, spiritually.
Follow up question: IF you’ve been born again, through your repentance of sin and faith in Christ, how much of your identity, your sense of BELONGING, do you now find in your new spiritual DNA, as opposed to the old ways of fitting in?
Without getting too political here, can we just acknowledge that we live in a world FILLED with identity politics today. Our society LOVES to separate us into categories, based on all SORTS of identity markers that the world claims to be of SUPREME importance. Your RACE; your GENDER; your SEXUALITY; your SOCIO-ECONOMIC status... the world says: THAT is who you are! Jesus says, “WHATEVER identity markers you USED to use to determine where you belonged - your occupation, your romantic relationships, what High school you attended, St. Louisans – he says in Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple”. If compared to your new identity in ME, JESUS, all those other identity markers don’t look like HATRED, then you don’t BELONG with me. This is the kind of RADICAL identity shift, that could cause a former Christian-killing, Jewish zealot like Paul to claim, “There is [NOW] neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave[g] nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.” That is a RADICAL promise, friends, for a former Pharisee like Paul, to include Gentiles like you and me in. And that’s actually a good segue way to our second text.
MARK 9:38-41. “Belonging” in the world is a matter of EXCLUSIVITY; belonging with Jesus is about INCLUSION. Mark 9:38-41:
“John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name,[f] and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us. 41 For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.”
“Belonging” in the world is about EXCLUDING. It’s as much about which team you cheer AGAINST - CLEMSON! - as who you cheer for. Belonging to the country club is as much about who you keep OUT of the club, as who gets included. If everyone “BELONGED” at my dinner table, if anyone could just claim to be a “DuVal”, then being a DuVal would lose all sense of meaning. To a certain extent, our identity in this world DEPENDS on our being exclusive.
But Jesus says, “whoever isn’t against us is FOR us”. Now we have to be careful here, in our interpretation, because John 14:6 IS an exclusive claim! Jesus unequivocally declares “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s an exclusive claim. But at the same time, Jesus tells his disciples in John 10, v16, “I have other sheep that are not of this fold... There will be one flock, one shepherd.” What’s Jesus talking about there? He’s talking about his mission to the GENTILES. I don’t want to overuse the word, but I don’t think we can overstate just how RADICAL this new idea would have been to a 1st c. Jew. They had been taught for 2 MILLENNIA now, going back to ABRAHAM, remember FATHER Abraham, from Sunday school, who “had many sons, and many sons had Father Abraham;” well guess what, if you and I tried to sing to a 1st c. Jew that “I am one of them, and so are you,” we’d probably get STONED. YOU’RE not a “son of Abraham”! That’s the children of ISRAEL. The JEWISH people, His CHOSEN people. If one’s immediate family of origin was a core identity marker for Jesus’ listeners, their ethno-religious identity as Jews was JUST as central. From BIRTH, they were taught to see the world in “us” vs. “them” terms, “insider” vs. “outsider”, “clean and unclean”, “Jew and Gentile”. If you’re not WITH us, you’re against us. In fact, in the OT, God’s people got themselves in the most trouble when they started becoming TOO inclusive. Intermarrying. Worshipping foreign gods. Not being separate, exclusive.
And then here comes Jesus, claiming, if you’re not AGAINST me, you’re FOR me. Brothers and sisters, does our faith make room for people who don’t believe exactly like us? Did y’all know that there are going to be non-West Hillians with us in Heaven? I sure hope so! No offense; but I think I’d get bored with the same 200 of y’all for all eternity. Did you know there are gonna be non-Baptists in Heaven? non-Reformed Christians? non-evangelical Christians? Did you know there are gonna be some CATHOLICS, at least SOME of them, with us, in HEAVEN?!
It’s so easy to get entrenched in our own little camps within Christianity, and forget the big picture. Jesus has got sheep who aren’t of our fold. Well, Pastor – where’s the LINE then? We’re not universalists! John 14:6 – we don’t believe EVERYONE’S going to heaven! The line, very simply, is the gospel. The gospel is the clear dividing line that separates all of humanity into REALLY only 2 camps: those who repent and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and those who don’t. Which camp are you in? Do you belong to Jesus? The gospel is the most INCLUSIVE message of ANY religion out there – it’s the power of salvation for ALL who believe, Jew AND Gentile. It’s good news for EVERYONE! Every nation, every tribe, every tongue on the PLANET gets included! God desires that “NONE should perish”, that “ALL should be saved!” But you’ve got to repent and believe. Have you DONE it, friends? Do you belong to Jesus?
Dichotomy #3: MARK 9:42-48 – “Belonging” in the world is a matter of BEING “WORLDLY”; belonging with Jesus is about HATING SIN. Mark 9:42-48:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[g] it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell,[h] to the unquenchable fire.[i] 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’
For starters, this passage begs the question: did Jesus mean this LITERALLY? Did he ACTUALLY mean for us to take his warning against sin here so seriously, that we would literally cut off our hands, pluck out our eyes, if they cause us to sin? And the only answer I can offer you, on behalf of every male in this room who has gone through puberty is: I PRAY not! I HOPE not. And I THINK not. Why? Because the sad reality is that even without hands and eyes, we’d STILL find ways to sin – we’d INVENT new ways! Why? Because remember Mark 7 from just a few weeks back: “It’s not what is OUTSIDE a man and comes in that defiles him, but” what? ““What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within” (7:20-23).
Now the FLIP side to that, lest we too quickly let ourselves off the hook, and fail to take Jesus really SERIOUSLY here, even if not necessarily LITERALLY, is that YES our hearts matter most, but at the same time, YES our hands, feet, and eyes really matter too. What we DO, where we GO, and what we SEE – hands, feet and eyes – they really do matter. Because they AFFECT our hearts! Matthew 6:22-23 ““The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” YES it’s true that what comes OUT of us is what defiles us, but it’s ALSO true what they say: “Garbage in, garbage out.” So Jesus WARNS us, in no uncertain terms here in Mark 9: do not abide the garbage. It’d be better to cut your hand off. Pluck your eye out. THAT’S how much he wants us to hate sin.
Paul puts it this way: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit... to keep you from doing the things you want to do... Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do[e] such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control... 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:16-24)
So I ask YOU: do you hate sin? Do you hate your OWN sin? The sin that comes from within YOU? That lives in your heart? Have you CRUCIFIED it? Have you TODAY? This is a DAILY battle, by the way, sometimes a moment-by MOMENT struggle. It’s NOT as simple as “I crucified my flesh 30 years ago when I accepted Christ”; Ohhh! If ONLY, it was that easy!! No, Jesus calls us to die DAILY to self, to die to sin, put it to death – Colossians 3:5 “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” Not JUST because God commands us to. Not JUST because it’s the RIGHT thing to do. Not JUST because it will make us ultimately and infinitely more satisfied, filling our hearts with JESUS, instead of the garbage this world has to offer, but as much as anything, we put our sin to death, because this is what it means to BELONG to JESUS.
Polly and I are getting ready to adopt a baby boy due in November. But we don’t get adopted into God’s family as newborns, do we? No, we bring all KINDS of baggage. I was thinking about that metaphor this week, imagining what it would be like to adopt a teenager. Who had been used, and abused, and LIED to, all his life, cuz that’s what sin does to us, isn’t it? Sin promises a good time, but ultimately leaves us feeling empty, lied to, used. I imagined what kinds of self-protective, but ultimately self-destructive habits and coping mechanisms that teenager might bring with him into our family, having come to believe that he’s WORTH being abused, that he DESERVES to be used and lied to. And how many times, I’d have to look him in the eyes, and tell him: “You don’t have to DO that stuff anymore. That was your OLD life. But you belong HERE now.” Not in a threatening way, like, “You better shape up and start representing the DuVal name better OR ELSE,” but rather, “Buddy, we just don’t DO that in this family; don’t TALK that way, don’t TREAT each other that way, we don’t treat OURSELVES that way. We love one another too much. And I love you too much to watch you de-value yourself and others this way.”
Friends: Jesus hates our sin. Because he knows the effect it has on our hearts. And he really, REALLY cares, about our hearts. And if you belong to Him, you WILL hate sin too.
Lastly, TWO passages, that I’ve run myself out of time to discuss as much as they deserve, but we’ll end with: MARK 9:33-37 & MARK 10:13-16 -- “Belonging” in the world is a matter of POWER; belonging with Jesus is about HUMILITY.
MARK 9:33-37
And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
and finally, MARK 10:13-16
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
Friends: the world trades in power. Who’s got the bigger, corner office? Who’s got more money; more SPENDING power? Who cares about the relationship LESS; that gives you POWER over the other person, in a relationship. They’re being vulnerable with you; LOVE is giving someone else the power and potential to hurt you. Who holds the power? This is how the world works. We are all born power brokers who use whatever little power we have to leverage, manipulate and coerce others into doing what WE want them to and try and gain even MORE power...
But Jesus says: that doesn’t make you GREAT. Not with me, anyway. You wanna be great in the world’s eyes, you wanna belong in the world? Sure, go ahead and climb the corporate ladder, and step on as many people as you need to along the way to get there. But you wanna belong with ME? “Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Don’t misinterpret that: this is not about faith VERSUS reason, who can shut their brain off the most and have “faith like a child” to believe things only CHILDREN believe... No. These passages are both about POWER vs. HUMILITY. There are those in this world with power OVER others, the DISCIPLES who have the power to restrict people from coming to Jesus, and there are those with NO power, little children, the most vulnerable members of 1st c. society. And Jesus uses their power differential, as a spiritual metaphor and a spiritual word picture to say, “If you’re not willing to give up ALL your power, lay down your pride, take up your cross and deny yourself, recognize that Heaven is the one place you cannot manipulate and COERCE your way into with your money, your influence, your power; if you won’t become like a vulnerable little CHILD: “Father, PLEASE! I NEED you! I bring NOTHING to the relationship; YOU must save me!” The healthy have no need for the doctor; Jesus came for the sick. The lost. The broken. The desperate. The powerless. The humble.
Is that you today, friend? Let’s pray.