The Gospel of Mark | The Challenges of Ministry (May 13th, 2018) - Mike Armstrong

Get your Bibles open to Mark chapter three.

Now listen, you probably understand this, but to accomplish anything great, all right, anything, you know, kind of worthy of being a part of, anything worthwhile or lasting in life, listen, it means, it means that you're gonna face challenges along the way.

Do you know that?

I mean, if you ever talk to somebody who's started up uh you know a business before, and you hear them talk about, in some ways, the the extreme difficulty in doing that and the challenges, and and sometimes you know they're they're thinking, am I gonna be able to make ends meet?

And before it ever gets to the point of successful and thriving and and all of that, it's you know, it's met with great difficulty.

How about raising a family?

You know, in raising kids, there's a lot of really great moments for sure, and I hope that's absolutely been your experience, but we know there are a lot of difficulties.

And maybe this morning you were reminded of that, you know, just trying to get your kids out the door and and get them here to church.

You're reminded, hey, this is you know, there's some challenges in all of that.

Yeah, but family or rather fitness goals.

Hey, fitness goals.

You know, maybe you you're you're thinking, all right, it's summertime and I gotta get in shape, and you know, finally the weather is not horrible, and I need to get running, and you know, I need to get the diet going again and all of that.

But you know the challenge is gonna come, right?

In the form of desiring, probably to eat an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Right?

That's the challenge.

Yeah, right.

I hear, I see shaking of heads.

We know that that's the challenge, right?

Every single day.

That's my life for sure.

Okay, well, as as as true as as these things are, right, the exact same thing applies uh to our ministry life.

Okay, as as you and I, as we take on the you know, the Great Commission mandate to make disciples, right, by doing things like sharing the gospel boldly, by by building community here, by loving people well, by serving and leading and teaching and equipping and encouraging and all of those things.

With those things and everything else associated with ministry, okay, we have to recognize and just accept that challenges are gonna come along with it.

Yeah, well, that's really what today's message is all about.

It's one of those, I guess in some ways you could say it's one of those sort of wake-up calls, right?

It's a sort of a sobering reminder in some ways of the stark reality of the difficulties and the and the struggles that believers will come up against as we join the Lord in advancing his kingdom.

Okay, try as as you and I might.

Okay, issues are unavoidable.

Okay, after all, if if Jesus faced challenges, right, if Jesus did, why wouldn't we?

Okay, why would we ever think and and kind of assume that everything as we minister to different people, why would we ever think that everything should just, I don't know, happen so smoothly or happen so easily for us?

Why are we so surprised, it seems, when when ministry gets hard and and when it gets complicated and kind of messy and sometimes downright painful.

Listen, we should not be shocked by this.

And neither should we allow these challenges and allow these difficulties that come to cause us to give up.

So today, we're really trying to be eyes wide open, right?

As much as we possibly can about the kinds of things that threaten really our comfort when it comes to our ministry here.

And so this is really, if you want to put it this way, a call to persevere.

It's a call to find new strength in the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's an opportunity to once again recommit to our local church, right?

To commit to what God is building here, Harvest Bible Chapel, as the Lord grows it and builds it.

And I mean, as he builds you and I, he builds us.

All right, so a lot to get into here today as we look at Mark 3.

But before we do, why don't you join me as we pray?

God, we thank you again.

We've thanked you already so much today for the privilege that it is to be together and be the church and meet with you in a corporate way here this week.

And Lord, as exciting and as and as great as that is, and as we we long to be encouraged and set out and fueled for the next week, Lord, we know that there is also challenges in being the church.

There's challenges that come with following you, and a lot of that's gonna be interpersonal stuff and a lot of difficulty that that will come our way, Lord.

And I pray that we would not be shocked by this, surprised by this, rattled by this, Lord.

I pray that instead, again, we would, as we've said, fall on our knees before you, find new strength in your Holy Spirit, Lord.

I pray that you would encourage your church today, Lord.

I pray that you would continue to equip us.

I pray that you would make us stronger than ever, Lord.

If anyone is hurting, if anyone is down, if anyone is jaded or anything like that because of ministry gone sour, Lord, I pray that you would do a work of healing today in our hearts.

Lord, I pray that as our hearts grow for you, our hearts would also grow for each other.

And Lord, as we minister to each other here in this room and and also outside of these walls, Lord, that you would strengthen us and you would give us joy in this and help us to persevere.

So Lord, it's in Jesus' name we pray these things.

Amen.

Amen.

So here we go.

All right, Jesus experienced real challenges in ministry, and guess what?

So will I.

Okay, so will I.

So we're gonna look at uh three kind of main areas of challenge that we see here in Mark chapter three.

Here's the first thing scrutiny, hostility, and accusations from the hard-hearted.

Now, first of all, we need to understand this.

Before we jump into verse one here, understand that we're all in ministry.

Okay, I think it might be really easy to kind of hear that phrase or hear that word and think that's that's just you, man.

That's just pastor guy.

Right?

This is really more of a message like for like a pastor's conference or something like that.

No, it's not.

It's for all of us.

And we need to understand that, yeah, I might be doing this, and I've been called to do this vocationally, where you know, I earn my living from all of this, which is so great.

But listen, everybody who has been called into a relationship with Jesus Christ has been given or entrusted uh with ministry responsibilities.

Okay, that's each one of us.

You know, you likely have you know another job that you do vocationally, and you've got a nine-to-five where you go and do something else, and that's how you make your living, and so your ministry is you know somehow woven into all of that, and maybe even outside of all of those hours, and but that's really what it is.

Or perhaps you are you know you're a student, or you're a stay-at-home parent, or you know, you're you're retired, but again, you're you're involved, or at least you should be, in the discipling of others to the glory of God.

Okay, so hopefully that's clear.

Let's get into this now, verse one.

Okay, take a look with me here.

It says this.

It says, and it says, and again he entered the synagogue.

Okay, this is talking about Jesus.

Now I love that word again.

Okay, we know this from just last week.

We saw that Jesus already came up against challenges.

Remember that they were needling him about fasting and about and about the Sabbath, and so there's already this conflict that that's starting to develop here.

And instead, what it what does Jesus do?

Well, he doesn't just kind of bail out and say, This is gonna be hard, right?

Forget it, I'm out.

No, he's like, I'm again, all right, again he enters the synagogue.

He's willing to kind of jump right back in to the frying pan there.

That's a great example for us.

So again, he entered the synagogue, keep going.

And a man was there with a withered hand, and they watched Jesus.

Okay, this is the religious leaders now.

They watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.

So you see here the just already the intense scrutiny that Jesus is under.

These religious leaders, the scribes, the Pharisees, they were watching this guy like a hawk.

They were looking for ways, and we're gonna see it here as we go, and we're gonna see it all throughout.

It just gets more and more intense as Jesus continues to carry out ministry.

They're watching him and looking for ways that he is he is gonna maybe trip up.

Of course, we know that he doesn't, because he is God.

And they're looking for ways to nail him to the wall.

Okay, it was intense.

Okay, and this is what Jesus said.

It says, and he said to the man with the withered hand, Come here.

And he said to them, the religious leaders, Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?

To save a life or to kill?

I love that.

Right?

He asked them this question where it's kind of lose-lose for them, no matter how they answer that.

Right?

It put it just puts them in a bind.

If they were to say, um, yeah, it is good uh for you to heal on the Sabbath, then it kind of blows apart their own argument and their own twisted understanding of the law and how they were taking all of that too far.

If they were to say, no, it's not good for you to heal and to do good and to do these things, then it would have made them uh look like miserable, uh curmudgeonly awful people, and they didn't want that at all.

They wanted uh their reputation to be very much intact.

And so uh what do they do?

Well, it says there, take a look at it.

It says, uh, but they were silent, yeah, I guess so.

And he looked around at them with anger, okay, righteous anger, grieved at their hardness of heart.

And he said to the man, Stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

And the Pharisees went out and immediately glorified God and praised him for the amazing work.

No, that's not at all what happens, right?

Not at all.

It says the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians of all people against him, how to destroy him.

Okay, well, who are the Herodians?

Well, they were they were supporters of Herod, of Herod Antipas, and they they tended to uh push that family's political and and economical values.

Listen, that the Herodians had had not much, really nothing to do with the Pharisees.

They didn't share the same values.

So why did they join forces with them?

Well, as one of those, you know, the enemy of my enemies is my friend kind of thing.

And so they were like, they were just looking for anybody to kind of join forces with and go after Jesus and and help them destroy him.

Okay, so this thing is just getting ugly, but now take a look at verse 22, jump down to that.

Okay, Jesus has yet another run-in with these hard-hearted people.

It says, and the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, He is possessed by Beelzebal, and by the prince of demons, he casts out demons.

Okay, so they're saying by the power of Satan, he's casting out demons.

Does that make a whole lot of sense?

No?

No, it doesn't.

Okay, and and and Jesus basically gets right at that.

He says, It says that and he called them to him, and he said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan?

If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

And if Satan is risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end.

But no one, okay, no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man.

Then indeed he may plunder his house.

So he's like, I gotta I gotta go after Satan before we take down his regime here.

And then he says this he says, Truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven, the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter.

But whoever blasphemies or blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.

For they were saying, He has an unclean spirit.

Now let's zoom in on that part here for just a second.

So here, Jesus, okay, Jesus very clearly says that there is in fact a sin that once committed, it's unforgivable.

Now when you read that, do you kind of get like maybe just a little rattled?

Maybe no other verse in all of scripture has caused believers, has caused Christians such stress.

Right?

I've talked to students, I've talked to adults who have literally stayed awake at night stressing over this.

And have I committed this sin?

And is my salvation not real?

And you know, right?

It's it's a tough one to wrestle with, and and and people see that and they wonder, well, listen, understand this.

If you're wrestling with that and you're worked up about that, it's probably pretty good evidence that you have not that you have, in fact, not committed it.

Okay, because what Jesus is saying here is he's saying is that if there is a work of God or multiple works of God that have taken place, and it is it is so clear, right?

It is so obvious that he is the one who has accomplished this.

He is the one who has done it.

God's fingerprints, the the Holy Spirit's fingerprints are all over it, and it's miraculous and it is and it is awesome, and it appoints to the Lord.

If that has in fact happened, and yet you harden your heart and you refuse to see that God is at work, and you in fact attribute that to the work of Satan.

He's saying, that is the unforgivable sin.

You are it's a it's a refusal to believe and to accept that God has done something.

And it is saying that in fact Satan is doing this.

And so that's what these people were doing.

And Jesus goes after them.

He's like, it's unforgivable.

These people, they these people have so much spite, so much hatred for Jesus and the message and and all of it.

They had no desire to give God glory in all of this.

And this is uh this is a stern and scathing indictment for sure.

All right, so what do you see here?

You see that Jesus, he he faced all kinds of uh of scrutiny, right?

They were all over him.

There was this it was this ruthless hostility, uh, the there were these baseless accusations all all lobbed at him by by people who wanted nothing to do with him, wanted nothing to do with his message, with the gospel, with his works, those who, as Romans 1.18 tells us, suppress the truth.

They didn't suppress it.

It's it's clear, it's obvious, it's it's there's unavoidable, okay, overwhelming evidence that God is totally at work, but they're like, nope, nope, gonna harden my heart to all of this.

They're suppressing the truth.

No.

How are you handling, how are you doing when it comes to all of the hate being thrown at you?

All of the baseless accusations, all of the intense scrutiny from the outside world.

Okay, all of the hatred.

How are you handling that?

Maybe a better question is do we actually have any of that coming at us?

Right?

When was the last time that any of us received any criticism of any negative kind from the outside world?

Okay, and if we haven't, maybe, just maybe, that says something about where our personal ministry engagement's at.

Okay, maybe it's it's that you've been on the sidelines for for far too long and and you're not in the game, and you're not you're not following the Lord's commandments to pick up a shovel and start digging and start helping build the church and and disciple people and and do all of these things.

And so in the end of the day, if you really look at it, you're not doing anything worthy of being criticized and and garnering the attention of haters.

And it reminds me of Luke 6, verse 26, where it says, Woe to you when all people speak well of you.

Luke 6:26

Okay, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

I think one of the hardest things for for Christians today is simply being okay with people hating us.

We're not comfortable with that.

We're not very good at that.

We're we're big-time people pleasers in in many ways.

Okay, we we care way too much about being cool and about being impressive in the world's eyes, and you know, sometimes we want nothing more, it seems, than to be accepted by those who fundamentally hate everything that we stand for.

This is what our hearts want, and and what ends up happening?

Well, the effectiveness of our ministry is severely hindered because of it.

Now, if any of that describes you and kind of where you're at, I would say that you've got kind of three main options before you.

Okay, the first thing is you could you could do nothing.

Right?

You could sit here, you could listen to this, you could, you know, maybe ignore the conviction of the Lord, or or maybe it's in this in the frame of guilt and and the shame of, yeah, like I need to be better, but you know, all of that, or maybe it's a lack thereof, and your heart's kind of hard, and I don't care.

I've heard a million sermons like this, and and and I and I'm no my conscience is no longer pricked about this, and I'm just gonna continue to do whatever I want, and I'm gonna do nothing about it.

Okay, that's one option.

And another option would be to change, but do it in your own strength.

Okay, allow that guilt and that shame that might be kind of bubbling up in you right now, and you're sort of feeling uncomfortable and squirming a little bit.

Allow that to kind of drive you towards uh you know, flash in the pan kind of commitment to, you know, I'm gonna do better next time, but really the whole thing is just in your own strength.

And you know that before you even get to Mother's Day lunch, all of that is it's gonna be gone, right?

It's gonna all leak out, but you're trying to kind of work yourself up emotionally, and yeah, I need I need to do better, and I need to I need to step up here.

But again, it it's it's all you, it's not in the strength of the spirit or this, and I would suggest this is the best option of the three.

Okay, just invite the Lord to have his way in you.

Right?

Maybe you are cold.

Maybe you are guilty.

Maybe there is shame about all this.

I would say just bring this to the Lord.

Like, Lord, I I I could just confess before you that I I don't I don't want to be involved.

I I like to just kind of come to church and and sit here and and and leave.

And I kind of like that everyone does everything else and I don't really have to do much.

I I like that I don't talk to my neighbors.

I I like that I I'm not involved in evangelism whatsoever, and I've got no one that I'm really discipling in my life.

I I kind of enjoy all that.

Just admit that before the Lord.

Trust me, you can handle it.

Right?

It's heartfelt repentance about all of these things.

Or maybe for you, you know that guilt tends to drive you into making these decisions, but it all flames out after a while.

Right?

Guilt's a lousy motivator.

We've talked about that before.

And so just admit that before the Lord.

Invite him into that place.

Lord, would you begin to change my heart?

Like, I don't know how to do this.

I've tried and failed so many times.

God, I just lay this before you and I ask you to, like, Lord, just with my heart and with my desires and with my involvement in ministry work, Lord, would you do it?

Would you change me?

You're looking for that spirit-filled motivation where he is driving you as you think about the gospel and you're so blessed by what Christ has done.

Now you're like, I want to serve and love other people the way Christ has loved me.

I want to engage in ministry, I want to, I want to make disciples.

And I understand challenges are gonna come, it's gonna be hard, but I'm gonna face that in the strength of the Lord as he brings them.

Not gonna be too scared about this, I'm not gonna let that stop me.

Now, listen, if you are doing that, if you are serving and you're involved, and so many of you are here in our church alone, right?

And maybe you are feeling the heat from people, and people are criticizing you, and they are coming after you, and they're slandering you, and there are so many different challenges that you're dealing with from people with hard hearts, and it's towards you, but ultimately it's towards Jesus Christ.

Listen, take comfort in a couple of things here.

First of all, understand that this is standard.

Right?

It really is.

I think sometimes we're thinking, wow, I'm experiencing difficulty here, therefore I must be doing something wrong.

Was Jesus doing anything wrong?

No, he was doing everything perfectly, and people still came after him.

Of course, to the point of death.

Right?

This is standard operating procedure.

It is gonna be difficult.

Right?

And Jesus never said it's going to be easy.

He never gives us that promise.

If you find that verse, come show me.

Spoiler alert, you won't.

Okay, it's not there.

Okay, take comfort in this as well.

Jesus himself relates.

Right?

He relates to you in this.

He gets it.

He gets it way better than you or I do.

He went through this in the most intense way ever.

And so before thinking, well, like Jesus is God and He doesn't get it, and you know, how could he possibly understand?

Just read the scriptures.

Just look at that and look what he went through.

He gets it, he wants to draw alongside you.

Again, if you're suffering from attacks from people with hard hearts, find comfort in this thing too.

You'll be blessed.

You'll be blessed as you do this.

You'll be blessed as you obey.

God doesn't just, you know, tell you to get to work and then back away and just like, I hope they can kind of figure that out.

They don't need my help.

Oh, yeah, we do.

He knows that.

I love Matthew 5.11.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Right?

Love that.

Scrutiny, hostility, accusations.

Those things are gonna come.

Okay, we need to accept that.

Okay, second thing here.

Jesus experienced real challenges in ministry.

So will I.

Okay, sometimes it's the overwhelming pressures of caring for people.

Maybe that's what it is.

That's the challenge in ministry that you're facing.

Take a look at verse 7 here.

Verse 7 says Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed.

Okay, so a large number of people.

How many of us have ever had like a large crowd follow us around?

Like none of us.

That's just, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there.

Right?

That's what Jesus experienced so constantly.

A great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Side.

So people just came from all over the place and they were crowding in on him.

Okay, when the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him.

Okay, so it kind of repeats that.

And he told the disciples to have a boat ready for him.

Why?

Because of the crowd, lest they crush him.

Okay, so if you're like a personal space person, imagine this.

Right?

He's like, I gotta get into a boat just so that I don't get smushed.

Right?

That's basically what he's saying.

And whenever the unclean spirit saw him, actually, let me back that up here.

It says, For he had healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him.

Okay, there it is again.

Right?

And whenever the unclean spirit saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, You are the Son of God.

And he strictly ordered them not to make him known.

And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him.

Again, if you picture yourself there and just imagine yourself in Jesus' shoes here, you can see how draining this would have been for him, right?

In Jesus' humanity.

And so he withdraws and he gathers his best friends around him here on the mountain.

And it's here that he appoints these twelve disciples, these apostles, and he sends them out to engage in ministry on his behalf, in his strength.

All right?

Now jump down to verse 20.

Okay, then he went home.

Okay, relief finally at last.

Oh, wait.

And the crowd gathered again, so they couldn't could not even eat.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, maybe even most of the time, right?

Caring for people and serving others and discipleship and all of that kind of ministry is just plain exhausting.

Have you ever experienced that before?

If you're like, no, I feel like super, like I got had tons of sleep last night, and I've you know I've got tons of energy and I feel great, maybe you're not as involved as as you need to be, because it is, it's tiring, right?

And it can be it can be overwhelming at times.

Right?

That's just one of the challenges that you and I were gonna face uh in ministry.

Now, as exciting as it as it is to be to be used by God to bless other people and all of that, I mean, there's just nothing as encouraging as that, and nothing that that fills your own sails as uh as seeing the uh the Lord God work through you to to encourage, lift up, or or bless or instruct somebody else.

Have you ever experienced that before?

You're like, oh my goodness, like wow, why would the Lord use someone like me, little old me, to bless and encourage that person?

Now, thankfully, I believe wholeheartedly that the blessings far outweigh the challenges in all of that.

Okay, but understand, okay, understand there is a personal cost to you as you minister.

There is.

There's a cost.

And we see it by by way of different types of pressure that we'll face.

Okay, maybe for you it's it's like this, it's a physical pressure.

And maybe it is that kind of that that drain that that that tiredness and I just feel like I'm going all out, or maybe you've helped somebody move, and so you're you're kind of drained that way, or you know, it's it's mental pressure that you're feeling because you're you're trying to care for these people and you gotta think things through, and I gotta think it through deeply, and it's forced me to consider something that I haven't considered in a long time, or or or maybe ever, and so there's that drain on you, or it's just that spiritual weariness of go, go, go, and maybe you haven't been, you know, in the word yourself enough, and and you're not being filled up enough yourself by the Spirit, and so you're starting to kind of your energy and your strength, and maybe even your joy is kind of leaking out of you.

There's also the pressure to care for people well.

I don't think any of us wants to do a half-hearted job of this, do we?

We don't want to be those, like, yeah, take two verses, call me in the morning kind of help to people.

No, we want to get in there.

We want to like live life with them, and we want to draw alongside them and truly encourage them and do a good job of this.

There's pressure involved with all of that.

There's there's the pressure of time.

How do I figure out my schedule?

I'm out like four nights, five nights a week, and how do I meet with this person who's struggling?

And how do I care for them and work out my calendar?

And I still gotta care for my family, and maybe for you it's it's the pressure of resources, and maybe it's cost to you financially to care for people.

Maybe it's stuff that you've had that you've given away at, you know, you've sacrificed things that you've had in order to minister well, and you're feeling kind of the pressure of all of that.

Listen, counting the cost of these things, it's not just something that pastors need to be doing.

Okay, that's for each one of us.

Okay, can consider here what you're being called to when you become a Christ follower.

Because a lack of involvement in God's church, a lack of involvement in people's lives, not caring or or quitting because it's hard, or quitting because it's it's been draining, or or it's inconvenient for me and the way I've kind of organized my life.

Listen, that's just not what Christians do.

We don't do that.

Christ paved the way for his followers by modeling what effective, determined, going hard to the end kind of ministry was all about.

Right?

He's our model.

Now I was super encouraged just this week to um chat with my parents.

My parents are uh in their early 60s now, and uh they're both in ministry.

My dad is a pastor, and uh.

My mom has also uh been involved in and in vocational church ministry and is now uh working uh for a parachurch ministry and all of that.

And they were, you know, we were talking and it was a speakerphone uh conversation, and you know, they were sharing with me and just kind of bringing me up to speed on some of the challenges that they've uh faced recently in uh in their own ministry and and in their own life.

And you know, the the the most amazing thing to hear them both say, you know what, we you know, in the in the remaining, I don't know, 20, 25 years, whatever it might have that the Lord would have us here on this earth, we just want to finish well.

We want to be used by the Lord to make disciples.

And even as I'm saying this, I'm kind of fighting back the emotions with it.

Because man, what an example.

They're like, we're not we're not concerned about all of the things that so many retired age folks tend to be concerned with.

We don't just want to enjoy the money that we've made, we're not looking for all the vacations, we want to be used by God to build his church and have an impact on people's lives.

Listen, if the if the pressures of ministry and all of that involvement have kind of worn you down, and you're coming through a kind of a tiring season, and I think many of us in church ministry were kind of there, right?

The weather's starting to get nice, and we can all just kind of smell vacation and and summertime and getting away, that's all creeping up on us.

Okay, or listen, maybe you've you've never jumped into ministry before and you've never really been involved, but you're kind of weighing all these things out.

Listen, listen, strengthen yourself today by remembering that Jesus was weary for you.

He was weary for you.

He had people literally pulling at his clothing, literally touching him.

They're coming at him from all sides constantly.

Okay, but his love for you and his love for me, it drove him to do this ultimately to the point of suffering and death.

Allow that to inspire you and strengthen your resolve this morning to minister with greater passion and greater joy and greater commitment than ever before.

Do it today.

Here's the final thing.

Jesus experienced real challenges in ministry, and so will I.

And here it is misunderstanding and criticism from those closest to me.

Okay, verse 21.

It says, and when his family heard it, okay, Jesus' family, okay, they heard all about his ministry exploits.

They would have seen some of this firsthand for sure.

But they heard about the good, they heard about the bad, they heard about the battles with religious leaders and how he was rubbing people the wrong way and all of that.

It says when they heard about it, they went out to seize him.

For they were saying he is out of his mind.

Can you imagine that?

Listen, as sad as it was that the religious leaders of Jesus' day failed to see him and understand who he really was, and as awful as the betrayal of Judas, one of his twelve, would have been.

I don't know, painful and downright demoralizing than the fact that Jesus' own family, his flesh and blood here, thought that he was a nutcase.

That's how they approached him.

And you see it even further here.

Take a look at verse 31.

It says there, and his mother and his and his brothers came, and standing outside, they they sent to him and called him.

And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, Your mother and brothers are outside seeking you, now presumably, to pacify him.

You know, like now, now, Jesus, you know, you've raised you know quite a stir here, and why don't you come home now with us, Jesus, and you know, we'll feed you a meal, and it's bet that's kind of how I pictured the attitude there.

And then he says this, and he answered them, Who are my mother and my brothers?

And looking out to those who sat around him, he said, He said, Here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Now, some of you, some of us here, we we know all too well that that sickening sense of rejection at the hands of those closest to us.

Right?

All because you've chosen to follow Jesus Christ.

And that's just not something that they can get behind.

And so they misunderstand the whole thing and they critique you and they think it's about something else, and they think that you're weird, and you know, they they want to argue with you, and you know, they want to shut you up, and maybe even worse.

Now, listen, as much as I can understand uh, you know, an unsaved friend or or family member, you know, criticizing and misunderstanding our commitment to you know Christianity, Christ, ministry, all of that, the most distressing part is when that family member or when that friend is a believer.

I can just like rip the heart right out of you.

Again, no, I know some of us here have experienced that.

Again, if it's it's if it's the kind of thing that happened to Jesus, it certainly happened to you and I.

Unfortunately, it's a road that some of us have had to walk.

Now at this point you might be kind of thinking, wow, what kind of a heavy word today.

Right?

Like Mother's Day?

Like I thought there would be like flowers somewhere or something.

This is hard.

I thought it'd be encouraged, but I'm just sort of feeling heavy.

Well, listen, this is where it gets good.

Okay, this is where the encouragement comes, and don't miss this.

Okay, don't miss it.

But notice again how Jesus answered them.

Okay, we looked at it, we're gonna look at it again.

Verse 33.

He says, Who are my mother and my brothers?

And looking at looking about at those who sat around him, okay, so he's looking at the disciples, right?

He's looking at it at his crew, right?

This is his group of closest friends.

It says there, here are my mother and my brothers.

For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.

Okay, now I don't believe here in this moment that Jesus is simply kicking his family to the curb.

Right?

Like, take a lot, mom.

Right?

Get out of here, you know, bro, sis, don't need you.

Like, I don't think that's exactly what he's doing here.

But listen, but what he is doing is he's showing us that in the kingdom of God, our real family is each other.

Right?

It's each other.

It's other believers, it's the church.

Now, if you haven't bought in to the importance of the church, okay, if you haven't accepted the reality and the importance of church life and ministry to each other and the community that the Lord's building here, listen, Christ's words here will likely, unfortunately, ring hollow for you.

Because you're looking around, you're like, this?

Right?

This is my family?

This is supposed to be the most important thing?

Ha! But those of us, okay, those of you who have bought into the church and the uncommon community here that we talk about, and and you recognize that, yeah, this this is this is my real family.

And as you and I, as we go through the ups and downs together, and you know, some days, some days we see the awesomeness of the church, you know, during those times where you know things are maybe difficult and we rally around together and and the Lord is doing amazing things through us and accomplishing great, great, you know, great discipleship, you know, through us as individuals, as we come together, it's all by God's Spirit, for God's glory, all of that.

And as you and I also see the ugly things, right?

The underbelly of the church, the the brokenness of people, and you know, as you probably get burned from time to time, you know, but as you you know, we continue to entrust your yourself to the Lord with all of this and and continue to humble yourself and recognize your own brokenness and recommit yet again to loving these people here that don't deserve it, you know, just as much as I don't deserve it.

And and by grace, you know, as the Lord is working and changing me and healing me, you know, somehow coming out of all of that, you know, not jaded about everything, and not just erecting walls around me to keep people out so that you know I never get hurt ever again.

You know, those of us who have bought into all of that, the good, the bad, the great, the pretty, the ugly, the blessings and the challenges of ministry life together.

Listen, I believe if we've done that, we we will experience the richness of church being family.

We will.

More family than even flesh and blood family.

Now, I understand this is obviously radical stuff that Jesus is saying here.

Right?

It really is.

Again, it's not to disparage the family.

Right?

Blood and all of that.

Jesus always speaks highly of the family, of marriage and parenting and honoring your parents.

Rather, he says this to elevate the importance of the church as our core family, as our core community and relationships.

The more passionate you get about discipleship and building all of that.

And as you pursue Christ above all, listen, you're gonna realize and all of this really stresses just how desperately we need each other.

We need each other.

We shouldn't just be a bunch of silos going about this, doing it ourselves.

Okay, church is family, that's how the Lord created it, that's what he intends.

Okay, so this week, and you know, even starting now, really assess where you're at when it comes to church buy-in.

Are you mailing it in?

Right?

Are you pretty disengaged from relationships?

Now listen, you might be the most busy person in this church.

Right?

You might be serving in 15 ministries, yet your heart is so disengaged, and all of it's really a front for keep people away, impress God with my actions, and yet really I'm I'm not really discipling, it's not coming from the heart, and I need some healing.

Okay, maybe you're you're running away from some kind of problem that you just flat out need to face.

Right?

Stop thinking that it's just gonna go away on its own if you ignore it.

Stop thinking that that just coming to this church means you're never gonna face it again.

It's just probably gonna get worse.

Maybe it'll drag others into that problem.

Okay, or or or maybe you're you're hurting here because of what someone did, and and someone was was legitimately awful to you, and and you've got that that pain, and and now you're you're kind of scarred from the from the whole church thing and the whole community.

Or or maybe you're hurting, but but let's be honest, it's just because you're too overly sensitive.

I believe there's a lot of that going on in the church.

Can you believe what she said to me?

Grow up.

Who cares?

Move on, right?

Sometimes that needs to happen too.

Or perhaps you have been legitimately hurt, but you haven't processed it properly, and and over time the acute pain has sort of subsided, but it's led to you just having a super jaded and and cynical heart about all these things.

Listen again, it brings the Lord into this.

Wherever you're at, whatever your specific situation might be, seek him to like to iron these bumps out in your heart and to continue to move you forward and integrate you back into the life of the church.

Church.

But ministry has its challenges.

I hope that's crystal clear.

There's no point pretending otherwise.

There's no point ignoring it or getting bitter.

And none of that leads to anywhere good.

You might be tricked into thinking that, but it all goes bad.

So instead, let's let's see that Jesus dealt with challenges all along the way, and again, in ways that are so much worse than what you and I will likely ever deal with.

And let's again entrust ourselves to him once again.

Let's trust him in this as he builds this, as he builds you.

And let's watch him as he begins to, by his spirit, transform you, transform us, our community, and the people that we minister to.