Mark 3b (8-27-25)

Hey everybody, welcome back as we are going to finish up chapter 3 today.

We are talking about these religious leaders identifying who Jesus is and trying to make

crazy accusations as well as Jesus identifying who his true family is.

We don't have that much scripture, but it is a lot to talk about, so let's get started

to save on time.

Let's look at verses 20 through 30 as we finish up the chapter for today.

It says, one time Jesus entered a house and crowds began to gather again.

Soon he and his disciples couldn't even find time to eat.

When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away.

He's out of his mind, they said.

But the teachers of religious law who had arrived from Jerusalem said he's possessed by Satan,

the prince of demons.

That's where he gets the power to cast out demons.

Jesus called them over and responded with an illustration.

How can Satan cast out Satan?

He asked.

A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse.

Similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart.

And if Satan is divided and fights against himself, how can he stand?

He would never survive.

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 can tie him up and then plunder his house.

I tell you the truth, all sin and blasphemy can be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes

the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven.

This is a sign with eternal consequences.

He told them this because they were saying he's possessed by an evil spirit.

In this passage, today we see this opposition that Jesus is facing and it's becoming more

and more regular, and this is already in chapter 3.

The religious leaders are obviously against him, but even his own family have challenged

him.

We also see in the Gospel of John, if you look back at chapter 7, that Jesus' own

brothers did not believe in him, and they challenged him to go to Judea to show off

his miracles because they didn't believe in him and kind of wanted him gone.

So his family shows up in this moment, and their statement is, they think he's crazy,

and the religious leaders are accusing him of being possessed by Satan, and to me, this

is one of the most ludicrous things about scripture.

You have everyone who's seen the miracles.

They saw the healing of the physical.

They saw the authority over the spiritual.

He's casting out demons.

They were looking for ways to explain this and understand this from a human perspective

and understanding.

And so in verses 23 through 27, Jesus responds by addressing their accusations.

He said, even Satan will not be divided against himself.

Any nation or kingdom or entity that is at war within itself is doomed to fail.

Families who aren't united will fall apart.

But notice his comments toward Satan in this moment.

He by no means is Jesus lifting up Satan, alright?

So Jesus is not complimenting Satan.

He's not uplifting him in any way, but he's basically just describing the obvious, okay?

Satan is a powerful adversary, and Satan is not divided.

Evil is very much united, and right now, the religious leaders are the ones who were

uniting with people that they hated in order to fight against God's plans.

To fight Jesus, the Pharisees and Sadducees who hated one another were uniting together.

The religious leaders hated the Herodians, but as we saw in the beginning of Mark,

they left when Jesus healed the man's hand on the Sabbath.

They left and plotted with the Herodians on how to kill Jesus.

So what we see is that evil is very much united.

These people are compromising on everything they believe and stand for, just to thwart

Jesus and God's plans and to murder him, and Satan is very much united.

What's interesting is that when you look at New Testament scripture, probably half of

New Testament scripture, if not more, is devoted to the encouragement of Christians

being unified.

It was a struggle.

It's always been a struggle.

What we find is that Satan comes in to the church, he comes in to families, he comes

in to Christianity as a whole, and he plants seeds of division everywhere in as many ways

as he possibly can.

We see this today because there are so many people who are so caught up on what they disagree

with that we cannot focus on the things that we actually do agree on.

You will find more division in the church than you'll ever find in this evil world.

In fact, you can look at the world today and see that homosexuals, transgenders, abortions,

you look at all of the world, they're united.

They're wanting to support one another, they're wanting to include everybody, they're wanting

to make everything legal, and when you look at the only thing that they're all against

are all against Christianity, but you look at a lot of Christians and a lot of churches

and many of these people and these organizations are not only against the world, but they're

also against one another, so division is something that you see within God's kingdom

as Satan is trying to divide and conquer.

When you look at Satan's kingdom, it is not divided, it is very much unified, so Jesus

is basically saying, look, you're talking about Satan fighting against Satan, Satan doesn't

fight against Satan.

Satan has everything and all things lined up for him, and that is very obvious to see

in everything.

The other thing that you see in this is Jesus' explanation of who can go into a house

and conquer a strong man.

Well, it's only somebody who's stronger than that man can go in and tie him up and bind

him and plunder his house, so what Jesus is saying is that he's come into this world.

This world is Satan's kingdom.

Satan is the God of this world.

When Satan took Jesus up on the mountain when Jesus was being tempted for 40 days,

Satan offered him the kingdoms of the earth because they were his to give to whomever

he wished, and if Jesus bowed down and worshipped Satan, Satan would give him all the kingdoms

of the earth.

Now, that's important because Jesus has come into Satan's house by being born in the

flesh, and what he is doing is he is moving throughout Satan's home, his world, and

he's binding Satan.

He's casting out demons and he's reclaiming people in the name of God.

He's freeing them from demonic oppression.

He's freeing them from physical oppression and physical ailments.

He is releasing and reclaiming God's people.

He is plundering the house of Satan and taking all things back that originally belongs to God.

That's what Jesus is doing.

He's stronger than Satan, and this is one of the great things that we see.

Now, in verses 28 through 30, we have kind of the conundrum of the day.

This is going to be probably the most complicated thing that we talk about in a while.

I mean, this is pretty big.

So when you start mentioning blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, and we all know if you're

familiar with scripture, you all know that this is always said, this is the unforgivable

sin because Jesus says, blasphemy of the Spirit will not be forgiven.

Everyone automatically begins to get interested, and we want a perfectly clear

explanation of what blasphemy of the Spirit is because we don't want to willingly or

accidentally commit this sin so great that it would disqualify us from eternal life.

So we will stay as far away from this as we possibly can.

The issue with this is that, number one, we should treat all sin that way.

We should have the heart and the attitude towards all sin that we stay away from it

in a way that would not allow us to become entrapped or entangled in it.

So we should have the attitude towards all sin, not just blaspheming the Spirit.

But the issue with blaspheming the Spirit can look very differently from one situation.

From one person to another, and all we can do is clearly define what blasphemy

of the Holy Spirit is in this passage of scripture, okay? So I can't tell you

what blasphemy of the Holy Spirit looks like in your life, in your situation

right now, but I can tell you what it is in this passage. First, we have Jesus

who is completely filled with the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 3 verse 16, it talks

Matthew 3:16

about the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus after baptism. In Luke 4 verse 1, it

Luke 4:1

describes Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit and being led by the Spirit out

to the wilderness to be tempted. And so Jesus is full of the Spirit and power

of God. And what Jesus was doing was the very will of God. He was perfectly obeying

God in every way. The Spirit was leading and guiding him. Everything that Jesus was

doing was of the Spirit. He was operating in the power and authority of

the Holy Spirit, the physical healings and the casting out of demons. So the

physical and the spiritual were all happening by the power of the Holy

Spirit within him. And now we have his own family who is calling him crazy and

the religious leaders who are saying he's possessed by Satan because he was

able to do this. These people saw with their own eyes the fruit of the Holy

Spirit in Jesus' life. And rather than giving glory to God, which God deserved,

they called it satanic and crazy. And that's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. They

were taking what the Spirit, the power of God was doing, and they were giving

credit and glory to Satan and to craziness rather than giving glory to

God. They were seeing wonderful miracles that were good and beneficial

to all people. And they were giving Satan credit for it rather than giving it to

God. That's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in this moment. They were denying the

purity, the power, the authority, and the holiness of the Holy Spirit in this

moment. They were falsely testifying about what they were seeing the Holy

Spirit do. That's blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Now what blasphemy of the Holy

Spirit looks like for us could be very different in many different things, many

different ways, and anytime we find ourselves adamantly opposing the will of

God, the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives, or the working of the Holy

Spirit around us, or the conviction of the Holy Spirit if the Spirit of

God is speaking to you about things, we have to tread carefully because we're

beginning to creep up on the threshold of what it means to blaspheme the Holy

Spirit, to totally reject, deny, and even give false credit to someone else or

something else, whether it's Satan or even an individual rather than giving it to

God where it belongs. We must always be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's presence

and leading in us and around us so that we don't fall into this idea of

blaspheming the Holy Spirit. So I want to finish on this section by saying that

if you are concerned about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, chances are you don't

have anything to worry about because you're not going to. If you are not

concerned, if you're not thinking, if you're not prayerfully asking God to

speak to you, to reveal things to you, to show you, to guide you, to fill you with

the Holy Spirit, then chances are you could easily be creeping into the realms

of blaspheming the Holy Spirit by ignoring it, by disregarding it, by

giving the credit to someone or something else, by many different things.

So be aware of the Holy Spirit's power. Ask God to give you the Holy Spirit to

speak clearly to you, and as long as you are concerned and aware of the Holy

Spirit and what the Holy Spirit is doing and trying to follow the Lord, I don't

think you will fall into this trap of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, okay? In

John chapter 15 verses 26 through 28, the Gospel of John says, but I will send

you the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth. He will come to you from the Father and

will testify all about me, and you must also testify about me because you have

been with me from the beginning of my ministry. And so this is kind of what the

Holy Spirit is for. The Holy Spirit will testify about Jesus. It will reveal

truth to you and will also give you the ability to testify about what Jesus

has done in you. So the Holy Spirit identifies God's one and only Son.

Another thing we see in John 16 verses 8 through 9 says that when He comes, that's the

John 16:8–9

Holy Spirit, He will convict the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of

the coming judgment. The world's sin is that it refuses to believe in me. So the

Holy Spirit convicts, the Holy Spirit reveals and prepares for the coming

judgment, and it shows us that the sin, the only sin that can keep you from

entering into eternal life, is the refusal to believe in Jesus Christ. The

Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads us to Jesus. So in

essence, rejecting the Holy Spirit is also rejecting Christ, which is blaspheming

the Spirit. So long story short, don't find yourself fighting against what the

Holy Spirit does. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is not a matter of being

too much for God to forgive. Rather, it is a condition of the heart. These

religious leaders had a very hard heart that reveals that they were not

interested in mercy. They were not interested in forgiveness. They were

interested in trying to find a way to overcome God Himself, which was, that

was the blasphemy that they were committing. Alright, well let's read

verses 31 through 34. Let's finish up our chapter for today. Then Jesus' mother

and brothers came to see Him. They stood outside and sent word for Him to come and

come out and talk with Him. There was a crowd sitting around Jesus and someone

said, your mother and your brothers are outside asking for you. Jesus replied,

who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Then He looked at those around Him and

said, look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God's will is

my brother and sister and mother. Alright, so in this final small passage, Jesus

has this strange encounter with His own family. His brothers are with His mother

and they come to check on Him. And this is one of those passages that reveal

that Mark is really isn't, doesn't seem to be going in chronological order. We see

in our passage just a second ago that His brothers or His family accused Him

of being crazy. Now we see that His mother and brothers have come to check

on Him and it seems to be a separate occasion even though it's back-to-back

with one another. And it could be the same occasion. We don't really know, but

it seems to be separate. But Jesus has this awesome message that anyone who

does God's will is a mother or brother or a sister. And I think we forget how

important this proclamation is. One of the things I remember before I got saved

is that I was never very close to anyone in my family. My sisters were

several years older than me. My cousins were either older or younger. I was kind

of the the loner in the family. I was one of the only boys. And when I got saved

and I found people at the church that accepted me and cared for me and

welcomed me in as a son or a brother or you know just a protege, someone that they

were willing to invest in, that meant a great deal to me. It was one of the

main reasons why I stayed in the faith and served the Lord is because of the

number of people who accepted me and loved me and cared for me despite not

being my own flesh and blood. And not everyone gets that experience. That's one

of the reasons why it's so important for us as believers to welcome other

people in, to make sure that they know that they have a home, that they have a

place to be, that have people who care about them, and we should all make sure

that the people around us who are willing to do God's will are treated like our

own flesh and blood. They need to know that they are important. They need to

know that we care enough about Christ to also care for them. This is the level

of community that Jesus brought to Christianity that made it spread wildly

in a rough and violent world when most people were neglected and discarded.

Jesus loved and cared for everyone and we have that same calling on our life.

All right, let's pray together. Father, thank you again for this day and this

time. Lord, I pray for all my brothers and sisters who are listening to this.

God, I pray that you remind us that you are a God who died for every single

person on earth. You came so that all people could be welcomed in to your

kingdom. And Lord, I pray that you would help us as believers to love and care

for those around us. Help us to include them. Help us to be unified. Help us to

worship and adore you together. And Lord, to know that we cannot serve you if

we are not loving our brothers and sisters. So help us to do that well.

Lord, we love you. We thank you. That's all that's in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right, guys. Thanks for tuning in for another week. Thank you for being a part

of the Graham Chapel family. As always, we would love to see you in person this

weekend, but if you can't, catch us on Facebook, YouTube, or the podcast. We love

you. We're praying for you. Hope you have a great week.