We all claim to be God’s child, but are we really?
My family rarely does family reunions but my wife’s family has one every year. I’m not a fan. Not because I don’t like the people, but because there are always many there I don’t know. So I become self conscious.
Sometimes when we have family reunions we have to ask, “who is that? I didn’t know they were in our family?” Or, we have to get the rundown on how so and so married in, had kids, been living so and so place, and this is how they came to be. And sometimes we have that annoying, or different family member that no one understands or wants to be seen with right?
In today’s Words from Jesus, He has been teaching, as we are stilling looking at Matthew 12, where He’s been responding to the Pharisees and religious leaders about His power to heal, and their hard hearts.
As He is nearing the end of His teaching, word comes to Him that His mother and brothers want to see Him and talk to Him but they can’t get to Him. And He poses an astonishing question, and comments about His family that we’re going to dive into.
Matthew 12:46–50 ESV
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
In Mark 3, prior to this Scripture, we see where it is possible that His mother and brothers were concerned for His well being.
Mark 3:20-21 ESV
Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.”
Do you think this idea played a role in His family trying to get to Him?
It does sounds as if His family was just concerned for Him.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I would think that if my mother and brothers couldn’t get to me because of people I don’t know listening to me, I’d probably make a way for them to get closer, or at least send a proper message to them. But Jesus doesn’t.
Jesus responds as if they aren’t even His family, saying, “Who is my mother and brothers?”
Did Jesus just disown His mother? I mean I can see maybe disowning His brothers as they never did really seem to see what the fuss was all about surrounding Him. They hadn’t believed He was the Messiah to come at this point. But His mom? Remember it was her who nudged Him to miraculously fix the wine at the wedding situation, where He turned 6 stone barrels of water to 300 gallons of the best wine the party had ever tasted.
I don’t believe believe Jesus disowned His mother of course. But He did use the opportunity to speak about the family of God. And I believe He was making a point that being bound by our faith in Him was more important than any human relationship…even including the parental relationship.
The Important Concern
Look, we can all understand Mary’s concern for Jesus. Even though she knew who He was, as she was the one it was revealed to at her conception by the Angel, she was still concerned for His well being. A mother’s love knows no bounds right?
Was it her concern for Him not eating? How many mothers and wives out there worry that their spouse or son isn’t eating or drinking enough when the demands of work continue to pile on them? I joked with my mother-in-law Tuesday night because of the many times I’ve seen her continue to remind her husband to eat or drink while he’s out working in the garage on whatever project has been keeping him busy.
As for the brothers? I think they were just supporting mom! But maybe their brotherly love was their concern as well.
It was a messenger that told Jesus His family was outside wanting Him. So, He didn’t tell His family face to face to leave Him alone. But He took the opportunity to teach the messenger and those in His hearing, that what He was teaching in the moment was more important than His family’s concern for Him.
Interruption
In this moment, the family’s concern was an interruption for Jesus. He was busy teaching God’s principles, and God’s truths, and instead of His family listening to His Words, they were more concerned about their own earthly concerns.
I’m reminded of His Words to His mother and father when they lost Him in Jerusalem when He was twelve and His family had traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. They lost Him for three days! And when they finally found Him, I’m sure His mother was beside herself asking where He’d been. His response then was just as astounding as it is here.
Luke 2:49
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
I can only imagine what my mom would have said, or done to me, if I disappeared for three days and responded like this when she finally found me. But for Jesus, He mission one was doing the Father’s will!
And here again, it’s almost as if His family had forgotten the importance of Jesus’s mission here on earth. He came to seek and save the lost. He brought God’s Kingdom to earth, the grace of God in this moment to people most in need of His grace and truth.
No one will thwart the mission of God, including Jesus’s mother or brothers.
The Family
After His questioning about who is His family, He turns…
Matthew 12:49-50
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Woah, wait a minute! Here are His mother and brothers?
He points to the crowd and says, “You are my family…” But we can insert an IF in that sentence. Because it is an “IF” you do the will of His Father, then you are His family.
Remember the context of His teaching here. He was being denied by the Pharisees and religious leaders. They weren’t going to accept Him as the Messiah, much less the Son of God, though He’d been clear in showing and teaching this was the case.
But, they thought presumptuously that because they were Jews, they were already God’s family. They were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, (later renamed Israel). They were God’s family through blood right?
How many people today walk around saying they are God’s child, yet they never obey a Word He has said. Much less their acceptance of Jesus as His Son, they don’t even believe the Bible, God’s Word. We’re all God’s children right? Well, I got news for you.
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We’re Not
We’re not all God’s children.
Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus is very clear when He tells the religious leaders:
John 8:42,47
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
This was the claim of the Pharisees, “Abraham is our father.” This is their great ancestor whom God made a covenant with to bless him and make from him a great nation of peoples.
Notice Jesus says, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.” Abraham was obedient to God. These Pharisees are not. They are all about themselves, about looking good on the outside while inside they were evil. Jesus had pointed this out many times.
Their actions prove who their father is, and Jesus lays it out clear for them:
“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.”
Created But Not His
I know some wrestle with this idea, because we are “created in His likeness” right? That’s what the bible teaches. But being created in His image does not mean that we are His children. I can hear you gasp at that comment. Let me explain.
Look at your life. Are you obeying God as your Father, or is He simply that “big man in the sky” that is there to make you have a good life? Is He the Father loves you, or is He the one you say, “sends people to hell”,” so you want nothing to do with Him.
You see, He created you and gave you a choice. And when sin has taken hold of our lives, we choose to deny Him as our Father. It isn’t He that divorces us, it is we that divorce Him. It is we that choose this life over an eternal life with Him because we’d rather live our best life now.
Listen to these words for the letter of 1 John.
1 John 3:8-10
Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
We’ve talked a lot about the fruit of our heart, that is our words and our deeds. Here Scripture says that if our fruit is the practice, the continued sin, then we are of the devil. We act just like him. If we are God’s children then God’s seed, His Holy Spirit abides in us, and we cannot keep sinning because we have been born of God.
Go all the way back to when we talked about the Pharisee Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night and Jesus telling Him, “You must be born again, you must be born from above.” That is we must be born again of God, regenerated you might hear it said. This is done by us trusting in and believing Jesus is the Savior, the Son of God, and asking Him to be the Lord of our lives. And when He is the Lord of our life, we will seek to obey Him and the Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit within us.
But you have to hear these words! That’s the problem the Pharisees and religious leaders had in Matthew 12, they didn’t want to hear it. They didn’t want to receive it. So Jesus says this:
John 8:47
Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
If you are of God, you will hear and heed His Words. But if not, then you prove you are not a child of God.
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Faith and Blood
So Jesus waves His hand over the crowd in front of Him and says, “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
He’s saying, “look my mom and my brothers are family by blood here on the earth, but you have the choice to be my mother and brothers if you will obey my Father as I have.”
You want to know God’s will for you?
Believe on the One He has sent.
How do we obey God? By placing our faith in Jesus His Son.
What made Abraham so great to God that He made a covenant with Him? Abraham believed God. He heard His Word, He trusted His Word, and He obeyed God because He believed.
We’re not part of God’s family by our fleshly blood. We are part of His family because we choose to be, by placing our faith in Jesus. Faith over blood you might say.
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Romans 8:9 says, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
Romans 8:11 says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
Who Is Your Father
The question we have to ask ourselves is “who is my Father?” Look at your life and see the fruit of your own heart. Are you hearing God, listening to Him, obeying Him? Have you placed all your faith and hope in Christ?
If you’ve heard and believed then praise God because He has adopted you into His family.
Romans 8:15b
but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Your Extended Family
So here’s the other great lesson in this Scripture. One day we’re going to have that great reunion in eternity. And in this reunion you’re going to get to see many who are in your family that you had no clue about.
My hope is that you already know many who are in your spiritual family. And that you treat them as brothers and sisters, and mothers and fathers. With love, dignity, and respect.
If you are in Christ, then you are one of a large family of believers. You’ve got brothers and sisters you don’t even know yet. But I tell you, we welcome you as family. We want you as family. You belong in God’s family with us. Your faith in Christ, makes you my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, by faith, by Jesus’s blood.
I taught this message Sunday August 7, 2022. You can find the video here on YouTube.
Gerald Faulkner 