Sermon Notes: Mark 3:31-35 - The Family of God
Mark 3:31-35 The Family of God
Mark 3:31-35 "And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, 'Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.' And he answered them, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.’”
Observation: What Does the Text Say?
Author: John Mark
Audience: Mostly Gentiles and some Jewish folks. Unbelievers being introduced to Jesus. Followers of Jesus growing into maturity.
Occasion: Mark wrote his gospel account to use on the mission field for introducing Gentiles to Jesus so they can be saved.
Genre: Historical, theological, biography.
Key words and phrases:
Mother / brothers / outside
"Outside": The word appears twice and is doing some heavy lifting. The family is physically outside the house. Remember, insiders and outsiders is a theme in Mark. Mark probably intends us to feel the weight of his natural family being more than physically outside. To be outside the way Mark uses it carries the ugliness of exclusion from the kingdom of God that is now here. Mark is about to tell us in Mark 4:11 that he uses parables, according to Isaiah 6:9-10, for those outsiders as a judgment for their refusal to come to him in faith to be insiders.
Crowd / sitting around him
"Sitting around him" (v. 32, 34): The crowd inside is described with the same physical status two times, seated with Jesus, thus they are gathered, present, and attentive. This is the posture of disciples in Jesus’ time. Sitting with Jesus was the posture of learning and allegiance.
Whoever does the will of God
"Whoever does the will of God" (v. 35): The defining standard of the family of God is not bloodline. It is the obedience of faith.
Lists:
Mother and brothers.
If we look at Mark 6:3, we learn the names of Jesus’ brothers who are with Mary here: James, Joses, Judas, and Simon.
NOTE: I love that one of Jesus’ brothers is named after Judas Maccabeus (the hammer) who led the Maccabean revolt. Perhaps Jesus’ love for his brother and the meaning of his name is one of many divine reasons he chose Simon the Zealot as one of his apostles. No doubt the Zealots get their inspiration from the national hero, Judas.
Contrasts and comparisons:
Outsiders/insiders
Unbelief/belief
The outsiders are natural family looking to seize Jesus (v. 21), standing outside in angst to impede the Son of God.
The insiders are seated with Jesus thus they are attentive, near in proximity, doing the will of God.
Two of Mark’s themes are present here: Discipleship (proximity to Jesus) and Insiders/Outsiders.
Expressions of time:
None
Terms of conclusion/purpose clauses:
V. 35 “For”. This is the purpose clause. This is why John Mark is sharing this historical account of Jesus’ family and his followers.
Those who do God’s will are the family of God. God’s will is that people come to Jesus in faith.
What does the text say? Restate the text in your own words:
Jesus’ family comes to him, and again they are looking to get a word with him because they believe his is crazy (v. 21). But Jesus is with a crowd inside while his natural family is outside calling him to come out to them. The crowd inside with Jesus informs him about his mother and brothers being outside calling for him.
Jesus asks the crowd gathered and sitting with him, who his mother and brothers are? Apparently, this is a rhetorical question, or his disciples are not sure how to answer. So, Jesus answers his own question by telling his disciples that those who follow him are his mother and brothers. Jesus clarifies further by saying those who do God’s will by following him are his brother, sister, and mother.
Interpretation: What Does the Text Mean?
Big Idea: Jesus is the divine Son of God and the Suffering Servant Messiah who inaugurates the kingdom of God, who atones for sin through his death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus calls his people to a costly discipleship of self-denial and suffering with purpose and joy.
We need to keep the overall big idea of John Mark’s gospel in view. And we need to be careful to not fall into merely observing other people’s responses to Jesus. Mark’s gospel is inspired by the Holy Spirit and useful for all of us at every step from initial faith in Jesus to maturity in Christ. And I hope I will keep answering a key question: How do I respond to Jesus right now?
1. Those who repent and believe the good news of the kingdom and follow Jesus do the will of God.
Verse 34 and 35 work together. Jesus declares that those who have come to him and are sitting with him in faith are his family. Verse 35 just clarifies further. Mark makes it clear with the purpose clause: Those who come to him by faith are doing the will of God and they are family.
2. Those who believe, the insiders, become the family of God.
Ephesians 2 is clear. The good news takes people from all national backgrounds and makes them one body in Christ.
Those who believe become the family of God. As God’s family, they are insiders with Jesus as they have the Holy Spirit as God’s deposit that guarantees our full restoration and inheritance as his children in the family (See Ephesians 1).
Our challenge is actually living like a family, assuming the best, with truth, love, boundaries, expected holiness, accountability, expectations of right living, and done in covenant not transactions based on what I want at your expense.
3. The family of God is the ambassador of the kingdom of God and thus the local church is the family who epitomizes God’s reign in all of creation.
Mark has told us that Jesus is the Son of God, and that Jesus came preaching the good news of the kingdom. If this good news is what makes the family of God, and Jesus is building his church, then the local church is the family of God who is the example of the reign of Jesus Christ over all things.
4. Those who believe come near to Jesus and stay near to Jesus.
How did I come up with this as a meaning?
Well, Jesus’ brothers clearly do not believe. We learn their names in chapter 6. One of his brothers is James.
We learn in Acts 1:14 that his mother and brothers are with the apostles in the upper room.
1 Corinthians 15:7 records that Jesus appeared to James after the resurrection.
James will become a martyr for his faith in Jesus. Josephus tells us this. The High Priest Aanas has James stoned to death in AD 62.
James will write the book of James in the New Testament.
James will believe, and when faced with death, he will not leave Jesus for natural life. James has believed, and he’s not going back.
Gospel Connection: (How does the text lead us to see the good news of the kingdom?)
Jesus tells us that whoever does the will of God is his brother, sister, and mother. I want to ask who has ever really fully done perfectly God’s will?
The answer to that question becomes obvious: Jesus has perfectly done God’s will.
Jesus, the obedient Son of God, who came not to do his own will but the will of the Father who sent him (John 6:38) completely surrendered to the Father as he prayed in the garden "not what I will, but what you will" (Mark 14:36).
A glorious facet of the good news of the kingdom is that Jesus, the one who defines the family of God as those who do God’s will, is the same one who makes it possible for us to be included in that family of God by doing God’s will for us. We do not enter the family of God by perfect performance.
We enter the family of God by faith in Jesus who perfectly obeyed, who perfectly does the will of God for us, then was put on the cross in our place for our failure to obey the will of God. Jesus had all our failure to do God’s will put on him, and then the Father crushed him because of our sin. He was buried, rose on the third day, ascended to the right hand of the Father (fulfilling Psalm 82:8), atones for sin, and offers that atoning sacrifice to any who would repent and believe this good news.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Application
1. The first step of a life of knowing and obeying God’ will is to believe the good news of the kingdom of Jesus.
Have I believed and do I pass the test?
2 Corinthians 13:5 (ESV) 5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!
Do I believe? Do I seek out the will of God? Am I in joyous faith striving for his good will?
NOTE: Get “Found: God’s Will” by John MacArthur. Best little book you’ll ever read on God’s will.
Be Saved: see 1 Timothy 2:3–4 and 2 Peter 3:9
Be Spirit-Filled: Ephesians 5:15–18)
Be Sanctified (Holy): 1 Thessalonians 4:3).
Be Submissive: 1 Peter 2:13–15
Be Suffering (Willing to Suffer for Righteousness): 1 Peter 4
Do Whatever You Want: Psalm 37:4
Do I respond to Jesus like this?
2. If I have believed the good news and am in the family of God, then I should act like it.
Ephesians 4:20-32 (ESV) 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. 25 Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. 26 Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and give no opportunity to the devil. 28 Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
3. As God’s family, Spirit is thicker than blood, but I should not abandon my natural family.
“Surprisingly, Jesus emphasizes the primacy of the family of God over the natural family without demanding the severing of any relationship with members of the natural family. Completely severing family relationships for the sake of exclusive devotion to God is a mark of a cult or sectarian movement, not of Jesus’ kingdom. According to Jesus, the natural family should neither be the focal and decisive point of life nor be rejected as unimportant or irrelevant. Rather, the dynamic tension must be held between the will of God expressed in particular ways through the family of God and care for the natural, believing or unbelieving family, as Jesus did in his own life. Jesus thus never instructs his disciples to cut off relationship with their natural families. He does, however, challenge his followers to put his authoritative call above all loyalties to the natural family, be they themselves followers of Christ or not. This calls for a circumspect evaluation of various acquired loyalties toward the natural family. Each follower needs to gain wisdom in heeding the call to honor parents while obeying Jesus’ call above all else.[1]
The cause is the arrival of Jesus and the in-breaking of the kingdom. The effect is a radical reordering of human loyalties and relationships. Natural family does not automatically constitute kingdom family. Proximity to Jesus — seated, listening, obeying — constitutes the new kinship.
4. The church is the family Jesus is building, and I should treat the church that way.
If Jesus defines his true family as those who do the will of God, those who come to him and are gathered around him, then the local church is not a club or a supplier and marketer of spiritual services. The church is the household of God (Eph. 2:19), the family Jesus purchased with his own blood. That means the people sitting around you on Sunday are your brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers in the most ultimate sense.
Ephesians 2:19 (ESV) 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
[1] Hans F. Bayer, “Mark,” in Matthew–Luke, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, vol. VIII, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 522.