Latest / Reformed Thinking / Christ’s True Family: Belonging by the Father’s Will (Matthew 12:46–50)

Transcript

Christ’s True Family: Belonging by the Father’s Will (Matthew 12:46–50) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  We are glad you're sitting in with us today.
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  We've got a stack of commentaries, some Greek
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  lexicons, and a really heavy topic to get through.
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  Today we are looking at something that, well, it really
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  defines us as human beings. We are talking about belonging.
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  It's a thing everyone is looking for, isn't it?
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  We all want to know who our people are.
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  We want to know where we fit. Right.
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  And usually when we try to answer that question, who are my
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  people? We we look at biology, we look
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  at our last. Name your heritage.
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  Yeah, the social circles you were born into.
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  We have this instinct that says if I have the right DNA or if I
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  come from the right clan, I am safe.
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  It's the way the world has always worked.
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  Blood is thicker than water, as the saying goes.
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  Your security is tied up in your lineage.
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  But today we are opening up Matthew chapter 12, specifically
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  verses 46 through 50, and we're going to see Jesus take that
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  instinct that that universal human reliance on family and
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  heritage, and just completely dismantle it.
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  He doesn't just dismantle it, he replaces it with something
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  stronger. But you're right, it's a shock
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  to the system. I mean if you read this text
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  without your church filters on it's it's offensive.
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  It is shocking you have Jesus own mother and brother showing
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  up to talk to him and he seemingly ignores them.
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  It looks like a snub. It looks like a flat out
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  rejection, yeah, but what we are going to see is that Jesus isn't
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  just being rude. He is doing something
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  theological. He's reordering the entire
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  universe of human relationships. He's redefining what the Word
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  family actually means. Yes.
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  And that's our mission for this deep dive.
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  We want to understand how Jesus defines true spiritual kinship
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  because he is going to argue that being part of God's family
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  isn't about your bloodline. No, it's about the will of the
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  Father. And that forces a hard question
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  on everyone listening. What is the basis of your
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  assurance? Do you feel safe with God
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  because you know you grew up in a Christian?
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  Home. Or do you feel secure because
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  you have a religious last name? Or is your assurance based on
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  true union with Christ? That is the question we are
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  going to get into, but we can't just parachute into verse 46.
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  That's not how we do it. We have to look at the
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  neighborhood first. Where does this scene fall in
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  Matthew's Gospel? Context is everything.
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  This scene is not random at all. It's the climax of a very dark
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  crescendo. Matthew 12 is a huge turning
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  point in the book. OK, so set the stage for us what
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  has been happening in this chapter before Jesus's mom shows
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  up. Well, the chapter opens with a
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  fight. A big one.
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  The disciples are walking through a Greenfield on the
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  Sabbath, and they're hungry, so they pluck some heads of grain
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  to eat. Right.
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  And the Pharisees see this. The Pharisees see this and they
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  lose their minds. To us, that sounds like such a
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  minor infraction. It's like picking an apple as
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  you walk past a tree. It seems that way to us.
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  But for them, the Sabbath was everything.
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  It was the national flag, it was the sign of the covenant.
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  And by the 1st century, the religious leaders had built all
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  these these fences around the law, all these extra rules.
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  To protect the law in their view.
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  In their view, yeah. So plucking grain was
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  technically harvesting, and rubbing it in your hands to get
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  the husk off was threshing. So in their eyes, the disciples
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  were breaking the law of God. They were working on the
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  Sabbath. And Jesus's response is just
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  it's a bombshell. He defends them.
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  He says the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.
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  Which is a claim to deity. I mean, there's no way around
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  it. Only God is Lord the Sabbath.
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  He's saying I get to decide what this day is about.
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  So the tension is already incredibly high.
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  It is, but then immediately after that, he walks into their
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  synagogue. He double s down and there's a
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  man there with a withered hand. And the Pharisees are watching
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  him. They're just waiting.
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  It's a trap. It's a total trap.
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  See, Rabbinic tradition said you could only provide medical help
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  on the Sabbath if it was a life or death situation.
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  A withered hand is tragic, but it's not fatal.
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  Right. It's a chronic condition.
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  It could wait until Sunday or Monday.
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  But Jesus doesn't wait. He heals him right there in
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  front of everyone. He deliberately provokes them.
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  He wants to show that mercy triumphs over their man made
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  rules, that the Sabbath is for blessing people, not binding
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  them. And the reaction, this is where
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  it all turns. The reaction in verse 14.
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  This is the pivot point for the whole gospel really.
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  But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him.
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  How to destroy Him? Destroy.
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  That's not just disagreement. That's not let's have another
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  debate. That's murder.
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  It's a plot. It's the first time in Matthew
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  that the religious leaders officially decide to kill him.
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  So the atmosphere is totally changed.
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  We are not in a friendly debate anymore.
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  We're in a war zone. A spiritual war zone.
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  And it gets even darker just a few verses later.
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  Jesus casts out a demon. A man who was blind and mute
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  gets his sight and speech back. It's this beautiful moment of
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  liberation, a clear act of God. And what do the Pharisees say?
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  How do they explain this? Well, they can't deny the
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  miracle. The power is undeniable, the
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  whole crowd sees it. So they have to attack the
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  source of the power. And their explanation is.
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  They say it is only by Beelzebel, the Prince of demons,
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  that this man casts out demons. They look at the work of the
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  Holy Spirit and they call it the work of Satan.
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  Which Jesus calls the blasphemy against the Spirit the
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  unforgivable sin. He looks at the leaders of
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  Israel, the people who knew the Scriptures better than anyone,
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  and he calls them an evil and adulterous generation.
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  So by the time we get to the end of the chapter, the lines are
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  drawn. You have the insiders, the
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  Pharisees, the scribes, the leaders who are now officially
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  outsiders of the Kingdom. Correct.
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  Matthew is setting up this massive theme here.
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  Who is in and who is out? The people who should be in.
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  The ones with all the religious credentials?
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  They're out. The people who should be out.
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  The messy disciples, the tax collectors, They're in.
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  And that is the tension hanging in the air when we get to verse
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  46. Jesus is in a house, He's
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  teaching the people, He's dispensing the word of God.
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  And then we get this, this domestic interruption.
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  Right, verse 46 says while he was still speaking to the
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  people, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside asking to
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  speak to him. OK, I want to focus on that
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  phrase for a second. Stood outside the Greek is Hesto
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  Kaizon Iksham. And Matthew is a very, very
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  careful writer. He puts words in certain places
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  for a reason. So it's not just a geographical
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  note. No, that phrase is doing double
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  duty. Yes, it describes their physical
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  location. The house is probably crowded,
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  so they were standing out on the street, but but theologically in
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  Matthew, being outside is a terrible place to be.
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  Later in the gospel, Jesus warns about being cast into the outer
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  darkness. Where there is weeping and
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  gnashing of teeth. So visually Matthew is painting
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  a picture for you. You have the disciples sitting
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  inside the house at Jesus feet hearing the word and you have
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  the biological family outside the house.
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  It's a complete reversal of expectations A.
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  Total reversal. The people who share his DNA are
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  on the outside looking in. The people who share his mission
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  are on the inside. And they send a request they
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  want to speak to him. Now we need to understand the
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  culture here in our world. If I'm busy at work and my mom
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  calls I, I might let it go to voicemail.
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  You might, but in the 1st century Near East?
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  Never. That's just unthinkable.
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  That culture was built on the clan.
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  The family was the primary unit of survival and identity.
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  You weren't an individual first. Not at all.
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  You were a son, a brother, a member of the tribe.
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  The collective outweigh the individual by a mile.
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  So if the matriarch of the family and the older brothers
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  show up, that's a summons. It's not a suggestion, no.
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  It's a command the crowd would have expected Jesus to stop
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  everything to say. Oh, pardon me everyone.
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  My mother is here. I must go.
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  That was the honorable thing to do.
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  So when he doesn't do that, it creates a massive amount of
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  tension in the room. It's a test.
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  It's a narrative test. Satan tempted Jesus in the
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  wilderness to abandon his mission for power.
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  Now the temptations more subtle, it's more relatable.
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  Will he abandoned his mission for natural affection and.
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  He let flesh and blood dictate the schedule of the Kingdom.
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  That's the question. And there's a messenger, right?
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  Some from the crowd taps Jesus on the shoulder and says, hey,
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  your mother and brothers are outside.
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  And notice how Jesus treats the messenger.
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  He doesn't panic. He doesn't get flustered.
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  He uses the interruption as a prop.
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  He uses this moment to make a divine pronouncement.
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  He is not a victim of circumstance here.
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  He is the master teacher, seizing a moment.
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  OK, so before we get to what he actually says, we have to deal
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  with the historical controversy. The text is very clear.
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  It mentions his brothers. His mother and his brothers,
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  yes. Now if you.
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  Come from a Roman Catholic background, that phrase might
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  sound strange because there is the dogma of the perpetual
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  virginity of Mary, the idea that she remained a virgin her whole
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  life. Correct.
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  So if that is true, she couldn't have had other children.
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  Which means you have to explain who these brothers are.
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  This has been a debate for centuries.
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  If you are committed to the idea that Mary never had normal
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  marital relations with Joseph, you have to find an explanation
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  for these men. And one of the common views
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  comes from Jerome, right? He argued they were cousins.
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  Right. Jerome in the 4th century argued
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  that the word Adelpho's brother could be used elastically to
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  mean cousin or kinsman. So these are Jesus's cousins,
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  maybe children of Mary's sister. Then there's the other main
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  view, which you see more in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
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  Yes, that they were Joseph's children from her previous
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  marriage. That Joseph was a widower when
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  he married Mary and these were Jesus's older step brothers.
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  So those are the 2 main ways to to get around the text.
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  They are, but as we approach this from a reformed
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  perspective, which means we let scripture speak louder than
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  tradition, we have to look at the Greek itself.
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  And the Greek is, yeah, it's pretty stubborn.
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  Here it is. The Greek word for brother is a
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  Delphos. It comes from a root, meaning
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  from the same womb. It's a very specific biological
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  word. So if Matthew wanted to say
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  cousin, could he have? Was there a word for that?
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  Easily the Greek language has a specific word for cousin
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  inepsios, and we see that word used in the New Testament.
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  In Colossians 4.10, Paul writes about Mark the Inepsios, the
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  cousin of Barnabas. So the New Testament writers
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  knew the difference between a brother and a cousin, and they
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  use the right words. They certainly did, and Matthew
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  consistently uses adelphos for these men.
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  It's not just here in Matthew 13.55, just a chapter later, the
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  people of Nazareth are offended by Jesus and they start listing
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  his family members. Right, they say, is not his
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  mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James
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  and Joseph and Simon and Judas. They list them by name.
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  That sounds like a nuclear family.
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  It does. I mean, the most natural reading
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  of the text, the reading you would come to if you didn't have
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  a prior commitment to a specific dog, is that Mary and Joseph had
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  a normal, healthy marriage after Jesus was born.
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  They had other children. Which implies that Mary was
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  fully human. She was a godly woman, blessed
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  among women, as the Angel said, but she was a wife and a mother
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  in the normal sense. And that matters.
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  We do not need to elevate her to a semi divine status.
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  Her honor comes from being the bearer of the Lord, not from
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  being perpetually a virgin. Her obedience is her glory.
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  But here's the tragic part of the history at this specific
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  moment in the story. Do these brothers, do they
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  believe in Jesus? No, absolutely not, and we don't
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  have to guess. John 7.5 tells us plainly, for
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  even his brothers did not believe in him.
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  That is just staggering to think about.
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  It's heavy. Think about the implications.
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  These men grew up in the same house as the Son of God.
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  They ate at the same table. They watched him grow up.
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  They saw a life of absolute perfection for 30 years.
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  No sin, no selfishness, perfect love, day in and day out.
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  And he still missed it. They didn't get it.
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  In fact, if you look at Mark's account of the same event in
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  Mark chapter 3, it's even more pointed.
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  Says they came to seize him, seize it because they thought he
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  was out of his mind. They thought he had snapped.
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  He had lost it. So they aren't just there to
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  visit, they're there for an intervention.
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  They're there to drag him home. Exactly.
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  They are embarrassed. He's picking fights with the
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  Pharisees. He's gathering these huge
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  crowds. He's claiming to be Lord of the
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  Sabbath. They think he is ruining the
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  family reputation. This effectively just destroys
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  the idea that grace is genetic or that salvation is a family
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  inheritance. It absolutely does.
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  It creates a category. We need to be very, very aware
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  of the proximity illusion, the. Proximity illusion.
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  Yes, you can be incredibly close to Jesus.
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  You could be physically next to him.
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  You could be his literal brother sharing the same mother.
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  And you can still be standing outside spiritually.
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  Proximity is not union. That is the key.
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  That is the whole point. You can be near the fire and
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  still freeze to death if you don't actually come inside and
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  get the warmth. OK, so the message comes to
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  Jesus, your family is outside and he responds with a question,
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  a question that changes everything.
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  Verse 48 Who is my mother and who are my brothers?
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  Can you just imagine the hush in that crowd and the shame and
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  honor culture? That is a slap in the face.
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  It sounds like he is disowning them in public.
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  It sounds like a direct, correct violation of the 5th
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  commandment. Honor your father and mother.
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  That is the tension everyone in the room would have felt.
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  Wait a minute. Is this rabbi breaking the law
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  of Moses? Is he dishonouring his parents?
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  I mean, this is a radical statement.
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  But we know Jesus fulfilled the law perfectly.
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  So what is happening here? He is not breaking the 5th
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  commandment, he is subordinating it.
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  He is placing it in its proper order.
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  Under the first commandment. Correct.
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  The first commandment is you shall have no other gods before
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  me. If loyalty to the family
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  competes with loyalty to God's mission, God wins every single
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  time. He is establishing a hierarchy
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  of loves, a new set of priorities.
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  He is. He's saying.
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  I do not define myself primarily by my earthly lineage.
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  I define myself by my Father's business.
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  My identity is not from Nazareth.
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  My identity is from heaven. And then he makes his gesture,
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  verse 49, and stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he
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  said, Here are my mother and my brothers.
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  Look at where he points. This is so critical.
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  He does not point to the Pharisees, the religious elite.
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  He does not point to the wealthy patrons who might be funding his
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  ministry. He points to his disciple.
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  And who were they at this point? They were a mess.
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  A total mess. Fisherman who smelled like fish.
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  A tax collector who was considered a traitor to his own
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  people. A zealot who wanted to overthrow
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  Rome. They were sinners.
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  They were constantly getting things wrong.
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  He looks at this group of misfits and says this is my real
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  family. It's a visual doctrine of
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  election. He is choosing them, He is
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  identifying with them, and it marks a massive shift in how God
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  deals with His people. A dispensational shift, really.
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  Yes, In the Old covenant, the people of God were largely
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  defined by biology. You were in the covenant because
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  you were son of Abraham. You were born into the tribe of
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  Judah or Benjamin. Your birth certificate was your
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  membership card in a sense. In a sense, yes.
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  But Jesus is inaugurating the new covenant and the new
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  covenant ecclesia. The Church is not defined by the
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  blood of ancestors. It's not about your last name,
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  it's defined by the blood of Christ.
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  So the bond of the spirit is thicker than the bond of blood.
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  That is the headline for this whole passage.
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  The spiritual family is the real family.
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  The biological family is the shadow.
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  The Church is the substance. But he doesn't just point and
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  say these guys, he gives a condition.
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  He gives a definition in verse 50 that clarifies everything.
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  Yes, he does, For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven
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  is my brother and sister and mother.
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  There is so much theology packed into that one sentence.
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  Let's start with the whoever. Is wide open.
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  It is the wideness of the gospel offer.
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  It's not restricted by ethnicity, Jew or Gentile.
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  It's not restricted by class, rich or poor.
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  And notice, he says, brother and sister and mother.
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  That inclusion of Sister and Mother is huge.
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  In the 1st century, women were often marginalized in
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  theological circles. They weren't considered
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  disciples in the formal. Sense they were in a different
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  category. They were, and Jesus elevates
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  them. He says.
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  A woman who does the will of God has the same spiritual dignity,
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  the same status in the family as any man.
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  It's a radical affirmation of spiritual equality.
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  OK, but then comes the hard part, the condition.
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  Whoever does the will of my father.
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  This is where we have to be very, very precise, because as
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  Reformed thinkers, we are allergic to works righteousness,
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  and for good reason. Right.
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  If you read this quickly, you might fall into the ditch of
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  legalism. You might think, OK, Jesus is
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  saying I have to obey perfectly to earn my way into the family.
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  My performance gets me in. That's the legalist ditch.
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  I obey, therefore I am accepted. That's the opposite of the
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  gospel. That's slavery, not sonship.
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  We know from the rest of the New Testament, Ephesians 2, Romans
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  3, that we are saved by grace through faith, not by works.
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  So obedience does not purchase adoption.
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  Correct. You don't mow the lawn to
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  convince your dad to be your dad.
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  You mow the lawn because he is your dad.
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  The relationship precedes the action.
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  But then there's the other ditch on the other side of the road.
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  The antinomian ditch, the lawless ditch.
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  The idea that I believe in Jesus.
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  I signed a card 20 years ago so it doesn't matter how I live.
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  Once saved, always saved, but in a way that ignores holiness and
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  obedience completely. Jesus just destroys that idea
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  here. He doesn't say whoever professes
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  my name is my brother or whoever believes the right doctrines is
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  my brother. He says whoever does the will.
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  It reminds me of Matthew 7 at the end of the Sermon on the
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  Mount. Not everyone who says to me,
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  Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven.
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  But the one who does the will of my Father, who was in heaven,
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  it's the exact same standard. An empty profession is not just
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  useless, it's dangerous. The West and sincere confession
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  of faith puts this beautifully. It says that faith is the alone
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  instrument of justification. Faith is the only thing that
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  connects us to Christ for salvation, but the faith that
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  justifies is never alone. It's never alone, it always
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  produces fruit, it always works by love.
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  If there is no obedience, no desire to do the will of the
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  Father, then there is no life and there is no life.
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  There is no faith. So doing the will is the
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  evidence, not the cause. It's the fruit, not the root.
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  Precisely. It's the family resemblance.
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  If you have the Father's DNA spiritually, through the new
• 18:25
  birth, you will start to act like the Father.
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  You'll start to look like your older brother Jesus.
• 18:29
  So let's. Define doing the will.
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  I love the Father because if it's not perfect obedience that
• 18:33
  saves us, what is it? Well, we let Scripture interpret
• 18:36
  Scripture. We go to John's Gospel, chapter
• 18:39
  6, verse 40. Jesus tells us explicitly what
• 18:42
  the Father's will is. He says For this is the will of
• 18:45
  my Father, that everyone who looks on the sun and believes in
• 18:48
  him should have eternal life. So the first and primary act of
• 18:52
  obedience is faith. Yes, the very first thing God
• 18:55
  commands you to do is to stop trusting in yourself, to stop
• 18:58
  trying to earn your way, and to look to His Son and believe you
• 19:02
  cannot be doing the will of the Father if you are rejecting the
• 19:05
  Son He sent. And after that initial act of
• 19:08
  faith. Then comes a lifetime of faith,
• 19:10
  sanctification. It is a life that is
• 19:12
  directionally bent toward God. It is not perfectionism.
• 19:15
  We still stumble. We still sin, but the direction
• 19:18
  of our life has changed. It's about the trajectory and
• 19:20
  not a perfect record. It is a child might trip and
• 19:23
  fall while walking toward his father, but he is still walking
• 19:26
  toward him. The desire is there, that new
• 19:29
  desire to please God, to keep His commandments out of love.
• 19:32
  That is the mark of the true brother or sister.
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  This brings up a kind of spiritual logic, doesn't it?
• 19:38
  A pattern involving the Law and the Gospel.
• 19:40
  It does. Think about the law first.
• 19:43
  The law says do this and live. If we look at Jesus's standard
• 19:47
  here, whoever does the will of my Father, and we are honest
• 19:50
  with ourselves, what do we conclude?
• 19:53
  We conclude that we fail. I don't do the will of the
• 19:56
  Father perfectly. My thoughts, my words, my
• 19:58
  actions, they all fall short. So the law exposes us, right?
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  It shows us we are standing outside on our own merits.
• 20:06
  We are no better than Mary and the brothers on the street.
• 20:08
  In fact, we're worse because we sin willfully.
• 20:11
  But that prepares us for the gospel.
• 20:12
  That sense of failure drives us to look for a Savior.
• 20:15
  Because there is one man who actually did the will of the
• 20:18
  Father perfectly. He is the true Son.
• 20:21
  He obeyed in the wilderness when Israel failed.
• 20:23
  He obeyed in Gethsemane, saying not my will but yours be done.
• 20:27
  He obeyed on the cross. He fulfilled the law perfectly
• 20:29
  in every respect. And to reunion with Christ that
• 20:32
  perfect obedience counts for us. That is the glory of it.
• 20:36
  That's the great exchange. We are adopted in the family not
• 20:39
  because we performed, but because our elder brother
• 20:41
  performed for us. His perfect record is credited
• 20:44
  to our account by faith. So then why do we obey?
• 20:47
  What is the motive now? It can't be to earn our
• 20:49
  salvation. No, the motive is gratitude.
• 20:52
  This is what we call the third use of the law.
• 20:54
  The law is no longer a ladder we try to climb to God.
• 20:57
  It's a guide for how to walk with God as His children.
• 21:00
  We obey because we are loved. We obey because we want to look
• 21:04
  like our brother. We want to honor our Father.
• 21:06
  It changes the motivation from fear to love, from slavery to
• 21:10
  sonship. It's the family language.
• 21:12
  I want to pivot now to application, because as
• 21:15
  beautiful as this doctrine is, it is also a hammer.
• 21:19
  It smashes some idols that we, especially in the modern West,
• 21:22
  hold very dear. It is absolutely iconoclastic.
• 21:26
  Jesus is breaking things here and we need to let Him.
• 21:28
  OK, let's talk about the big one first.
• 21:30
  The the idol of cultural Christianity or heritage.
• 21:34
  This is a massive 1. It's the idea that I'm a
• 21:37
  Christian because my parents were Christians or I was
• 21:40
  baptized as an infant. I go to church on Christmas and
• 21:43
  Easter. I'm a decent person, so I'm good
• 21:45
  with God. It's relying on a religious
• 21:47
  heritage, not a personal faith. But look at the text.
• 21:51
  Mary and the brothers had the ultimate heritage.
• 21:54
  They were physically related to the Savior of the world.
• 21:57
  And where were they? Standing outside.
• 21:59
  That is a chilling warning for every single one of us.
• 22:02
  It means you can be close to the things of God.
• 22:04
  You can be in the church building every week.
• 22:06
  You can know the liturgy, sing the hymns, even serve on a
• 22:09
  committee. But if you are not in vital
• 22:12
  union with Christ, doing the will of the Father through
• 22:14
  faith, you're outside. There's a great old saying God
• 22:18
  has no grandchildren. He has no grandchildren, only
• 22:20
  children. You have to be adopted
• 22:22
  personally. You cannot ride your parents
• 22:23
  faith into heaven. Then there's another idol, and
• 22:26
  this one might step on some toes.
• 22:29
  The idol of the nuclear family. This is very sensitive in our
• 22:33
  culture, especially evangelical circles.
• 22:35
  We love the slogan faith, family, freedom and often if we
• 22:40
  are honest with ourselves, family is the real God in that
• 22:42
  Trinity. We arrange our entire lives
• 22:44
  around the family unit. It's happiness, it's success,
• 22:47
  it's schedule. We do, and Jesus is saying here
• 22:50
  that the family is a temporary institution.
• 22:52
  It is good, it is ordained by God for this age, but it is
• 22:56
  earthly. It ends at the grave.
• 22:59
  The Church, his real family, is eternal.
• 23:02
  So what does that idolatry look like practically?
• 23:04
  How do we see it lived out? It looks like skipping corporate
• 23:07
  worship week after week because of your kids travel sports
• 23:10
  schedule. You are, by your actions,
• 23:13
  teaching your children that a soccer game is more important
• 23:17
  than the gathering of God's eternal family.
• 23:19
  You're putting the earthly tribe above the heavenly assembly.
• 23:22
  That's a great way to put it. Or think about evangelism and
• 23:25
  conflict. There are people listening right
• 23:26
  now who will not share the gospel with their unbelieving
• 23:30
  parents or siblings because they don't want to make Thanksgiving
• 23:32
  awkward. If you want to keep the peace.
• 23:34
  They value the peace of the earthly family more than the
• 23:37
  truth of the heavenly Father. And Jesus is saying your primary
• 23:40
  allegiance has to shift. So the challenge is, are you
• 23:44
  willing to disappoint your earthly family in order to obey
• 23:47
  your Heavenly Father? That is the cost of
• 23:49
  discipleship, Jesus said in Matthew 10.
• 23:52
  I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against
• 23:55
  her mother, not because we seek conflict, but because our
• 23:59
  allegiance to Christ is absolute and must come first.
• 24:03
  There's a third idol here, and it connects back to the Roman
• 24:05
  Catholic view we touched on earlier, the idol of mediation.
• 24:09
  Yes, the idea that we need to go between that Jesus is too holy
• 24:13
  or too distant, so I need to go to Mary or the Saints to get
• 24:16
  access to him. But in this text, Mary is the
• 24:19
  one asking for access. She's on the outside.
• 24:21
  Exactly. She is standing outside asking
• 24:23
  to speak to him. Jesus does not say, oh wait, the
• 24:26
  Queen of Heaven is here, let me bring her in for a special
• 24:28
  audience. He treats her as a human being
• 24:31
  who needs to submit to God's will just like everyone else.
• 24:34
  So it democratizes access to God.
• 24:36
  It does. It levels the playing field
• 24:37
  completely. We do not need a human priest or
• 24:40
  a St. to mediate for us. We have one mediator, Christ
• 24:42
  Jesus, and access is open to whoever does the will of God
• 24:46
  through him. Now we have done the hard work
• 24:49
  of crushing idols and that can feel harsh, but I want to flip
• 24:54
  the coin. There is tremendous comfort in
• 24:57
  this text as well. Oh, there is This is a soft
• 25:00
  pillow for a weary head, if you hear it correctly.
• 25:02
  Think about the person listening who is lonely.
• 25:05
  Maybe they're single and have never been married.
• 25:07
  Maybe they are divorced or widowed.
• 25:10
  The church can be a hard place for single people.
• 25:12
  We are often so family centric in our programming and our
• 25:15
  language that if you walk in alone you can feel like an
• 25:18
  outsider. But Jesus looks at the single
• 25:21
  person, the lonely person, and says what?
• 25:23
  He points to the church and says here is your family and notice
• 25:27
  the specifics in the text. He's my brother and sister and
• 25:30
  mother. It's singular.
• 25:32
  He meets the specific relational void.
• 25:34
  He does. If you don't have a mother, you
• 25:36
  have mothers in the church, godly older women who can mentor
• 25:39
  you. If you don't have brothers, you
• 25:41
  have brothers in the Pew next to you.
• 25:42
  And these aren't fake metaphorical brothers.
• 25:45
  That's the mental shift we need to make, isn't it?
• 25:47
  We tend to think our biological family is real and our church
• 25:50
  family is just a nice metaphor. Jesus reverses it.
• 25:53
  The biological family is the metaphor.
• 25:56
  It's a picture of the reality. The church is the reality.
• 25:59
  The bond you have with another believer, someone you will
• 26:01
  worship with for 10 trillion years in eternity, is more real
• 26:06
  and more lasting than the bond of DNA and.
• 26:09
  What about the person who has been rejected by their family
• 26:11
  because of their faith? This happens all the time.
• 26:13
  We have listeners who are converts from Islam or Orthodox
• 26:17
  Judaism or atheism. Their families have cut them
• 26:20
  off. That is a deep, deep pain.
• 26:22
  Jesus is saying, I know. He is saying my own brother
• 26:25
  thought I was crazy. They tried to seize me.
• 26:28
  I know what rejection from your own kin feels like.
• 26:31
  And he promises in Mark 10A hundredfold return.
• 26:34
  If you have lost a father or mother for the gospel, you gain
• 26:37
  100 fathers and mothers in the church.
• 26:39
  There is one more group I want to encourage the struggling
• 26:42
  believer, the person who looks at that condition, whoever does
• 26:45
  the will of the Father and feel shaky because they are so aware
• 26:48
  of their own sin and failure. That's where the doctrine of
• 26:51
  with Christ holds us fast. Notice that Jesus calls the
• 26:54
  disciples his brothers, these flawed, failing men.
• 26:59
  Hebrews 2.11 says he is not ashamed to call us brothers.
• 27:03
  Think about that for a second. He is not ashamed of you.
• 27:06
  He knows your sin. He knows your weakness.
• 27:08
  He knows the thoughts you had on the way to work today.
• 27:11
  And yet, because you are united to him by faith, he stands
• 27:15
  before the Father and says he's with me, she's with me, this is
• 27:18
  my brother, my sister. He's not ashamed of us.
• 27:21
  He covers our shame with His glory.
• 27:24
  Our imperfect, stumbling obedience is accepted by the
• 27:26
  Father because of His perfect, unwavering obedience.
• 27:30
  You don't get kicked out of the family because you stumble.
• 27:33
  The blood of the elder brother covers you.
• 27:36
  So as we wrap this up, how does this change our Sunday
• 27:38
  experience? We walk into church next week.
• 27:41
  What is different because of this text?
• 27:43
  It changes everything. It means we are not just
• 27:45
  attending an event, we are not just going to a lecture or a
• 27:48
  concert. We're going to a family reunion.
• 27:50
  These are your people, your eternal family.
• 27:53
  And there's a powerful connection here to the
• 27:55
  sacraments, specifically to the Lord's Supper.
• 27:57
  The table. We often call it the family
• 28:00
  meal. That is a deep theological
• 28:02
  reality. When we eat the bread and drink
• 28:04
  the cup, we are affirming who the family is.
• 28:06
  We are partaking of the new covenant that makes us family.
• 28:09
  But there is a serious warning there too.
• 28:11
  Yes, do not eat if you are standing outside, if you are
• 28:15
  unrepentant, if you are harboring hate for your brother
• 28:18
  or sister in Christ, if you are secretly relying on your own
• 28:21
  works. You are functionally outside to
• 28:25
  eat then is dangerous. It's eating and drinking
• 28:28
  judgement on yourself. But the.
• 28:29
  Invitation is wide. The invitation is for the
• 28:32
  family. It is come.
• 28:34
  If you are hungry for righteousness, if you are weak
• 28:37
  and need strength, if you are resting in Christ alone for your
• 28:40
  salvation, come to the table. This is where the family gathers
• 28:43
  and is nourished by the head of the household.
• 28:45
  It really reorients our whole view of the church.
• 28:47
  It is not a club you join, it's a body you're part of.
• 28:50
  It is the household of God, and we are His children.
• 28:53
  So here is the final provocation for you, the listener.
• 28:58
  We've walked through the context, the Greek, the history,
• 29:01
  the theology, but it all comes down to a simple position, a
• 29:05
  simple question. Where are you standing right
• 29:08
  now? Are you standing outside
• 29:10
  assuming you were in Pitargando because of your background, your
• 29:14
  family, or your church attendance?
• 29:16
  Or have you entered the house by faith?
• 29:19
  Are you merely associated with Jesus hanging around the
• 29:23
  neighborhood, so to speak, or are you in union with Him?
• 29:26
  The door is not locked by your genetics.
• 29:29
  It's not locked by your past sins.
• 29:31
  It is open by the sun, but you must enter through the door of
• 29:34
  faith and repentance. That is the question that
• 29:36
  matters most. It is the only question that
• 29:38
  matters in the end. Are you in the family?
• 29:40
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 29:42
  We hope this deep dive has challenged you and in the end,
• 29:45
  comforted you with the truth of the Gospel.
• 29:47
  Go and do the will of the Father by His grace.
• 29:49
  We will see you next time.