Josh Hausen: Good evening. As we get started, would you join me in turning to Mark chapter 3? We're gonna be looking at verses 20 through 35 tonight. And as you're turning to this passage, I want to begin by asking one question, and this will be the focus of our time together tonight. And the question is this, Who do you believe Jesus to be?
It's an important question in the gospel of Mark, and I think that's why we need to wrestle with it tonight. Now, I know that we are in a church and that this might seem like a pretty simple question. Who is Jesus? Many of us have been learning how to answer this question since we were in Sunday school. But I actually think that if we're honest with ourselves, there's a lot harder question to answer than we'd like to admit.
And that's why we need to look at it tonight. We actually see the importance of this question come up later in the book of Mark when we see Jesus ask Peter this question. He says, who do people say I am? And Peter says that people believe Jesus to be John the Baptist. Some of them say that he is Elijah, and others say that he is one of the prophets.
Peter's heard so many people trying to answer this question. They're trying to figure out who Jesus is, but none of them seem to get it right. And many of us can find ourselves in the same camp tonight, honestly trying to figure out who Jesus really is and why it even matters in our lives. And just as Jesus did for Peter, He looks directly at us, and He asks, who do you say I am? That's why I want us to ask, who do you believe Jesus to be?
I actually believe this is one of the primary questions that Mark is the answer in the beginning of his gospel. He wants us to wrestle with this because at its core, this is a question about the authority and the identity of Jesus. So the implications for how we answer this are monumental. And I hope that through our time together, we will see Jesus revealed for who he truly is in scripture. So now with all of this in mind, if you will join me in looking at Mark chapter 3 verses 20 through 35.
Our text says this, then he went home, and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, For they were saying, he is out of his mind. And the scribes who came from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul. And by the prince of demons, he cast out the demons. And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house.
Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemes 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. His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you.
And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother. This is the word of the Lord. Please join me in praying.
Heavenly father, we are gathered together tonight to hear from you. We pray that through the work of the Holy Spirit that you would help us to see Jesus more clearly and that you would stir our affections for you. We are ready to hear from you tonight. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Now in order for us to answer this question, who is Jesus, I actually want to add 2 additional questions that we are going to look at tonight. The first question is this, what does this passage say about the authority of Jesus? And second, how does this help us determine the identity of Jesus? So we're going to be wrestling with these two ideas, authority and identity. So let's first begin with authority.
As I was thinking about this term, authority, I actually spent some time thinking about those who have been in authority over me in my life. I've had a lot of examples in my 40 plus years from parents to coaches to teachers to bosses. And in each of these examples, there was one very clear thing that stood out to me. They all had the power to tell me what to do. From the coach who made me run laps, to the principal who set the rules for the school to my parents who set my curfew, I had to do what they said because they were in charge.
Now, for those of you who know me well, this is not going to be a big surprise, but when I was growing up, I was what some people like to call a rule follower. In fact, I would say that I kind of got a reputation for that. I I respected those in authority, and I respected the rules. In fact, one of the best illustrations of this I could think of was the story from the 7th grade that we like to affectionately call the booze cruise story. You might not know this, but in 7th grade, in my small private school, I was a part of the concert band, which is also shocking because I'm terrible at music.
But in 7th grade, they'll hand you this thing called a kabassa, and they'll tell you to shake it on the first and third notes, and you get to be a part of the band, just like everybody else. And that was me. I got to be a part of the band. In the 7th grade, we went to a competition in Orlando, Florida. And one of the parents who was helping plan the trip had an amazing idea.
It was a brilliant idea. They said, let's take 70 junior high and high school students on a cruise to the Bahamas. And I am probably not going to surprise you when I say it did not go well. The first leg of the trip actually went fine. We spent time on the boat, we explored it, we swam in the pool, and we got to the Bahamas and had a great time.
But the return trip was another story. Well, when one of my friends was exploring the boat on the way there, he realized something really important. It was that on international waters, they could serve alcohol to anybody. And so many of my friends learned that, and on the return trip, they took them up on it. So many kids that, out of 70, only 2 did not drink.
And even though I've thought through this story a lot, I'm trying to think about why was this story so big, because if you think sorry. One of those people was me. I forgot to say that. I was one of the 2. That was the punch line, and I forgot to say it.
I was one of the 2 who did not drink. And I've thought about that a lot. And that's why this is important for this, is that I've thought, why did I not join my friends in drinking? I know I'm a pastor, and I probably shouldn't say that from the pulpit. But when I think about it, I wasn't any better than those other students.
I wasn't any less susceptible to peer pressure. So why didn't I do it? And the answer I keep coming up with is that I feared those who had the power and authority over me. I didn't want to get in trouble. You see, while I might have wanted to have fun with my friends, I also understood that there was a real risk to their behavior.
If they were caught, which spoiler alert, they were, then there would be real trouble for them, and there was. Those in authority over us had the power to punish, the power to hand out consequences, they had the power to speak, and we had to follow. And when I think about this story, I think about this connection between authority and power. Because it gives me a good illustration of the connection between the two. Those with authority have the power to speak, and those under their supervision have to do what they're told, or there will be consequences.
And this is what we have seen in regards to the authority of Jesus in the first three chapters of Mark. We have seen example after example of his authority as he has spoken, and his power has been shown through his miracles to those around him. We saw this first in chapter 1, when Mark says that Jesus taught as one who had authority. Those who heard Him realized that He wasn't on the same plane as the Pharisees and the scribes who were trying to interpret Scripture. Instead, Jesus spoke and He taught as one who had authority over Scripture.
Next, we see that Jesus had authority to heal the sick. In each instance that Jesus shows his authority over the very fibers of the human body, He speaks, and people are healed. From the example of Simon's mother-in-law to the cleansing of the leper to the healing of the paralytic, Mark has shown Jesus' authority over sickness through his power to heal. We will see later that Jesus even has the power to raise the dead. And in all of these instances, Jesus' power is illustrating His authority over the physical world.
Further, we see Jesus claiming authority over forgiveness and salvation in the story of the healing of the paralytic. When he tells the paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven, this is a claim of his authority over salvation itself, and it's the final thing that enrages the scribes and the Pharisees to kill Him. They can't handle this claim because they recognize in it, there is a claim by Him that He's the same authority as God. And finally, we have seen Jesus' power and authority as He rebukes and casts out demons. And much like that fearful 7th grade Josh who was afraid of the punishment, the demons are scared of Jesus.
They know that He is the one in charge and that He has the power to punish them. And what I want us to see from all of these examples in Mark is that he's trying to make one thing extremely clear in his first three chapters of this letter. He wants us to see that each miracle of Jesus is actually an authority claim. Each miracle is an example of Jesus' power, and ultimately, each miracle is a claim by Jesus that he is the son of God. Now, as we saw last week, these miracles have begun to draw the attention of the people around Jesus.
Specifically, as he continues to heal and cast out demons, he has drawn huge crowds of fans who were mesmerized by his power. However, unfortunately, most of these people have missed the point. And this is where we find ourselves in our text today. A huge crowd of fans have been drawn to Jesus. They are coming from all over, and all they want is to be near the action.
Yes. Some of them want to be healed, but most of them are just there to see one thing. They want to know what he will do next. And in verse 20, the first verse of our passage tonight, we see that Jesus returns home. And we see a scene where there were so many people, such a huge crowd and so much chaos that Jesus and the disciples couldn't even find a place to eat.
When I think of this, I'm picturing whether this is true or not, these scenes of Elvis or the Beatles in the fifties sixties, where so many people are crowded around them that they can't even get into their car. It's madness. People are screaming. And it's at this moment that Jesus's family has finally had enough, and they hatch a plan. They are going to seize him and take him home.
Now this was not a plan to have an open discussion with Jesus. Instead, the text describes a scene where they were planning to bind him up and take him against his will. It's a pretty extreme measure for his family to take, don't you think? So it leads us to ask, why are they so concerned? Well, the passage tells us, yes, they were concerned about the crowds, they were concerned about his health, They were concerned about the fact that he couldn't even eat.
However, there's one more significant concern at play. They thought that he was out of his mind. They thought he was going crazy. And in this passage, they are actually accusing him of being a madman. What a shocking thing to hear from the family of Jesus.
These were the ones who had been with him since birth. They'd been around to hear the voices and the stories of the miraculous arrival. They had seen angels who had foretold that he would save the world. And in the moment when Jesus first starts showing his power to the world, they turn on him, and they equate his actions with madness. What's interesting is as we keep moving through in this passage, we see something similar from the accusations of the scribes.
Look with me at verse 22. It states that the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he is possessed by Beelzebul, and that the prince of the demons, he cast out demons. This is the claim of the scribes. It goes a little bit like this. Jesus, we have seen your display of power, and we've actually come up with an explanation for it.
We believe that you are possessed, and that your power and your authority actually come from a partnership with Satan. That's what they're saying here. You see, what's interesting about this claim, as crazy as it sounds, the scribes actually understood one thing related to what I brought up earlier, is they recognized that power must be derived from authority. So they make the assumption, and ultimately, the accusation, that Jesus has received his power from the devil himself, from Beelzebul, from Satan. It's at this moment that we get Jesus's response, and it comes through a series of parables.
1st, Jesus says in verse 23, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom will not stand. In this first response, he's beginning with a logical answer to the accusation. He says, it doesn't make sense that I would be working for Satan. Have you seen my actions?
Have you seen that I have been actively casting out demons? I have been actively opposing his kingdom. Jesus is saying that if they were right, Satan would actually be at war with himself. And they're basically accusing him of working with the devil to start a civil war within his own kingdom. And Jesus says that makes no sense.
He says, if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is actually coming to an end. I'd say that's a pretty good argument from logic. And in fact, it raises a follow-up question related to it. If Jesus isn't working for Satan, and Satan is so powerful, how can Satan's kingdom actually be under attack? And this is where Jesus gives us a second parable to understand tonight.
He says that no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods without first binding up the strong man. Now as I was picturing this, I actually pictured that. What if someone broke into Mike Tyson's house? He's the strong man in my mind. Someone goes to his house while he's there, takes 2 steps into his house.
And my assumption is that if they got in, they would get some kind of uppercut to the face, like Mike Tyson's Punch Out style. There's no way that someone's gonna step into Mike Tyson's house and steal something from him. And so I looked it up on the internet to see, has anyone ever broken into Mike Tyson's house? And there was one lady who decided to do that. She made it in there and after she got in the house, she was actually mauled by one of his tigers.
So that tells you what happens if you try to break into the strong man's house. You get mauled by a tiger. You can't enter a strong man's house and steal from him while he's there. And so this is what Jesus is saying. I believe He is making a claim about His own power and authority in this statement.
He is saying that with each display of his power in casting out demons, he is actually showing that he is not afraid to walk into the house of Satan and start a fight. He is not afraid of Satan's strength because he knows that he is stronger. And in fact, I actually think Jesus is going one step further. I think He's actually making a threat to Satan. What I think Jesus is really saying is He's saying, I am the one who will bind up the strong man.
He's saying that I am the one who will conquer Satan and his kingdom. You guys think that I'm working for Satan? That is ridiculous. If you keep watching, you will see me tie him up, plunder his house, and destroy his kingdom. Jesus is making a threat.
Boy, did these groups of people get it wrong? Both of them. Both Jesus's family and the scribes. His family thought he was crazy, and they actively tried to stop him. The scribes, they thought he was possessed, and they accused him of joining forces with Satan.
And while these two stories seem a little bit disconnected, Mark wants us to know that they're not. And in fact, they go together, and there's something similar we should learn from them both. And one of the reasons we know that these stories go together is because this is the first example in the book of Mark of what theologians call a Markan sandwich. And all that means is that in this situation, Mark has started a story, and he doesn't finish it. He introduces a second story, and then he comes back to the first one again, creating a sandwich between the two stories.
And as I just mentioned, Mark does this for a reason. He wants us to draw a similar conclusion between the 2. He wants us to connect the dots. So what's the connection between the story of Jesus and his family and the accusation of the scribes? That's the question we need to ask.
And I believe that both Jesus' family and the scribes were guilty of the same offense. In questioning the source of Jesus's power, first through the accusation of madness and second through the claim that he was possessed, In that moment, they were denying the identity of Jesus as the son of God. I wanna repeat that. In questioning the source of Jesus' power, both Jesus' family and the scribes were guilty in that moment of denying the identity of Jesus as the son of God. This is why I asked the second question that I want us to think about tonight, which is, what does Jesus' authority teach us about his identity?
We need to realize that there's a correlation between authority and identity. The 2 can't be separated. We must understand them in relationship with each other. Now as I mentioned earlier, I'm a I was a rule follower growing up, and I still am in many ways. I was afraid of the consequences.
I understood there were power dynamics at play, and I was never the one with the power. So I did what I was supposed to most of the time. However, in a somewhat paradoxical way, I'm actually also a person who is wired to ask a lot of questions. And again, for those of you who know me well, that's not very surprising. And in fact, if you've noticed, even as we've been working through this text tonight, I've introduced a series of questions and trying to answer them, because that's the way my brain works.
As I've grown older, I've come to realize that this is part of my personality. It's part of the way that God has wired me. I've actually taken a few personality assessment tests, and one of the ways they label this is they call me a fact finder. This means that I want to understand all the details, all the logic, all the reasoning before I believe something to be true. And this means that most of the time, I'm trying to ask questions to get to the original source, to take it all the way back.
And this means that even though I'm a rule follower, I'm actually also a person who's prone to question the rules. And there's this war in my head that goes something like this. It's, why does this rule exist? Why do you want me to act this way? Why do you get to make all the rules?
And there can be this spiraling of questions that can be pretty unhelpful sometimes. But almost every time I get to this question, I think, Who made you the boss? This might be a teacher, this might be a boss, but I want to know who in charge of them gave them the authority to make this decision. And I know that this is probably more of a confession than an insight into the way my brain works, but I think that it leads to a pretty helpful question for us tonight. Sure, we have seen that Jesus is powerful, but it leaves us with this question.
Who has given him that authority? Who has made Jesus the boss? And to answer this, I actually want to flip back to Mark chapter 2. So if you have your bibles and you want to look with me, we're going to look at the story of Jesus healing the paralytic very quickly in verse 5. In this verse, we read that when Jesus saw their faith, the faith of the friends of the paralytic, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven.
Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and they were questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? It's in this passage that we realize that the scribes had already been confronted with the identity of Jesus. They recognized that the power and the authority to forgive sins could only come from one source, and that is God himself.
While they denied and rejected this claim, they understood what Jesus was claiming. Jesus is saying that I have this power because I am the son of God. You see, this is the situation for both the scribes and the family of Jesus in this passage. They both understood the claim being made by Jesus' words and his actions. Jesus was claiming to be one with God, the father.
He's claiming that God made him the boss. And while Jesus goes to great lengths throughout much of the book of Mark to hide his identity from the people around him, He couldn't hide it from his family or from the scribes. They both understood the implications of his actions. He was making the boldest claim that could be made. He is saying that his power and his authority come from the only one who has authority to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to forgive the sinner, and that is God himself.
And this is why Mark's words in this passage are so condemning of both Jesus' family and the scribes. He is accusing them both of coming face to face with the identity of Jesus, with his claim to be one with God, His claim to be the anticipated Messiah, to be the Christ. And instead of believing, they denied. Instead of following, they accused. This leads us to one of the most challenging statements in the passage today found in verses 28 through 30.
These verses say, truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven, the children of man, and whatever blasphemes they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. These are strong words, potentially even frightening words for some of us. I'm not sure if any of you grew up in a church context where fear and uncertainty were prevalent, but I know that as a kid, I questioned my salvation a lot. I wondered how my sins might impact God's view of me.
And on numerous occasions, I read this passage and I was fearful. But the good news for us tonight is that that is not what Mark is trying to say in this passage. Rather than trying to threaten the person who's trying to follow after him, this statement is intended to clarify the actions of his family and of the scribes. He is saying that they were both guilty in that moment of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. You see, what Jesus is doing here, He is flipping the accusation of the scribes on its head.
In the passage we read from chapter 2, they accused Jesus of blasphemy because he was claiming to be God. But in this passage, we see it is actually the scribes who were guilty of blasphemy through their open and obstinate rejection of Christ and his call to follow him. As we saw in the first chapter of Mark, Jesus is on a mission. He has come to proclaim the gospel of God, to call people to repent and believe this gospel. This is the call for all who interact with Jesus and the Bible, and it was the call for Jesus' family and for the scribes.
We are to read chapter 3 in light of this mission statement of Jesus, because on his way to the cross, there is an invitation for all who recognize him to repent, to believe, and to follow him. We've seen positive examples of this in the previous chapters with the disciples. But we've also seen a much larger number of people who have witnessed his power. They've been confronted with his authority, but who have denied His identity and they've refused to repent. And this is what Jesus is calling the eternal sin.
This is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I think it might be helpful to hear from someone other than myself on this and I look to the words of Saint Augustine. Tell me understand how he interpreted the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. And what he wants us to see is that this blasphemy is actually an open, ongoing, unrepentant rejection of the gospel. If you will, listen to this quote from him.
I think it's helpful. Augustine said, so it is being unrepentant that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven in this age nor the age to come. I mean to say you are speaking a very evil, utterly graceless word against the Holy Spirit, In whom are baptized those who have all their sins forgiven? You are speaking it in thought or out loud, if when the patience of God is beckoning you to repentance, you harden your impenitent heart and so store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath. Yes.
There is still time for the scribes and for Jesus' family, but in this moment, this is what they are guilty of. They had been confronted with the authority and the identity of Jesus, and instead of repenting, they turned away. They denied him and thus, blasphemed the holy spirit. And this is where we are confronted with this passage today, even in this very moment. As we read the word of God together and as we explore this passage, I hope each of us are confronted with the authority and the identity of Jesus.
We've seen that Jesus is the only one who has ever lived who can claim to be one with God, the father, and the one who has the authority to cast out demons, to heal the lame, to raise the dead, to conquer Satan, to take on sin and death on the cross. And in light of this, we are called to the very same thing as those in Mark. We can either repent and believe, or we can deny Him and turn away. There is no middle ground. CS Lewis in mere Christianity famously said that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
And I read a Tim Keller quote that was actually reflecting on that, that I think is helpful here. Tim Keller says, I believe you'll see that in the end, you can't simply like anybody who makes claims like those of Jesus. Either he's a wicked liar or a crazy person, and you should have nothing to do with him. Or he is who he says he is, and your whole life has to revolve around him. And you have to throw everything at his feet and say, command me.
And this is the question for you tonight. Do you believe that Jesus is the son of God? Do you believe that his authority comes from God, the Father? Do you believe that Jesus came to this earth to save sinners, to pay the price that you couldn't pay, and to die on the cross for your salvation? There is no middle ground answer to that question.
Either Jesus is who he says he is, and you need to repent, believe, and follow him, or he's a madman. At this moment, in this text, the family of Jesus and the scribes, they choose the latter. They chose to question his authority. They chose to deny his identity when right before them was the offer of salvation. And I pray that tonight, no one in this room makes that same decision.
But if I'm honest with myself, as we wrestle with this question, I am guessing that none of you are gonna walk out of here with the exact same accusations as Jesus' family and the scribes. I don't think you're gonna walk out of here and say, Jesus was a madman, or Jesus was probably possessed by Satan. We're in the South after all. You're in church. You can't say those kind of things.
But if I asked you, who do you believe Jesus to be? You might actually be one of the people in this room who doesn't know how to answer it. Or even more likely, you don't like the claim that this answer puts on your life. You want to keep Jesus at arm's length. You want Him to be around, and you want to be around Him just like the fans of Jesus in chapter 3.
But you don't want to follow Him in radical, obedient ways like we've seen the disciples. I get it. It's a lot to ask. It's a lot to give up all that you have and to follow Him. And it's a lot to say that you're not the one who's an authority of your own life.
If you're feeling this tension, I actually think you get the point of this passage. There's no version of following Jesus where we get to have it both ways. And my hope is that each of us will wrestle with this tonight and come to the conclusion that Jesus is who he says he is. If you believe that, the appropriate response is to lay everything at his feet. And now as we finish up, I want to finish out our passage from tonight by looking at one of the best, most glorious promises in scripture that are found in verses 31 through 35.
I'm gonna read these now. His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother. This is Mark's completion to the story that he began in the first two verses of our passage. He's coming back to finish out the story of Jesus's family. And in this final part of the story, Jesus's family are coming to him and Jesus is teaching and a large crowd is gathered. And as his family is trying to get to him and as they approach, Jesus makes a statement that should bring joy to our hearts.
He says that whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. What he means by this is that whoever repents and believes in him, those are actually his true family. This is a more true relationship than even flesh and blood. And what this is is a wonderful foreshadowing of what Jesus would accomplish on the cross. In Galatians 3, Paul puts it this way.
He says that, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.
And this is the promise for us today. Now I could honestly keep talking for another hour about the beauty of this promise that we are engrafted into the family of God. And honestly, even more excited about how that the implications for how that means we live out life as a church family. But I'm not going to. Instead, I want to finish by asking my original question one more time.
Who do you believe Jesus to be? If through faith, you answer this question that he is the Son of God, the one true Messiah who came into the world to live a perfect life and to die on the cross to pay for my sins, you will be called a son of God, and you will be made a part of the family of God. My hope is that we will not be like the scribes who rejected Jesus, but rather that each of us will believe that Jesus is the one that he has claimed to be. For those of you who have done so, you have been made a part of the family of God. You have an inheritance alongside Christ, and you have a confident hope for your future.
And this is the promise for all who believe. Please pray with me. Heavenly father, we've been confronted with your authority and your identity tonight, and we ask that through the Holy Spirit, You would give us faith to believe. Would You soften our hearts? Would you help us to believe that you are the son of God?
And as we believe, would you help us to live as a true family that you've made us to be? We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.