You know, having been around for a while, I've experienced a lot of different families
and how different families have different feels and different focus.
It's really quite interesting.
I'm sure you've experienced it yourself where you go into somebody's house
and they're a highly organized family, goal-oriented, very driven,
and then there's another family that you visit maybe just two days later
who are not nearly as organized.
They're just taking it as it comes.
Laid back.
Calendar, what's that?
Some families are very orderly.
Other families, their homes are cluttered and everybody's okay with that.
Some families are very private.
Other families are like the more the people, the better open-door policy.
All of us know that what a family is at its basic level is a place to belong.
People who love you and you love them back.
And tragically, there's many people in this room who have experienced something other than belonging to a family.
Now, what about the family of God?
The Bible clearly teaches that Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ with one Father.
The question I have this morning is what's to be the feel and focus of the family of God?
What makes us as God's family distinct?
Well, according to Jesus, we're going to see this in a minute, Mark chapter 3,
what distinguishes us as God's family is our shared commitment to do the will of our Father.
We're committed together to obey our Father.
Now, God's will is clearly revealed in God's Word, the Bible.
So at the outset of this sermon, let me just ask you this question.
It's a multiple choice question.
Right now, this morning, how important is it for you to obey God's will?
A, I am opposed to obeying God's will.
I'm not doing anything from that book and what God requires.
That's one option.
B, I don't care about God's will because there's other things that are more important for me to be doing right now.
So one is direct opposition, the other is indifference.
C, I'm afraid of doing God's will because of what people will think about me.
That is not doing God's will out of fear.
And then D, I'm trying to do God's will.
I'm trying to obey His Word.
I just need help.
It's like that father of a demoniac boy who, when Jesus comes to him, He says,
all you need to do is believe.
And the father says, I believe.
Help my unbelief.
I want to do God's will.
Help me do God's will.
According to Jesus, doing the will of God is the defining trait of every member of God's family.
The church.
The church is the blood-bought people of God indwelt by the Holy Spirit on mission for Christ.
And so far in our series, we've seen that the church as one flock following one shepherd.
We've seen the church as one bride exclusively devoted to one bridegroom.
Last week, we saw the church as one holy temple, the dwelling place of God that is established on and growing from one cornerstone, Jesus.
And this morning, we get to see the church as one family united together to do the will of our Father.
Now, I could have brought you to a variety of places to show you this.
And it was quite a challenge finding a place to land.
And so this morning, we're going to go to Mark chapter 3.
And Mark is what's called a gospel.
Now, if you're not familiar with what a gospel is, a gospel is basically a first century documentary showing who Jesus is and what he's done.
And so in the gospel of Mark, like the gospel of Matthew and Luke and John, these gospels show us Jesus' life.
They show us Jesus' teaching, his miracles, his death, and his resurrection.
And the purpose for the gospels showing you who Jesus is and what he's done is to bring you to a point of decision.
To respond to Jesus.
And you can respond in opposition to Jesus.
You can respond in indifference to Jesus.
You can respond by fearing what other people think of you.
Or you can respond in obedience.
The obedience of faith.
And so for those of us in the room who believe Jesus to be the one and only son of God.
Who believe Jesus who actually died on the cross for our sins and was raised.
The only response to such an amazing grace is to lay it all down for him.
Is to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him daily.
The church is one new family of brothers and sisters united together through Christ to do the will of our Father.
Now, here's how we're going to move forward.
I'm going to walk us through Mark chapter 3.
And it's all connected.
And it's all connected by a thread.
And the thread is doing the will of God.
And so we're going to go from scene to scene.
And I'm going to help you see this thread doing the will of God.
And then it's going to climax in the passage Mary read, verses 31 through 35.
So what we'll do is walk through.
I'm going to make, at one point, I'm going to say this is what it's all about.
And then we're going to seek to apply it to our lives.
And I hope I can get through the applications I've prepared.
So let's walk through Mark chapter 3, which is all about doing the will of God.
Now, I need you to be following with me because we're going to be kind of moving along.
But there's so much sweetness here.
Okay.
These scenes are going to move from a synagogue in Capernaum to the seaside in Capernaum to a mountainside around Capernaum back to a house in Capernaum.
So those are the scene changes.
Okay.
So let's do this together.
So chapter 3, verses 1 through 6.
We're immediately in a synagogue in a town called Capernaum on a Sabbath, which is a Saturday.
Capernaum was a town on the very northern shore of the Sea of Galilee.
It was Jesus' base of operations for the first part of his public ministry.
Jesus walks into the synagogue.
No joke.
That sounds like Jesus walked into a synagogue.
It's not a joke.
But it is a setup.
Because he walks into this synagogue, and there on this Sabbath day is a man with a withered hand.
And this man with a withered hand has been brought in by the Pharisees.
They were the local clergy of the time.
And what they were doing, you can see at the end of verse 2, they were seeking to accuse Jesus of something.
And it was doing work on the Sabbath day.
All Jews were required to rest on the Sabbath.
And what these Pharisees were trying to make a case of is that healing was a work.
And if Jesus healed on a Sabbath day, he was doing work on a Sabbath day.
And if he's doing work on a Sabbath day, he's a Sabbath breaker, which means he's a sinner.
And it's a way to discredit him.
And in 3.4, Jesus raises this question.
Jesus says, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?
Here's how you need to hear that.
Is it the will of God on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?
And if you look at the end of verse 4, it says they were silent.
The Pharisees, those who are trying to set him up.
And Jesus looks around in verse 5.
And it's one of these moments where we see Jesus angry.
He's angry with him.
And so what Jesus does, he tells the man with the withered hand, stretch out your hand.
The man puts out his hand and it is fully restored.
On this Sabbath day, it was God's will to do good, to give life.
The restoration of this man's hand was a restoration of life, function.
Ironically, in 3.6, on this Sabbath day, the Pharisees plot to destroy Jesus, to harm and to kill.
So let me ask you, this first scene, who's doing the will of God?
Jesus, who's not doing the will of God?
The Pharisees.
It's about who's doing the will of God.
And those who do the will of God, Jesus will claim as his own.
The next scene, we go from the synagogue in verses 7 through 11.
We're going to actually go through verse 12.
But there's two groups of people Jesus interacts with in this scene.
And the scene is no longer in the synagogue.
It's by the seaside.
And in verses 7 through 10, what happens is this massive crowd comes to Jesus.
It's huge.
And in verses 7 and 8, you can see the makeup of this crowd.
It was multinational.
It was multiethnic.
We have a multiethnic congregation gathered around Jesus.
Is this the church?
And what they're doing is they're pressing in on Jesus just to touch him.
Because they heard that he was a healer.
In verse 9, Jesus says, hey, to his disciples, guys, we might need to get out of here real quick.
Would you have a boat ready?
That's how pressing this was.
Let me ask you a question.
Why is the crowd there?
Are they there to follow Jesus?
To deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow him?
They're there to be healed.
Very real suffering.
Very real diseases.
Very real disorders.
Very real demonizations.
And they're seeing Jesus as their last hope for relief from their physical suffering.
But they're not there to follow him.
They're there to use him.
They think that their physical disease is their biggest problem.
Jesus doesn't claim this crowd as his own.
He heals them.
But he doesn't own them.
Now, a lot of churches today on a sidebar, they're calling people to Jesus.
And they're calling people to Jesus with this kind of thinking.
Jesus will make you the best version of yourself.
And in one degree, there's truth to that.
But when you match that up with what Jesus calls people to, I'm thinking Mark 8.34.
Jesus says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.
Today, we start realizing that what was driving this crowd back on the seaside in Capernaum.
Hey, that's happening today in churches.
People are calling, churches are calling people to make yourselves better with Jesus.
And Jesus says, you've got to deny yourself.
Take up your cross and follow me.
You know what would have been different is if someone came up to Jesus, maybe from Tyre's side,
and they come up to Jesus on the seaside, and they say, Jesus, you know what?
You can heal me if you want.
I don't care.
I am here to follow you.
That's different altogether.
They're not here to do God's will.
In 3.11-12, still at the seaside, we have another very interesting interaction of a different sort.
Jesus has a conversation with demons, unclean spirits.
You see it in verse 11.
These unclean spirits are recognizing Jesus for who he is.
They're falling down before him, and they are saying, you are the son of God.
Now, what's interesting in the gospel of Mark is if you flip back to chapter 1, verse 1,
Mark begins with the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
And then if you flip back to Mark chapter 15, at the end of the gospel of Mark,
what you see happening in verse 39 is,
and when the centurion, a Roman centurion, stood facing Jesus who was hanging on the cross,
saw that in this way he breathed his last,
that Roman centurion said, truly this man was the son of God.
The gospel of Mark is all about showing us the son of God.
And interestingly enough, here are these demons saying, you are the son of God.
Well, let me ask you this question.
Are these demons, though they're identifying Jesus rightly,
are they doing the will of God?
No.
Because they're oppressing image bearers of God.
Demonic activity is always marked by disintegration of people, distortion, destruction of people.
And that's not God's will.
God's will is always to reclaim, to redeem, and to restore image bearers into the image of Christ.
These demons had a pretty good understanding of who Jesus was.
You are the son of God, but they're definitely not there to do God's will.
So here on this seaside scene,
neither the multinational gathering of people around Jesus,
nor these demons, none of the above, are doing the will of God.
And Jesus does not claim any of them as his own.
The next scene, we go from seaside to up on a mountain.
And this is in verses 13 through 19.
And what we see here is Jesus calling and appointing his 12 disciples, or apostles.
And what I want you to notice here is that what he appoints them to.
Look at verse 14.
And he appointed 12 so that they might be with him.
To be with him, to be near him.
This is classic first century master-teacher-disciple relationship.
A teacher, a rabbi, would call disciples to come to be with him,
to learn from him in his presence, learn his teaching,
and then his disciples would see the teaching lived out
in relationship to the master.
Not only are they being called to be near Jesus,
they are also being called in verses 14 and 15
to preach and cast out demons, to do kingdom work,
to proclaim gospel, to engage in spiritual warfare.
It's very different than what we've seen in the synagogue
and that whole interactions by the sea.
These 12 have been appointed to do God's will.
And Jesus claims them as his own.
Even one who will betray him.
But what I want you to notice about this is in verse 18.
Here we have 12 guys.
They're very ordinary guys.
I mean, Jesus gives them three of them nicknames.
Simon's the rock.
James and John are the sons of thunder.
Who knows what that's a reference to?
But in verse 18, we read this.
Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew.
And then at the end of verse 18,
and Simon the zealot.
Do you know what Matthew did for a living
before he followed Jesus?
He was a tax collector.
Do you know what that means?
Do you know who he's collecting taxes for?
Rome!
He was taxing his Jewish countrymen
in order to pad the pockets of Rome
and make a living by it.
He would have been seen as a Roman collaborator.
Do you know why Simon is called a zealot?
He was opposed to Roman occupation.
He was opposed to any Jew collaborating with Rome
for any purpose.
And what's striking about this gospel ministry team
is that Jesus brings these two men
with politically, diametrically opposed commitments,
at least in their past,
and he brings them together.
He brings them together to be near him.
He brings them together
to be sent out to do kingdom work together.
In this passage,
it's the first time we see
people doing the will of God.
This is the beginnings of a new family.
People called near to Jesus
to do the will of God.
And then we move to another scene
in chapter 3, verses 20 and 21.
From the mountainside,
we are now back at Jesus' home in Capernaum.
This is most likely the same place
that Jesus was staying at
in Mark chapter 2
where these four guys
bring to this house
their paralytic friend.
They can't get in.
They rip open a hole in the ceiling
and they drop their paralytic friend down.
Jesus says,
your sins are forgiven.
And then he's like,
so that you may know,
I have authority to forgive sin.
Get up and walk.
Who does that?
And so,
Jesus comes back to this house
and it's probably got a big patch
on the ceiling.
And again,
he's mobbed by a crowd.
And the crowd gathered again
so that they could not even eat.
But here's what's interesting.
Verse 21.
And when his family heard it,
they went out to seize him
for they were saying,
he is out of his mind.
The family is,
we see in verse 31,
and his mother and his brothers came.
His family was Mary
and he had four half-brothers.
We learn their names
in chapter 6, verse 3.
One's name is James.
Another name is Joseph.
Another name is Judas or Jude.
And another name is Simon.
He also had sisters.
Half-sisters, half-brothers.
And the reason why they came
was not to become followers of Jesus.
The reason why they're there
is for a family intervention.
Modern day would be like this.
Mary gets a phone call.
Mary, this is Aunt Beth.
I'm up in Capernaum.
Do you know what your son is doing?
Do you know what he's claiming?
Do you know he's casting out demons?
Are you aware of what's going on?
You've got to get up here
and get him out of here.
He's out of his mind.
So what we learn here
is that this family of Jesus,
family by birth,
family by flesh,
they've come to this house
to intervene,
to take Jesus away,
even by force.
Are they doing the will of God?
No, they're not.
And what's interesting
is this whole family intervention scene
gets interrupted.
And so what ends in verse 21,
he's out of his mind,
then picks up again in verse 31,
and his mother and brother,
Mark picks it up again.
And so in verses 22 through 30,
we have this interruption.
It's quite an interruption.
Let's just dwell there for a second.
There's another group of people
that come on the scene.
And they're not there
to follow Jesus either.
They're there to oppose
the will of God.
So Jerusalem was
the religious center of Judaism.
And word gets back
to the heavy hitters in Jerusalem
that there's this guy Jesus,
and he's gathering quite a following.
And so these heavy hitters
in Jerusalem send a delegation
to Capernaum.
These scribes in verse 22.
And these scribes are sent
to do a little bit
of a smear campaign on Jesus.
And here's how that smear campaign went.
Look at verse 22.
These scribes had come down,
and notice,
they're not talking to Jesus.
They're talking to anybody
in Capernaum who will listen.
They're saying that Jesus
is possessed by Beezilbub,
Satan.
And by the prince of demons,
he casts out demons.
So they've been sent down,
and basically what's going on is this.
This scribe delegate comes down,
and what they're saying is this.
They're saying,
hey, everybody, it's okay.
We know about this Jesus.
Don't worry about it.
Everything's in control.
By the way,
this Jesus,
his power of ministry,
it's not God.
It's Satan.
That's a very effective way
to smear somebody.
He's not doing this by God's work.
We're the professionals.
We're in charge.
We know these things.
He's doing it by the prince of demons.
So these scribes are saying
that Jesus is not doing the will of God,
but he's doing the will of Satan.
Now Jesus, in verse 23,
calls the scribes to himself,
maybe at his house.
We don't know.
And basically says,
you guys are making no logical sense.
Now remember where we just left off
in verse 21.
His family was saying,
he's out of his mind.
And here Jesus is saying
to these scribes,
you make no sense.
And what he says is,
how can Satan cast out Satan?
He's telling this to these scribes.
He's confronting them.
If a kingdom is divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand.
And if a house is divided against itself,
the 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.
He can't stand.
Can't stand.
Here's what Jesus is saying.
What you guys are saying
makes no sense whatsoever.
Why would Satan oppose Satan?
It's self-defeating.
Anybody can see that.
And so what we see here
is that Jesus is not out of his mind.
He's the clearest thinker in Capernaum.
And then in verse 27,
Jesus is like,
just to be clear,
and he switches from
to the third person
talking about himself.
He says,
but no one can enter
a strong man's house,
a reference to Satan,
and plunder his goods,
talking about the people
under his sway,
unless he first binds
the strong man.
Then indeed,
he may plunder his house.
So Jesus is saying,
just to be clear,
I'm not here for Satan.
I'm here to bind Satan
and then plunder his house.
I'm here to do the will of God.
And then what happens
in 28 and 30,
Jesus turns it on even stronger.
He confronts these scribes
and he condemns them.
Because these scribes,
what they're essentially doing
is they are attributing
Jesus' work to Satan
when in fact Jesus
is doing his work
by the power of the Holy Spirit.
And so what they're doing
is it's blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus says,
that's unforgivable.
You're condemned forever.
So in this little
kind of interruption
of the intervention,
who's doing the will of God?
Well, not these scribes.
They're actually doing
the will of Satan.
Jesus is doing
the will of God.
He doesn't claim them
as his own.
And he is thinking clearly.
And now we're back
into the intervention
in 31 through 35.
It's really interesting
that Mark would do this.
Jesus is in his right mind.
And here,
we see something
really interesting happen
in 31 through 35.
It's the climax
of this passage.
Jesus takes
this family intervention
and he flips it over
to do an instruction
on the true nature
of God's family.
Now, here's what
I want you to notice.
There are two group
of people
in this scene
in verses 31 through 35.
We're first introduced to
or reintroduced,
and his mother
and his brothers
came.
So here's the first
group of people.
They are biologically
related to Jesus,
even though they're
half-brothers.
Jesus' mom.
And here's what you need
to notice.
Where they are.
They're standing
outside the house.
They're outside
standing.
And notice what they're
doing.
Calling to Jesus.
Jesus, come on out.
We just need to get you
home.
Enough of the
embarrassment.
Jesus, just make it easy.
Let's just get you home.
Come, Jesus.
Follow us.
Jesus.
And then in verse 32,
we're introduced to
another group of people,
a crowd, with no
biological relationship
to Jesus whatsoever.
And notice where they are.
They're not outside.
They're inside,
near Jesus,
like disciples
are near Jesus.
And they're not
standing, but they're
sitting, the posture
of a disciple.
They're sitting on his
feet.
They're Christ learners.
They're taking it in.
They're taking him in.
They're listening to his
teaching.
They're watching him in
action.
Do you remember at the
end of Luke 10, the whole
story of Martha and Mary?
Do you remember that one?
Martha is a very busy
body.
Jesus is in town,
staying in their house.
She's working her nails
to the bone just to make
sure everything is
organized and right.
She's totally stressed
out.
Her sister Mary says,
Jesus is in town.
I'm not going to be in
the kitchen.
I'm going to be at his
feet.
And she sat at the
Lord's feet.
It's the posture of a
Christ learner, a
disciple, a follower.
And so this group of
people unrelated to Jesus,
they're inside, near Jesus,
sitting at his feet.
And you can't help but
think that Jesus is calling
them to follow him.
To deny themselves, take up
their crosses, and follow
me.
So you'll have to ask
him the question of those
two groups of people who
are doing the will of God.
It's not Jesus' biological
family.
It's Jesus' family of faith.
And Jesus prioritizes his
family of faith over his
family of flesh.
church.
And it shows up in this
passage.
The phrase mother and
brothers, it shows up five
times.
In verse 31, his mother and
his brothers came standing
outside.
And then in verse 32, the
crowd in the house say to
Jesus, hey Jesus, your mother
and your brothers are outside
seeking you.
Jesus responds in verse 33,
what do you mean?
Who are my mother and my
brothers, gang?
Total setup.
He's teaching.
And in verse 34, looking
around at those who are
sitting, these disciples, these
Christ learners, he says to
them, here are my mother and
my brothers.
To them.
Could you imagine if you were
in the room?
How you would receive that?
You're my family.
And then in verse 35, Jesus
clarifies, for whoever does the
will of God, that one is my
brother, my sister, and mother.
He redefines the family along the
lines of obedience to the will
of his father.
What this passage is doing is
he's showing us the relationships
that matter most to God.
Family of faith in a living
obedience to the will of God.
And the big question now becomes
is what does Jesus mean by the
will of God?
Whoever does the will of God,
what does that mean?
In the scene in Mark 1,
and in 14 and 15, he says,
the time is fulfilled, the
kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe the gospel.
To do the will of God is to
repent and believe the gospel.
It's to exercise saving faith.
And when Jesus says in Mark 8, 34,
if anyone would come after me,
let him deny himself, take up his
cross and follow me.
To do the will of God is to
deny yourself, take up your cross,
and follow Jesus every day of
your life.
Jesus is later asked in Mark 12,
what is the greatest commandment
of all?
What of God's will is the most
important to obey?
And Jesus says, love God with
everything you've got, love your
neighbor as yourself.
To do God's will is to obey God's
word.
And so all throughout this passage,
we see this string tying it together
of doing God's will.
And this passage lands on those who do
God's will are God's family.
And that's what this is all about.
Jesus doesn't claim those who oppose him.
He doesn't claim as his own those who
are indifferent to him.
He claims those as his own,
the ones who do the will of his
father.
Maybe we can say it like this.
The church is a family of brothers and
sisters united by Jesus to do the will of
our heavenly father.
We are a family in motion with an aim to
honor our God, to live for him.
Now, there is some really good news here.
Jesus is the greatest example of
obedience to the will of the father.
And he went all the way to the cross
out of obedience to the will of the
father in order to die in the place of
sinners like you and me so that we
would be brought into the family of God
so that we could obey the will of our
father.
His obedience to the will of God has
resulted in our ability to obey the will
of God.
If Jesus demonstrated the greatest example
of obedience to the father's will,
as brothers and sisters of him, we're on
the same mission, seeking to obey the will
of our father.
So the church is a family united together,
brothers and sisters, to do the will of
our heavenly father.
That's the point.
Who is doing God's will?
So let me try to wrap this up in a series
of applications.
Application number one.
We all must be decided for Christ.
Remember I began the sermon with a
multiple choice question.
How important is it for you to do the
will of God?
Maybe the first option A is there's no way
I'm going to do the will of a God like
that.
Opposition.
B, I really don't care about God's will
because I have got other things I want to
do.
Kind of an indifference.
C, I'm afraid of what people think about
me.
I'm afraid about losing street cred.
So I'm not going to do God's will.
D, I'm all in.
I want to do God's will.
I need help doing God's will.
Now, if you are A, B, or C, the call on you
by the Lord Jesus Christ is to repent and
believe the gospel.
To deny yourself, to take up your cross, and
follow Jesus.
If you don't want to do God's will, what
that means is you're outside of God's
family.
And in order to be brought into God's
family, you must repent and believe the
gospel.
To repent is to change your mind.
To change your mind about Jesus.
To change your mind about his call on your
life.
And to believe is to trust Jesus.
To see him for who he is.
To trust him for who he is.
And to obey by faith his call to follow
him.
You must be decided in your pursuit of Jesus.
Jesus.
So let me ask this question.
Have you ever called out to Jesus along these
lines?
Jesus.
Jesus, today I'll gladly follow you.
I'll gladly deny myself.
I'll gladly take up my cross.
I'll gladly go where you would have me go.
Because you're worth it.
In light of what you've done for me, I'm all
yours.
I deny myself, take up my cross, and follow you.
Have you ever, ever said that to Jesus?
If you haven't, today's the day to become a
follower of Jesus Christ.
And if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, and
you're like, I can't remember the last time I did
anything like that.
Today's the day.
We're to daily die and follow him.
The second thing to apply this.
The second thing is, is it not just we need to be
decided, we need to be focused.
As a family, we need to be focused on God's will,
which is revealed in his word.
God's word must be governing all of our lives and
relationships.
We are called as one family to obey our one father and
to do his one will together, to obey his word, to come
under this together.
It governs our lives.
So here's what I think can happen.
There can be this idea that if a Christian takes God's word
seriously, it's going to make that Christian self-righteous,
cranky, and a jerk.
But really, it doesn't.
If you are humbly submitting yourself to this word, the result is not
self-righteousness, it's humility.
The result is not cold indifference, it's warm engagement.
It's not moving away from people, it's moving towards people.
When this word is taken seriously, it's transformational of a people.
It changes us.
His word changes us.
It makes us a loving, engaging family to others.
This book needs to be focused, the central focus of all that we do as a church.
Here on Sunday mornings, in our life groups, in our King's Kids and King's
Place ministries, all that we do in our informal engagement with one another.
Wouldn't it be great if more and more we together are coming under God's word?
We're seeking to do God's will together.
We're focused.
We've got to be focused.
We've got to be focused on God's word.
I forgot to mention one thing.
When we're focused on God's word together, we're seeking to do the will of the Father,
it results in gratitude, thanksgiving, deep-hearted worship.
So we've looked so far at how we were to respond to being this family of God.
And the first thing is to be decided.
The second thing is to be focused.
The third way we respond is to be united.
One united family with one Father, God.
You know who Bernie Sanders is?
This is not a promotion by any means.
But it's feel the burn.
I need you to feel the whoever.
I need you to feel the whoever in verse 35.
You need to feel the whoever.
Jesus is saying, for whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.
Whoever.
When Jesus says whoever, he means whoever.
Whoever.
The issue is if anyone who obeys God by becoming a follower of Jesus,
who denies him or herself, takes up his or her cross, and follows Jesus,
anyone who does that, they're in the family.
Whoever.
That means wherever they come from.
That means whatever their background.
That means whenever they come to become a follower of Jesus.
And however the means.
The issue is if they've repented and believed in the gospel.
And if they've done that, they will forever be part of God's family.
Part of our family.
Which means we must lovingly welcome whoever Jesus brings into the family.
And not just welcome.
We must become family.
We're united.
United.
The next application is I need you to feel another word of Jesus.
You need to feel the my.
In verse 34, he's looking at this group of disciples sitting around him.
And he says, here are my mother and my brothers.
Feel the my.
You've been claimed.
Claimed by Jesus.
My brothers.
My sisters.
My family.
So if you have denied yourself, taken up your cross and followed Jesus.
If you're drawn near to him sitting at his feet.
If you're wanting to obey him in all things.
That my is on you.
My brother.
My sister.
He claims you as his own.
And we do God's will together.
The church is a family of brothers and sisters in Christ.
United to do the will of our father.
Got two more.
We're aimed.
You can do this this week.
I won't expand.
It's Matthew chapter 6.
9 forward.
It's the Lord's prayer.
We are aimed in our praying God's will.
Together.
And so.
Jesus begins the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6.
Our father who art in heaven.
Hallowed be your name.
Your name be exalted among the nations.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
Could you imagine a church.
Where a church is praying that.
Every day together.
How about this Christ the King church.
This week.
Start your day.
By making the Lord's prayer.
Your prayer.
It begins with.
Our.
Father.
Because Jesus claims you as his own.
It aims us.
We must be aimed to do the will of our father.
And finally.
We're sent.
Emboldened.
We're sent.
We are sent to expand the family.
We are on a family.
We're a family on a mission.
To make disciples.
To bring in more family.
Whoever.
Responds to Jesus.
So we're the church.
We are.
A family of brothers and sisters in Christ.
United to do the will of God.
So let's lovingly be doing the will of God together.
Let's pray.
God.
Thank you so much.
For these words of Jesus.
God.
Would you.
Use these words for your intended effect.
Among us.
Your people.
Today.
God.
Would you help us.
To see each other more and more.
As brothers and sisters.
Seeking to do your will.
Above all else.
Jesus.
And it's in your name we pray.
Amen.