Mark 3:20-35 – Someone stronger
Opening illus. – Vladimir Shmondenko (goes by Anatoly) – YouTube gym prankster.
Often seen as a janitor in the weight room performing humorous and unexpected pranks in gyms, gaining popularity on social media for his light-hearted approach to fitness. Girl snatching a lot of weight. He asks if he may try – snatches with one hand.
Another—he goes to some guys who are maxing out on the deadlift, goes up to the weights, and asks why these plates are fake. Then he deadlifts the weight several times and says, “I told you those weights were fake.” Anatoly is someone stronger in every gym he goes to. More about that a little later.
1. Jesus – “Out of His mind?”
20 Then Jesus entered a house, and again, a crowd gathered so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. 21 When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
His claims, wild popularity, and miraculous acts worried his family, who weren’t sure at all that He was who He seemed to be claiming to be. Was he going mad because of all the traveling, the sudden adulation, and the miraculous?
This was meant to be an…intervention.
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The Idiot novel by Dostoyevsky…follows Prince Myshkin, a man Christ-like goodness earn him the label of an “idiot” in the eyes of Russian society. Myshkin’s sincere attempts to do good ultimately lead to tragic consequences.
In a corrupt world, Jesus is the idiot. And so are you. “Out of your mind.”
2. Blasphemy exemplified
The eternal sin
28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
The eternal sin exemplified
22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons, he is driving out demons.” 30 …”He has an impure spirit.”
Light shows up, and out of jealous spite, they call it darkness. This is the essence of blasphemy. They know better, but in hatred they call something what it most certainly is not.
3. Jesus – Someone…stronger (NLT)
23 Jesus called them over and responded with an illustration. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” he asked. 24 “A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse. 25 Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart. 26 And if Satan is divided and fights against himself, how can he stand? He would never survive. 27 Let me illustrate this further. Who is powerful enough to enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods? Only someone even stronger- someone who could tie him up and then plunder his house.
Jesus – “someone even stronger.” I like that. Some of us are struggling with a strong evil influence called Satan. We need someone stronger. Jesus, is that Someone!
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, 3 though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.
7 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. 9 He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 11 The LORD Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
4. Your eternal family – doers of the will of God
31 Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32 A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”
33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.
34 Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
A search of Scripture turns up one rather surprising truth: there are no exemplary families. Not a single family is portrayed in Scripture in such a way so as to evoke admiration in us. There are many family stories, there is considerable reference to family life, and there is sound counsel to guide the growth of families, but not a single model family for anyone to look up to in either awe or envy.
Adam and Eve are no sooner out of the garden than their children get in a fight.
Shem, Ham, and Japheth are forced to devise a strategy to hide their father’s drunken shame. Jacob and Esau are bitter rivals and sow seeds of discord that bear centuries of bitter harvest. Joseph and his brothers bring changes on the themes of sibling rivalry and parental bungling. Jesse’s sons, brave and loyal in service of their country, are capricious and cruel to their youngest brother. David is unfortunate in both wives and children—he is a man after God’s own heart and Israel’s greatest king, but he cannot manage his own household.
Even in the family of Jesus, where we might expect something different, there is exposition of the same theme. The picture in Mark, chapter three, strikes us as typical rather than exceptional: Jesus is active, healing the sick, comforting the distressed, and fulfilling his calling as Messiah, while his mother and brothers are outside trying to get him to come home, quite sure that he is crazy. Jesus’ family criticizes and does not appreciate. It misunderstands and does not comprehend.
The biblical material consistently portrays the family not as a Norman Rockwell group, beaming in gratitude around a Thanksgiving turkey but as a series of broken relationships in need of redemption… Source: Eugene H. Peterson, Like Dew Your Youth: Growing Up with Your Teenager (Eerdmans, 1994), pp.110-11