"Family Fellowship" Matthew 12:46-48 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Matthew 13, verse 46, or sorry, Matthew 12, verse 46.

Matthew 13:46 Matthew 12:46

While Jesus 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 towards 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 my sister and mother.

The main point of this paragraph here is that it is absolutely imperative to make a decision to follow Christ.

Neutrality as it relates to Jesus is impossible.

Neutrality as it relates to Jesus is impossible.

The picture here of Jesus' family showing some kind of affection for him and yet distant from him represents all those who associate themselves with church, who put themselves around believers, who, to use the language of Hebrews chapter 6, taste the water of God, taste the kindness of God, and yet refuse to drink, refuse to come in.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

There are those who want an open-minded and neutral approach to Jesus.

And of course, you hear this in the American parlance of all religions are more or less the same.

They all end up in the same place, you know, Mormonism and Catholicism and Christianity and whatever, and people keep expanding it to include, you know, every kind of religion.

It's all basically the same thing.

They all teach you to do good and be good and, you know, love God, right?

So can't we just sing kumbaya, hold hands, and go to heaven?

For those people, not the Pharisees.

The Pharisees are opposed to Jesus, remember, they're rejecting Jesus.

We just saw the picture of them.

The Pharisees, the works righteousness people, the do good to earn standard with God, they are personified in the verse before this with the person who was demonically possessed, the demon went away, and they tried to get their life together, and they did get their life together.

As I said this morning, they started going to the gym and eating vegetables and keeping the Sabbath and did everything right.

And then the demons come back and make them worse off.

So that's the picture of works righteousness.

And it ends badly.

Their last case is worse than the first.

This next paragraph here, this is not the picture of works righteousness.

This next paragraph here is the picture of somebody who says, I'm around Christians.

I'm not rejecting them like the I'm not rejecting Jesus like the Pharisees are.

I'm around Christians, I like Christians, I like the church, I like Jesus even.

But I'm not one of his disciples.

I like him, even trust him.

I like those who follow him, even trust them.

But I don't want to be one of his disciples.

They are pictured by his family.

The word outside in verse 46 is doing a lot of work here.

Jesus is doing work in the wilderness.

He's going around in the wilderness.

Of course, he's outside.

He's been outside.

Now he's, I don't know if he's found himself in a home or he found himself in a building, or if outside here just simply means outside the reach of his voice.

There's so many people around Jesus and they are outside.

His mother and brothers, though they had affection for him, are not able to reach him or interact with him because they are not his disciples.

There is a contrast between his mother and his brothers in verse 48, with those in verse 50, whoever does the will of my Father who's in heaven.

In fact, verse 49 is the key part here.

Jesus waves his hand at the disciples and says, These are my brothers, these disciples.

So there is a very clear contrast between Jesus' family and his disciples.

And this is one of the saddest parts of Jesus' ministry.

His family didn't understand him.

They did not believe his message.

We know this not just from this passage, but from other passages as well.

John 7 verse 5 says, just expressly, at this point, his brothers did not believe him.

John 7:5

They grew up with him, they knew him, they did not believe him.

In Mark 3.21, it goes even further and says that his family thought he was out of his mind.

Now, spoiler alert, if you're reading the Bible like a novel and you haven't read it all the way through, plug your ears.

His family doesn't stay that way.

When you get to the upper room in Acts chapter 1, his mother and his brothers and sisters are there waiting for the Holy Spirit to come.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

His brother James will become the leader of the early church.

After his death, his brother Simeon takes over.

But for now, there is a stark contrast, a visible separation between those on the inside and those on the outside.

It is not blood that opens the door for access to Jesus.

The wall of separation between Jesus and the world, between adoption and alienation, that wall is torn down by faith, not by DNA.

It is possible to be Jewish and outside the kingdom of God.

It is possible to have your dad as a pastor and be outside the kingdom of God.

It is possible to go to a faithful church, have loving Christian parents, and a respect for Christianity, and yet be outside the kingdom of God.

That's what this is a picture of.

If it is possible to be related to Jesus by blood, but not by faith, that should sober us up.

And so Jesus' family becomes a pretty stark and sober warning against superficial discipleship.

This little passage here shouldn't diminish family in our life, but it should reorient family around the gospel.

The overarching question of this passage is do everyday family duties, are they able to eclipse the command to follow Jesus?

Is loyalty to the Messiah greater than loyalty to mother?

Now obviously the call to follow Jesus is never a call to abandon family.

Paul says anyone who doesn't care for his family is worse than an unbeliever.

The command to obey your parents, it's the command, the only command with a promise.

So the New Testament doesn't abolish family relations, of course not.

And there are those that have taught that throughout church history.

But it does reorient family relations around Jesus.

And so that'll give us their outline tonight.

It's two misconceptions about access to Jesus.

Two misconceptions about access to Jesus.

And the first is that access comes through his family.

Access comes through his family.

That's a misconception.

There are those who think you can access Jesus by going through his own family.

So first, who are these people that are outside?

That's the question Jesus asks.

Who is my mother and who are my brothers?

Let's not take him literally.

Let's pretend he knows who his mother and brothers are.

Who are they?

Or in verse 46, his mother and brothers are outside wanting to speak to him.

Who are those people?

Well, strictly speaking, of course, Jesus doesn't have a biological father.

Virgin birth, the Holy Spirit came upon Mary.

She conceived.

Jesus was born.

The genealogies trace Jesus' lineage through Joseph, but it's very interesting, especially Matthew's genealogy, when it goes one after another, it gets to Joseph, who was the husband to Mary, the mother of Christ.

The virgin birth is attested to in Matthew's gospel, Luke's gospel, of course.

Joseph was, you could call him the stepfather, but that just implies a divorce and remarriage.

That's not the right word either.

He's not his biological father.

He is a father figure.

I mean, that's an odd what do you do?

What do you call Joseph?

What did Jesus write on his Christmas card to Joseph?

That'll get funnier the longer you think about it.

That's who this is.

Now Joseph and Mary had other children.

They had both sons and daughters.

They are references to the brothers of Jesus in certain places, and that word brothers can be gender neutral, inclusive of both brothers and sisters, but there are other uses in the scriptures that refer to Jesus' brothers and sisters.

We'll put one of those on the screen later on.

Or how about, instead of later on, how about right now?

Isn't this Carpenter's son?

Is that not his mother called Mary and his brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas and his sisters?

Are they not are they not all with us?

This is in the very next chapter.

When the people are trying to sort out who Jesus actually is.

Now the Catholic Church has developed a doctrine called the perpetual virginity of Mary.

And of course, that doctrine predates the Catholic Church.

It was somewhat evident in some church, uh some of the church fathers, some of the pre-Nicene church fathers, the second and third century church fathers, advocated for the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Others argued against it.

It was by no means a settled doctrine.

There were probably the most common teaching for the first few hundred years of the church is that Mary remained a perpetual virgin, but that didn't rise to the level of dogma.

In other words, the early church for the first few centuries thought, you know, you could make an argument either way.

It was around the 500s, the sixth century, where it became accepted as dogma in the Catholic Church that Mary was perpetually a virgin, that she never had normal relationships with Joseph, that she, in fact, the Catholic Church went on to clarify that Jesus was born in such a way that didn't violate Mary's virginity, and that Mary went on in her life to never have relations with Joseph.

In fact, the official Catholic Church teaching of this says, and I quote, the virginity of Mary is so central to her identity, it is impossible to conceive of her.

I don't know if conceived is just an unfortunate translation there.

Impossible to conceive of her as anything other than a perpetual virgin.

But that just is not what the Bible teaches.

There's no indication in passages like this, for example, that they are his stepbrothers.

There's no indication in passages in the account of his genealogy that Joseph is on his second marriage, that he has other kids.

There's no indication of that at all.

Why is it such an important doctrine in Catholicism?

Well, remember, Catholicism is hinging together with the treasury of merit, that there are saints that have led a life such that when they have died, they have had more good works in their account, so to speak, than they have needed.

There's a treasury of merit.

So you can have access to that merit by praying, by going through saints, by praying through saints or praying to Mary.

The Hail Mary is arguably the most common prayer prayed in the whole world.

Mary has her own treasury of merit, which you can have access to.

I spoke with a Catholic priest once and asked him why in Catholicism it was so common to pray to Mary, or this was a Spanish-speaking, a Mexican priest, the Virgin of Guadalupe.

And he gave me this illustration.

I've shared this with you before, so for many of you it is not new, but he told me that it's like if a child needs new shoes.

Little kid who needs new shoes wouldn't ask his father because his father works so hard for all the money the family has.

So the kid would feel bad about going to his dad to ask for new shoes, but the kid could go to his mom, who does not have her own money properly speaking, but has access to the father.

The father is more likely to get the kid new shoes if it's mom who does the asking than if it's the kid who does the axing.

That was the what a priest told me as an illustration of this.

And I hear that, and I mean I heard that a while ago, before I had three kids.

Now I have three kids, and I have theological problems with that, but I also have marriage counseling problems with that too.

Like that's probably not.

There's maybe some truth to that.

There's something.

The kid, every like four-year-old knows this, right?

They know, will mom say yes to ice cream tonight or will dad say yes?

And they calculate in their minds.

You know, they might try shopping to both parents for a while, and when that gets shuts down, they figure out which one is going to be the most interested in saying yes.

But it's a lot long-term, a healthy family structure.

It certainly is not, you know, that story, that illustration is given to make it seem how benevolent Mary would be, but it's honestly a diminishing way of speaking of God and of Jesus.

The Catholic Church hinges a lot of this on Luke 1.42, where Elizabeth, John the Baptist's mother, tells Mary that she's blessed among women.

But that's a reflection of Mary's relationship to Jesus, not a declaration of perpetual virginity.

Mary was blessed because she was the mother of Jesus.

No other woman in the world had that privilege.

Mary is exceedingly blessed.

She is to be honored and she is to be spoken highly of because she was the mother of our Lord.

The Spirit chose her.

She is the one who brought Jesus into the world, and for that should be she should be honored.

And I said this when I was preaching through John the Baptist in his biography.

Greatness is defined by your ability to introduce Jesus to the world.

This is why Jesus said that John is the greatest person who's ever lived, which is inclusive of Mary, by the way.

Jesus says John is the greatest person who's ever lived because John introduced Jesus to the world.

It's more a statement about Jesus than John, and you understand that.

And Jesus immediately follows that, remember, by saying that the least in the church will be greater than John.

Because the most immature Christian believer today, in the year of our Lord 2025, the most immature Christian believer, the most brand new baby Christian, knows more about Jesus than John does or Mary.

And so the teaching of the perpetual virginity of Jesus is meant to guard Mary's integrity and her blessedness, her identity as a perpetual virgin.

It has the effect of undercutting the kindness and benevolence of God and the supremacy of Jesus Christ.

This is why Mary, it's fine to speak of Mary as great and blessed and honored because of her pointing to Jesus, introducing Jesus in the world.

But you get the flow chart clarified for you right here in verse 48, don't you?

It's not that Mary goes to Jesus and asks for things that she gets that you can't get otherwise.

When Mary asks for Jesus to come, Jesus' response is, Who is my mother again?

How sad it is that the Hail Mary is, again, arguably the most prayed prayer in the world.

It's so common to pray for Mary in times of spiritual need.

It's a sad reality.

Jesus' response is who is my mother and who are my brothers?

You should not look to access to God through Jesus' biological family.

It's sad and tragic.

Second, access comes through your own family.

It is common to believe in that you're a Christian because of your own family connection to Jesus, that you were raised in the church, that you were around church, etc.

Matthew is in many ways a family gospel.

Luke is often referred to as a feminine gospel because Luke highlights the role of women in Jesus' life.

But Matthew is familial.

Matthew uses the word for brother and sister more than any other New Testament book, other than Acts.

He uses the word for father.

He addresses God as Father more than any other New Testament book except for John.

And in John, it's always Jesus who's speaking it.

Matthew uses mother more than any other New Testament book.

Period.

Matthew is filled with this familial language.

So Matthew values family and highlights family.

But the danger of that is that people can think that their access to Jesus comes through being part of a family that has access to Jesus rather than as an individual.

It is not only Mary that makes that mistake, and Mary certainly makes that mistake here.

She is not just the prototype of those who think they have access to God through her.

She becomes the prototype of those that think they have access to God because of their family relations.

And Jesus closes that door.

When we do funerals at IBC, we ask the family to fill out a form.

And the question on the form, one of the questions on the form is, did the deceased, did the person that we're doing the funeral for, did they know Jesus as their savior?

Are they a Christian?

Did they have a personal relationship with Jesus?

The second question underneath that is, why do you say that?

And it is fascinating to read some of those answers.

Very interesting how many people write so-and-so is a Christian because all of her family is a Christian.

All of her family goes to church, her parents went to church, his parents went to church, his parents built the first Baptist church wherever.

So how dare you ask?

That's such a common misconception that your access to God comes through things that your family has done.

Of course I'm a Christian.

My parents are believers.

Of course I'm a Christian.

My son or my brother or my father is a pastor.

Of course I'm a Christian.

My mother was a missionary.

My favorite all-time answer to that in Los Angeles at a Bible study.

There was a guy there named Armin.

And I asked Armin if he was a Christian.

Armin said, Of course I'm a Christian.

I said, Why do you, why would you say you're a Christian?

And he, this is just like meeting a visitor to college Bible study.

I'm more tactful now in the hallway.

Oh, welcome to church.

Why do you think you're saved again?

Back in the college ministry days, Armin, why do you think you're saved?

And he's like, Because my parents named me Armin.

Armenia is the first Christian nation in the world, and so I am named after the first Christian nation in the world by my parents.

Booya.

Like, oh, I apologize for asking the question.

But that is not the key to heaven.

Such a common misconception.

The key to heaven is not inherited or bequeathed, it comes only through faith in Jesus.

Which leads to the overarching truth of this passage: that access to God comes through faith.

Access to God comes through faith.

This is the great commission to go into all the world, baptizing new converts, teaching them to obey all that is commanded.

And that's what Jesus says here.

Verse 49, these people, they are my mother and my brothers.

And then he clarifies who these people are, because remember, there's so many scribes and Pharisees that are hounding Jesus right here.

Not everybody in front of him is his disciple, obviously not.

So he stretches out his hand towards them, says, These are my mother and my brothers, and then he zeroes in, whoever does the will of my Father in heaven.

And of course, it is the will of God to believe in his Son.

It is the work of Jesus to preach the gospel, and it is our work to carry the gospel to the world.

It is the work of God in a particular sense to believe the gospel because it's the Holy Spirit who brings you faith.

It is the work of God to design the gospel, to execute the gospel, and to add believers to the gospel.

That is all God's work.

It is the work of God to believe in his son.

And that saving belief, putting your faith in Christ, results in discipleship, to do what he commands, verse 50.

Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, that's my mother, that's my brother, that's my sister.

Jesus answers his own question.

I love that.

Sometimes he asks, he answers questions that people think in their hearts.

That's always fun.

But he Here he answers his own, because nobody else thought it yet.

Otherwise, it would say.

And then he answered his mom's question.

No, right here.

Who's related to me again?

Those who do the will of my Father in heaven.

So the truth is that access to Christ comes through faith.

And there's a corollary truth to that.

That faith makes a new family.

That faith reorients family.

The family relationship, far from being nullified, the family relationship is reoriented.

After all of chapters 11 and 12.

Chapter 11 with the great invitation to be a follower.

Chapter 12 with all of the reasons not to.

I need more signs.

I, you know, the demons, all the things in chapter 12, the religious tradition, all of that at the end of all this long chapter, which I went through this morning, I won't re-preach it this morning, but that whole list of all the excuses people have for not following Jesus, it crescendoes here with Jesus saying, Whoever does believe, whoever is a follower, that person is my brother.

To be related to Jesus by faith is more eternally significant than being related to Jesus by blood.

Old loyalties give way to new ones.

As faith reorients life, it also reorients family.

Now, Jesus is not rejecting his mother, of course not.

Remember, whoever fails to care for their family is worse than an unbeliever.

Paul says that Jesus is sinless.

He obviously cares for his family.

This is why it is so critical that on the cross, he looks at his mother in need, he looks at John, he commands John to take care of his mother.

Even in that depiction, though, he's reorienting family, isn't it?

Woman, behold your son, son, behold your mother.

He's reorienting family by his own sovereign decree from the cross.

But in even doing that, he is fulfilling his obligations to love and care for his mother.

The point is that old loyalties give way to new loyalties in Christ as faith reorients family around Jesus.

The essence of discipleship is doing the will of God.

When you do the will of God, you're demonstrating that you have a family of God.

The Father of Jesus has become the father of all who believe.

Now, by the way, in Matthew's gospel, this is the very first mention of Mary since the birth narrative.

This is the first time Mary is mentioned.

She's introduced when Jesus is born.

You don't see her again until now.

And when you see her here, Jesus is reorienting his own authority.

Jesus puts allegiance to him above that of an earthly family.

That demonstrates that this is an issue of the gospel, not of genetics.

Again, it's not that physical families have little or no value, of course not.

It's that the discipleship with Jesus reorients your family around him.

This, by the way, I know there's many single and college students here.

This is, you know, here, hear this.

This is why it is so difficult and forbidden by the Lord for a believer to marry an unbeliever.

And that's so tempting.

You're single for so long, and you think I just can't find somebody who's interested in me inside of the church.

And you reach a point where you start entertaining the idea of why don't I, why don't I marry a non-Christian?

What could go wrong?

Maybe, maybe he or she'll get saved.

And who knows?

Maybe, I mean, Paul even uses that language, doesn't he?

If you're married to a non-believer, who knows?

Maybe they will get saved.

But there's a lot of emphasis on that who knows there.

It's interesting that 1 Corinthians 7, where he says that, he pairs that with don't divorce the person, don't leave them.

You're married to a non-believer, your life is gonna be tough.

Your life is gonna be brutal, potentially abusive.

You're married to a non-Christian who hates your Lord.

What do you think your home life is gonna be like?

Right now on the front side of it, you think it's gonna be great.

What happens when you get older and you grow more in your love for Christ and that person grows less?

Do you think it's gonna be friendly at home?

No, it's not.

You're gonna want out, you're gonna want a divorce.

You're gonna want to change the locks.

And that's why Paul says, don't do that.

It's so important to have your family reoriented around the Lord.

If you're already married and you come to faith, this is why it's so difficult.

You came to faith and your spouse didn't.

Because you have one allegiance to your spouse mandated by God and another to your Lord, and they're in tension with each other all the way.

Jesus warns you against that.

Instead, he says, Whoever does the will of my father in heaven, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.

That phrase, my father in heaven, we'll end this, verse 15, my father in heaven.

Matthew's gospel I mentioned uses the title of my father so often.

Let me rattle them through for you real quick.

Matthew 1, verse 16, Joseph is the husband of Mary, mother of Christ, his father being our heavenly father.

Matthew 1:16

John 3, I mean Matthew 3, 17, the baptism of Jesus.

God declares himself to be the Father of Jesus.

Matthew 7, 21, when Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount, he concludes by saying that this is a message given to him from my Father.

Matthew 10, 32, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven, he says.

Matthew 11, 27, all things have been handed over to me by my Father.

Matthew 16, 17, blessed are you Peter, when Peter declares him to be the Messiah.

Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven revealed this to you.

Matthew 18, 10, when he says, Don't prohibit the little ones to come to me, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father.

Matthew 18, 19.

If two agree on earth about anything, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.

Matthew 20, 23, you will drink my cup.

Remember when the two disciples were vying to see who could be the greatest?

And Jesus says, Can you even handle the baptism of fire you're going to get?

And they say, Of course.

And he says, You will drink it.

But to sit at my right hand and my left hand is not mine to grant, for it is for those whom it has been prepared by my Father.

Matthew 25, 34, the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

Matthew 26, 39, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus falls down praying and prays, My Father, if it is possible.

Matthew 26, 42.

Again, for the second time he went away and prayed, My Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.

And finally, Matthew 26, 53, do you think I cannot appeal to my father, and he will at once send more than twelve legions of angels to defend me?

Time and time again, Jesus highlights that God is his father and his father alone.

There is a reason in verse 50.

He says, Whoever does the will of my father is my brother and my sister and my mother, but not my father.

There is a reason, he says, Let no one call you father, speaking to ministers of the gospel.

You're not the father of anyone's faith.

I'm not the father of anyone's faith.

The entire practice of the Catholic Church in identifying priests as father because they represent God is blasphemous.

And it is connected to the idea of Mary and her perpetual virginity.

It's connected to the idea of priests being celibate to guard as if relations in marriage was somehow sinful.

All that is connected to a system that doesn't understand that access to God comes through faith, not through works.

Lord, we're grateful that you are our Father.

Our Heavenly Father who reigns in heaven, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

You are Father and You, Jesus Christ, sent your Spirit to dwell in our hearts.

Your Spirit makes us into a family.

It binds our hearts together, brings us one to another.

We're grateful for the affection we have in Christ.

I'm thankful for the brothers and sisters that I have in this congregation.

Those that are disciples of Christ.

There is, of course, a sense in which our relations with other Christians are deeper and certainly more spiritual than relations even with our own family.

Jesus experienced that as his mother and brothers and sisters did not understand him.

Of course, all those who are in Christ have experienced a similar separation.

The old has passed away, behold the new has come.

This is your work.

You've bound us together.

You've d you've destroyed the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, between foreigners and citizens of the kingdom.

And you did that through faith.

You've made a new man, a new body from Jew and Gentile.

Bound together.

Not by genealogy, but by faith.

We are children of Abraham, not because we descend through Jacob or we descend through the patriarchs, we descend through David.

No.

We're children of Abraham because we have his faith.

We're thankful now that you've invited us to worship together on this Lord's Day.

We're grateful for the gospel and the invitation it presents.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBcC.church.

If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to tms.edu.

Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.