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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Teachings
This sermon is titled "Jesus Surprises," and it's on Mark 3, 20 through 35.
It's in the sermon series, "Who Do You Say That I Am?
The Son of God and the Gospel of Mark."
It was my tenth residency sermon.
It was preached on February 16, 2025, and this sermon is really on Jesus surprising
people of who was in his family.
He says that his disciples before him are his family, and he also has a confrontation
with the Pharisees in this passage on what is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
All in all, a fun passage.
I preached "It's Matthew" parallel years ago and was excited to revisit this topic with
a new lens and new perspective.
So here is "Jesus Surprises" on Mark 3, verses 20 through 35.
My name is Maureen, and our scripture reading this morning is Mark chapter 3, verses 20
through 35.
Hear now the word of the Lord.
Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat.
When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him because they said, "He's out
of his mind."
The scribes who had come down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul, and he
drives out demons by the ruler of the demons."
So he summoned them and spoke to them in parables.
How can Satan drive out Satan?
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand but is finished.
But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his possessions unless he first
ties up the strong man.
Then he can plunder his house.
Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever blasphemies they
utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty
of an eternal sin because they were saying he has an unclean spirit.
His mother and his brothers came and standing outside, they sent word to him and called
him.
The crowd was sitting around him and told him, "Look, your mother, your brothers and
your sisters are outside asking for you."
He replied to them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
After service, first service, Seth Simmons walks up to me and says, "Hey, California
called.
They want their shirt back."
I've had it with these shirt jokes.
It's warm inside.
I'm doing good.
We're doing good.
I've often recognized that I have friends, two friends specifically, that I'm closer
with than a lot of family members that I have.
Do you guys have friendships like that?
Have you recognized that before that you might have friends that you're closer with than
some of the members of your own family?
We tend to emphasize biological family quite a bit in our modern day.
That's not a wholly bad thing.
It's a good thing that we have a focus on the family.
But as with everything, we can push that way too far sometimes, and sometimes we can even
push it to a point of idolizing the nuclear family.
Maybe even me saying that I have friends with whom I'm closer with than other family members
might rub you the wrong way.
Maybe you hear that and say, "Well, your family is supposed to be your closest relationship."
But what makes a family?
Is it blood relationships or is it something else?
Your response to that may be, or you may be thinking of the phrase, "Well, blood is thicker
than water."
Right?
It's an interesting phrase, and interestingly, in recent years, people have adapted this
and expanded the phrase to read, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water
of the womb."
Meaning that those who you make a covenant with, a bond with, are closer, can be closer
than your own blood family.
Relationships built on commitment, shared values, and covenants, those can be stronger
than those based solely on biological connection.
And now it's clear that this was not the original phrase, we're not arguing that that was the
original phrase and it's been lost over time.
It's a redefinition, but this is not just a redefinition, but also a biblical reality.
Think of Jonathan and David.
Jonathan, who was the son of King Saul, had every reason to be loyal to his father, the
king, but his covenant and his friendship with David made him a closer friend with David
than with his own family.
Or think of Ruth and Naomi, though not related by blood, Naomi made a covenant and a commitment
to stay with her, saying, "Where you go, I will go.
Your people shall be my people and your God my God."
Or think of our passage this morning, where Jesus redefines family, saying, "Whoever does
the will of God is my mother and my brother and my sister."
His true family was not defined by blood, but by obedience to God.
And what makes this relationship so strong?
Well, they're relationships that we choose, first of all, we're not obligated to them.
You don't only choose the family that you're born into, but also they're relationships
that are built on a shared purpose and a shared mission, which is the will of God.
These relationships are covenants.
This is why the church is described as a family, not because of DNA, not because of biological
connection, but because it is bound by the shared and shed blood of Jesus.
And actually, when we commit the act of baptism, we are being baptized into that family, into
Jesus's blood, into the true family of God, which reminds me that next week, February
23rd, we have an all-church baptism.
And if you're longing for that family, I would encourage you to talk to one of the pastors
here about baptism.
So Jesus is redefining the family.
When he says in our passage that his true family are those who do the will of God, what
he's not doing is he's not rejecting his biological family.
He's not saying that they're worth nothing.
He's never going to see them again; rather, he is prioritizing his covenant family as
a truest form of family.
He's prioritizing the relationships that he finds among those who do the will of God over
biological family.
And this is good news.
It means that in Christ, we never have to be alone, and we can have a true family.
Those who do the will of God are a part of a true family that's stronger than any other
earthly relationship that you can conceive of.
This morning, we're continuing our series in the Gospel of Mark, where we're exploring
Jesus's crucial question in Mark 8.29, "Who do you say that I am?"
And if you can believe it, this week marks the halfway point of this series.
It's flying by really quickly, just like Mark's gospel flies by really fast.
And this morning, we see Jesus surprise.
We see him surprise his family.
We see him surprise his opponents, and we see him surprise his friends by redefining
what the true family is.
And again, what is a true family?
Who is in the true family?
The answer to this question is our main point this morning.
The true family is found in the community of Jesus.
True family is found in the community of Jesus.
Those who do the will of God are Jesus's true family.
And this means that we must prioritize God's will over earthly relationships, family relationships,
friendships, and also over social norms or religious traditions.
And though that might sound scary, what we're going to see in the Gospel of Mark is that
prioritizing this is worth it.
Now before we dive in, I want to make a quick note on what Mark does in his gospel.
One of the features of his gospel is we're going to see this over and over again in the
Gospel of Mark.
And this is the first time in the Gospel of Mark it is occurring.
It's known as a "Marken sandwich," and no, this is not an actual sandwich you can order
down the sidewalk at Good Sense.
That's a joke that you can laugh at.
That first service also did not laugh at.
So strike that from the next sermon.
In the Gospel of Mark, Mark tells a story, and then he interrupts his story with what
seems to be a totally different story, and he returns to the original story he was telling.
We see this in this week's passage on the slide that I have up.
So Jesus's family comes to restrain him, and then Mark inserts a story where the Pharisees
accuse him.
It's almost like a different time or a different story.
And then Mark returns to Jesus's true family and his biological family being outside.
That's a "Marken sandwich."
This is a first of many in the Gospel of Mark.
And why bring this up?
Well, if you didn't notice, a lot of our passage this morning is Jesus responding to the teachers
of the law and accusing him of being possessed.
And a part of that response is a very, very big verse that drives a lot of questions.
That is, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
However, Jesus's response to the teachers of the law and his statement on what the blasphemy
of the Holy Spirit is, that's not the main point of this passage.
It's not the main point of this sermon.
Instead, as we see with so many of Mark's sandwiches throughout the Gospel of Mark,
this confrontation that Jesus has with the teachers of the law serves as an illustration
for Mark's larger point, the point that the true family of Jesus prioritizes God's will
over all earthly relationships.
And again, this includes family relationships.
In the first three chapters of Mark's Gospel, Jesus's public ministry is rapidly growing.
Pastor Paul may have mentioned this last week, where he said people came from hundreds and
hundreds of miles away to hear Jesus preach.
Jesus is pretty popular.
And as our text states, the crowd is so large and so pressing that Jesus and his disciples,
they can't even eat.
Which contrasts that to other passages we've seen so far, where Jesus rests and retreats
from the crowds.
Here he stays with the crowd.
We need to rest, but we also need to work hard in the will of God.
Our days should be full of what God would have us do, but they should never be hurried.
And this is what Jesus models very well.
He demonstrated intense engagement in his work in serving others, but he also engaged
in intense withdrawal to rest and commune with his Father.
And even when he remains intensely engaged, full of what God would have him do, he does
it at the proper pace.
He's not hurried, he's not rushed, he's doing God's will in God's timing.
But the fact that he's doing God's will and being with the crowds is what his family misses.
They see that he cannot even eat because of the crowds and what do they do?
They call him crazy.
Here again, Mark 3, 20 through 21, Jesus entered a house and the crowd gathered again so they
were not even able to eat.
When his family heard this, when they heard that he was not able to do this and the crowds
were growing, they set out to restrain him or to seize him because they said he is out
of his mind.
You can translate what they say about Jesus more literally as he is outside of himself.
He's outside of himself.
So Jesus' family is misunderstanding that he is doing God's will, but they're also concerned
for his physical well-being.
Indeed, if the crowds are so pressing that you can't get a meal in, you must be overworked.
And if you're still working in this overworked state, you must be crazy.
You must be outside yourself.
But remember, this is the same Jesus who has healthy rhythms of work and rest.
He's not crazy.
He's doing God's will.
In misunderstanding this, Jesus' family sets out to restrain him or to seize him.
Those relationally closest to Jesus should be his advocates, but here they are his adversaries
and they're attempting to restrain him from doing God's will.
Jesus' true family shares his purpose, not just his blood.
It's not sharing the blood of Jesus that makes us his family, but the blood of Jesus shed
on us that makes us his family.
And these two short verses, they show us that proximity to Jesus is not enough.
Jesus requires our allegiance and not our mere presence.
Last week, again, Pastor Paul mentioned Judas, one of the 12, and do you remember what Judas
did?
He betrayed Jesus.
This Judas who walked with Jesus, who spent ministry time with Jesus, who handled the
money that came in for Jesus, who was with Jesus for three years, he betrayed Jesus.
Being around Jesus for three years was not enough to save Judas because Christ demands
our allegiance and not our mere presence.
Do you find yourself close to Jesus?
Maybe you're here in Sunday service every week, never miss a Sunday.
Maybe your family members, all your family is our Christian family.
Maybe you grew up in a Christian, a strong Christian household.
Maybe you know the Bible and you know it well.
In fact, you know it so well, you could tell others from the scriptures how they can be
saved.
Do not be tricked into thinking that this proximity to Jesus and his tradition and the
gospel message is enough.
Jesus requires all of you, not just your presence and outward devotion.
Being near to Jesus does not place one in the family of God, for even those physically
closest to Jesus misunderstood the will of God, which means we have to prioritize God's
will over those relationships that would refrain us from doing God's will.
And this misunderstanding of God's will is also what the teachers of the law did, and
we see this in the next few verses.
The teachers of the law accused Jesus of being possessed by Satan and of using Satan's power.
They accused Jesus of being possessed by Satan and using his power to do his mighty work.
And their accusation is not much different from the accusation that Jesus's family had
of him.
He's crazy, but it's a different direction.
For his family, it was, "And he's not taking care of himself physically.
He's crazy."
For the teachers of the law, it was, "Oh, he's possessed by Satan.
He's crazy."
It's a lot different, but sort of the same accusation.
He's outside of himself.
But take note of a couple of things, right?
First, in this passage, Jesus has not cast out any demons, and he's not healed any sick.
The teachers of the law have come down from Jerusalem just to discredit Jesus.
Second, notice that they don't level this accusation against Jesus directly.
They're kind of just talking about it out in the open.
They're telling the crowds, not Jesus, that Jesus was a crazy man.
And knowing this, our text says, Jesus summoned them.
He called them out to speak to them in parables.
Now remember, Mark sometimes interrupts his stories to include another story that explains
his point.
So Mark's telling his audience that Jesus' true family are those who do the will of God.
And he uses this story of the encounter with the teachers of the law to explain that.
Mark is telling us that Jesus' mind is always on the will of God, and those who do the same
work that Jesus does, their mind as well is always on the will of God.
And what is the will of God?
Well, so far in the gospel of Mark, the will of God is proclaiming that the kingdom of
God is here.
And it has come, it's evidence of its coming, it's performing healings and exorcism.
What is the will of God in the gospel of Mark?
Proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come by performing healings and exorcisms.
And so, we see also in parallel accounts in Matthew, for example, where Jesus adds in
this passage, "If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then you know that the kingdom
of God has come upon you."
And so Mark includes this confrontation to demonstrate that rejecting Jesus and his wondrous
acts, rejecting Jesus and the mighty deeds he's doing, is rejecting the will of God.
But not only do the teachers of the law reject this, they also attribute the works of Jesus
to the works of Satan.
This is not a mistake that they're making.
They're not making wrong calculations.
They're not looking at Jesus's works and saying, "Ah, it might be Satan.
I don't know."
No, they're deliberately, they know that Jesus is not using the power of Satan.
They know that Jesus is not possessed by Satan.
Yet to discredit him and his message, they accuse Jesus of these things.
And so, Jesus responds.
He summons them.
He responds in two ways.
First, he rephrases their accusation in a mocking tone.
Here's the passage in the NLT.
"How can Satan cast out Satan?" he asked.
A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse.
Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart, and if Satan is divided and
fights against himself, how can he stand?
He would never survive.
Jesus is saying, "You understand that what you said doesn't make any sense.
If Satan's divided against himself, he can't stand."
It doesn't matter if Satan's kingdom is a mighty, earthly kingdom or a small, five-person
family.
If it's divided against itself, it cannot stand.
And to claim anything else is just simply ridiculous.
But the second way Jesus responds is by saying if his healings and exorcisms are true, if
he really does cast out demons and heals people, not by the power of Satan, then whatever power
he has is much stronger than whatever power Satan thinks he has.
Jesus is the stronger man.
Those who are in the audience who have attentive ears will remember John's prediction in Mark
chapter 1, "One who is stronger is coming."
Or if they were really familiar with the Old Testament, they might remember Isaiah 49,
where God, the stronger being, comes and binds this strong man to save God's people.
What this means is that before their eyes, Jesus is demonstrating and teaching that he
is the Messiah, the Son of God.
But this is not good for the Pharisees, for the teachers of the law.
It goes against their traditions and their religious norms.
So finally he illustrates and charges the teachers of the law with committing an unpardonable
sin.
He says in verse 28, "Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for all sins and whatever
blasphemes they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness
but is guilty of an eternal sin."
Because they were saying he has an unclean spirit.
You might be asking, "What is the unpardonable sin?
What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit?"
It is willful, persistent attribution of the works of God to being the works of Satan.
It is persistently, knowingly, unrepentantly calling the righteous works of Yahweh the
evil works of Satan.
I want to slow down here for a second because I want to address some feelings we might be
having.
Many of us, many of us might be struck with fear and anxiety when we hear this verse or
hear about the unpardonable sin.
We might ask ourselves, "Well, have I committed this sin?
What if I have committed this sin and I don't know it?
Am I unforgivable?
Is Jesus going to save me?"
Now, that's you.
I want to reassure you of a couple of things.
First, Jesus' words here are meant to be a warning and not an attempt to frighten you.
It's not as if Jesus, through Mark, had these words written up so that he could accuse all
of those who read it of being unpardonable.
That's not Jesus' intent.
One scholar says it this way.
It's a warning to those who adopt a position of deliberate rejection and antagonism, not
an attempt to frighten those of a tender conscience.
So these words are not to frighten you but to warn.
Second, in all likelihood, if you are worried that you have committed the unpardonable sin
and that troubles you, it gives you anxiety, well, that's evidence that you're willing
to repent, and it's evidence that you probably haven't committed the unpardonable sin.
Such anxiety over that thought is evidence that you're willing to repent, and nowhere
in Scripture does God reject genuine repentance.
Nowhere in Scripture does God reject genuine repentance.
Those who are committing the unpardonable sin refuse to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
They refuse to turn from their sin and accept that the mighty works that Jesus performed
and is performing are the works of God.
So take comfort in the fact that Jesus is always, always, always willing and ready to
forgive those who come to him in repentance.
The main argument, then, against these teachers of the law is that Jesus and his actual family,
they do the will of God.
This is incredibly important in light of some ancient traditions around this time.
You see, people who did miraculous things were either labeled miracle workers or magicians.
And what separated the two was that magicians bullied the gods into doing the work for them,
while miracle workers, they did what they saw the gods doing.
Jesus is saying he's no magician.
He's not bullying God the Father, the God of the universe, into doing Jesus's own will.
Instead, he's doing God's will.
He says in John that he only does what he sees the Father doing.
But because the teachers of the law are seizing their traditions, they're holding on to their
traditions and religious norms, they refuse to accept that fact, that the Messiah does
the will of God, and then that Messiah is Jesus.
We must prioritize the will of God over religious traditions.
Jesus will actually warn about this in the coming chapters.
In Mark 7, 8 through 9, he says, "Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to," it's
that same Greek word that is used of his family when they try to restrain him, "you hold on
to human tradition."
He also said to them, "You have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to
set up your tradition."
My plea with you is to not grab onto or to seize religious tradition.
They can be comforting at times, but they are not what make you a part of God's family.
Instead, prioritize the will of God over religious traditions.
It's not in these traditions that you find your place in the family of God, for even
the most pious religious leaders of Jesus' day misunderstood God's will, and they missed
Jesus, the Messiah.
The true family of God is made up of those who do the will of God, not hold to mere tradition.
And now in verse 31 of our passage, Jesus' blood family is outside.
Verse 31, "His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent word to him
and called him.
A crowd was sitting around him and told him, 'Look, your mother, your brothers, and your
sisters are outside asking for you.'"
The same family who said that Jesus is outside of himself is now standing outside of Jesus'
circle.
The true family, the insiders, are inside with Jesus.
And hearing that his family is calling for him, Jesus decides to take this time to make
a point.
And he replies in verse 33, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"
Looking at those sitting in a circle around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
It's those who do the will of God, who prioritize the will of God, that are in Jesus' true family.
Prioritizing the will of God is worth it.
Why?
Because when we do, Jesus declares us as his family.
When we prioritize and do the will of God over all other earthy relationships and religious
norms, we belong to the family of God.
And you might be longing for that and therefore ask the question, "Okay, well then how do
I know or how do I discern the will of God?"
Well, discerning and knowing God's will can be difficult at times, can be a bit mysterious
at times, but we can know and discern the will of God.
So how do you do it?
You do it by knowing God's word.
You know his written word, but you also know the word that's become flesh to dwell among
us in Jesus.
All that God would have us do in this life, the principles of those things are contained
in the word of God and in relationship with Jesus.
And as we grow closer to God and obey his word, we will be able to discern his will.
Obedience to the word of God is allegiance to Christ, and allegiance to Christ is overall
the will of God.
And friends, trust me, prioritizing the will of God is worth it.
Another scholar says this about the will of God in the Gospel of Mark.
The Mark in emphasis is twofold.
Doing the will of God will look crazy to some people, often to one's own relatives.
And two, those whose relatives misunderstand their Christian commitment, find a new family
in the Christian community, just as Jesus did.
There are many examples of this over the past 2000 years of church history, of people finding
true family in the family of God.
I want to tell you about two of them, one that's very old and one that's more recent.
200 years after Jesus, there were two young women who lived in North Africa, Perpetua,
who was about 20 years old, was born in a wealthy family, and had just had a baby.
And she had just recently given her life to Christ.
And she was also with Felicity, who was a servant in Perpetua's household, and also
a Christian.
And because of their faith, they were arrested.
Perpetua was ripped from her newborn, and Felicity was weeks away from giving birth
to her own child.
Now hearing of her arrest, Perpetua's father, who had some standing in society, had her
baby, was holding her baby and came to her and begged her to renounce her faith.
And he said this, "Daughter, have pity on my gray head.
Have pity on me, your father, if I deserve to be called your father.
If I have favored you above all your brothers, if I have raised you to reach this prime in
your life, don't abandon me to the reproach of men."
And here's what he says, "Think of your brothers.
Think of your mother.
Think of your aunt.
Think of your child, who will not be able to live once you are gone.
Think of your family."
He's saying.
"Give up your pride, or you will destroy all of us.
None of us will be able to speak freely again."
Perpetua's father is telling her, "Forget what your allegiance is to.
Remember your family and come be with us.
Renounce your faith."
And she responds to her father, "It will happen to me in the prisoner's dock as God wills.
For you may be sure that we are not left to ourselves, but are all in his power."
Felicity had other worries during this time.
She was pregnant, and during that time, you were not allowed to be persecuted in this
way if you were with child.
They would wait till after you had the child.
And so, worrying that she would be alone by that time, that her friends would have gone
by that time, she prayed to God to help her and care for her.
And miraculously, she gave birth, and the Christian community came and took the infant
for her and cared for that infant.
When their trial came, Perpetua and Felicity stood firm, and their biological family did
not understand what they were doing.
It looked crazy to them, but they chose to do the will of God and pledge their allegiance
to Christ.
And because they did that, even in their imprisonment, they found family in one another and also
in the Christian community that came to comfort and care for them.
Maybe another story that's closer to home and close to our time is the story of Adel,
a Sudanese Christian who grew up in a radical Muslim home.
His father was a leader in one of the local mosques, and he lived in a household that
was very hostile to Christians and referred to Christians as infidels and strongly condemned
those who claimed Christ as Savior.
But this strong condemnation led Adel to wonder, "Well, what do Christians believe that's different
from Islam?"
And so this is what he prayed, "O Allah, I am like Abraham.
I want to worship you alone.
Please reveal yourself to me, or I will no longer pray to you from now onward.
If you don't show me yourself, I will go astray."
This prayer led to his desire for Christ to increase, and he eventually got ahold of an
Arabic Bible and he converted to Christianity.
And when his family, his biological family discovered this, they locked him in a room
and threatened to kill him unless he renounced his faith.
But claiming that he knew the truth, he stayed steadfast in his faith.
Now his family eventually released him, but they released him and disowned him, and he
was completely alone.
No biological family left.
But this did not stop him from continuing in his faith.
Strengthened by Jesus and by Jesus' word, he did the will of God.
He boldly shared his faith with his Muslim friends, and he planted an underground church
that is a refuge for persecuted Christians in Sudan, as well as a refuge for Muslims
searching to know more about the truth of Christianity and who are questioning Islam.
Adel did the will of God, and in doing so he found a truer family to dwell with.
It's hard to do God's will when religious norms and family relationships are at stake.
You know, when I was in California, I did a lot of ministry with two Mormons.
I had them over at my house quite often, spoke to them often, I might have pulled in front
of them too aggressively at times when they were on their bikes, just excited to talk
to them.
And over time it became pretty easy to talk with them, like the arguments get to be the
same over time, you hear the same things from them and I say the same things to them.
And it was easy to argue against the Mormon faith, and the missionaries would never admit
it and they would often retreat from any future conversation.
In fact, I once got, or actually I probably still am, red flagged in our area, meaning
that future missionaries would get my number and my name, and if I contacted them they
were told not to talk to me.
It's funny, but it's true.
It's what happens when you give them too much pizza.
However, it was not intellect or the validity of arguments that led to them not believing
in the true Christ.
In fact, it was hard to watch them understand what I was saying, but struggle inwardly knowing
what they would lose if they accepted it.
It was the fact that if they did, they would lose their entire family and their entire
faith community.
They would be abandoned in a place that they have never known with no home to go to.
Having these conversations, the first were intellectually satisfying, then they became
very pastoral, then they became very depressing because I was worried about them.
I would worry about them when I could watch them get on their bike and drive away, ride
away.
I would pray, "Lord, protect them and keep them safe until they came to saving faith
in Jesus.
Show them that if they lose their families and their community, there is a deeper and
richer community waiting to receive them and they can have abundant life there."
It was their tradition and family that they held on to.
Perpetua and Felicity prioritize the will of God.
Adele prioritize the will of God.
The missionaries I spoke to, they prioritize their family and their religious traditions.
Who are you prioritizing?
What are you prioritizing?
You find the best comfort in your biological family?
Do you find the best comfort in your social circles?
Do you find the best comfort in your traditions, religious or non-religious?
Or maybe a better question for us is, are you ignoring the will of God in your life
because doing so would mean sacrificing these things?
I strongly warn you and I strongly encourage you as well to prioritize the will of God
over these things.
When you do, you will find deeper, stronger and more satisfying community, not less.
Or maybe you do prioritize the will of God or maybe regardless of where the will of God
is at in your life, you find yourself alone, hurting, in need of rich community for various
reasons.
I want you to remember that Jesus felt just like you did.
He knows your pain.
He knows the pain of being abandoned on a cross.
And He found a true family in those who proclaimed Him as Lord and did God's will.
I want you to know if you're hurting for community that you can find the same family that Jesus
did right here.
We are a caring family, as our mission statement states.
Here are your mother, father, brothers and sisters, and you can find deep, rich, life-giving
community.
You can find family and relationships with those who are doing the will of God here.
The true family of God is found in the community of Jesus.
This community prioritizes God's will over all earthly relationships and traditions.
And friends, doing that is worth it.
So I encourage you, go do it.
Proclaim that Jesus is Lord.
Tell everyone about the kingdom of God and that it's here now and enjoy life with this
family as we all await heaven.
Let's pray.
Lord, help us to know and discern Your will.
And as we grow in obeying Your Word, in obeying Your will, and in obeying Jesus, I ask that
You give us the gift of a true family in Christ.
For those of us who are scared of sacrificing family relationships and social norms, show
us that Your will is worth it.
And for those hurting in need of a true family, bring them a true family that will bear the
burdens with them.
God, we ask that You do this quickly, in Jesus' name, amen.