Who Are My Brothers? (Matthew 12:46-50) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: We are still looking at questions Jesus asked, and we

are gonna be in Matthew again.

Uh, mostly because I know Matthew better than the other gospels.

Um, but we are gonna be in Matthew chapter 12.

Matthew 12 · chapter mention

And this question that Jesus asks almost sounds like he's sinning.

So let's go ahead and, and take a look at it.

Matthew 12, we're gonna be starting in verse 45.

Or sorry, verse 46.

Okay, this question, um, that Jesus asks- If you know the, the Ten Commandments,

it seems like he's breaking one of them.

Okay?

So here's what's happening.

Matthew 12, Jesus is talking to some people.

Verse 46: While he's speaking to the people, behold, I think it

just means look, his mother and his brothers, so his family, right?

Jesus obviously didn't have a dad on Earth, 'cause his

father was in heaven, right?

Um, his mother and his brothers stood outside, and they're

asking to speak with him.

But he replies to the man who, who told him that.

He says, "Who's my mom?"

Right?

"Who's my mother?

And who are my brothers?"

Now, imagine if this was you.

Imagine if your parents were looking for you, right?

Maybe it's Sunday after church or Wednesday after True North, and someone

comes up to you and says, "Hey, your, uh, your parents are looking for you."

And you're like, "Who are my parents?"

Probably wouldn't go so well for you, right?

Or, "Who's my family?"

Right?

Is, is Jesus disowning his family right here?

So this is kind of a crazy question to ask, right?

Um, is he sinning?

Is he disrespecting, right?

Is he breaking the fifth commandment, honor your father and mother?

Well, I think, to answer that question, um, we have to really see how he responds

and what he's talking about here, right?

But before we do, you may have noticed something.

Um, because if you're in your … Look at, uh, uh, look at a screen or look

at your Bibles if you got your Bibles.

I want you to s- uh, to find verse 47 and put your finger on it.

All right, so if you see verse 47, once you find it, raise your hand, okay?

Anyone see verse 47?

Who's got verse 40?

Josh, do you have verse 47?

Yeah, I do.

Where is it?

Oh, so it's not in the Bible, it's like underneath?

Oh, yeah.

Is that where yours is, Adam?

Or where's…

You have it in your Bible?

I don't think so.

Oh, you're just raising your hand?

Where's verse 47?

Why is it down below, like Josh said, right?

It's not on the screen.

If you notice, it just goes 46 to 48.

My Bible just goes 46, 48, and then there's a little number 2 somewhere that

tells me to look down at the bottom.

But why is it gone?

There's no verse 47.

Did someone take verse 47 out of the Bible?

Like, what happened?

Did verse 47, I don't know, is it like on the JV team of the Bible?

Did it get benched?

And maybe if one of…

If verse 48 does bad, they'll call it up and, and see if it does better and…

What, what's happening, right?

So well, verse 47 is…

So b- this is a quick Bible history lesson for you, okay?

This is like adjacent to the sermon.

This isn't the sermon.

This is like helpful to understand about the Bible.

'Cause maybe you're confused, maybe you're like, "Why, I didn't even notice that.

Why is it not in there?"

So here you go.

The reason, first of all, that the verse numbers are in there is 'cause some

Christians, um, put them in there to help you reference the Bible better, right?

'Cause otherwise you'd be like, "Uh, well, it's in Matthew.

It's, you know, it's right after the part where Jesus is talking to the

Pharisees about you'll know a tree by their fruit, and then you know

that part when h- he talks to his, his family and they're looking for

him, and then you know he says that."

Instead, we can just say, "Oh yeah, Matthew 12:46.

Matthew 12:46

Go there."

Right?

So that's why th- people put those in.

So when Matthew was writing the Gospel of Matthew, was he

putting like chapter 12, verse 46?

No.

Right?

Matthew wasn't writing with this system in there.

Matthew just wrote.

Right?

And then later, Christians came along and said, "Okay, let's put the

verse numbers and chapter numbers in, so that way we can just navigate

and talk about the verses easier."

Right?

'Cause otherwise, I mean, think about like a book you may have read

in school, like The Odyssey, right?

Imagine if there was no chapters in The Odyssey, and you'd be like,

"Okay, you know that part, um, when he, you know, when Odysseus is,

is doing that thing and whatever."

You can tell I remember The Odyssey really well from school.

But uh, you know when he's like in the boat and there's the, the sirens and,

you know, not the police sirens, but like the sirens that wanna kill him, right?

You, that's how you have to describe it, right?

'Cause you don't know, "Oh yeah, it's in chapter 13 of The Odyssey

that this happens," right?

So th- that's why those are in there.

So anyway, that's why we have those verse numbers.

Now-

Today, we have access to a lot more copies of the Bible than the people

who put the verse numbers in did.

Okay?

So when you think about it, when we do archeology and stuff, right, we

get to find old copies of the Bible from, like, the 100s, from the 200s,

from the 300s, and the 400s, right?

And so naturally, the old copies of the Bible, right, that are closer

to when it was originally written, right, like, um, when Matthew wrote

this in, you know, 65 AD, right, we wanna use the copies of the Bible that

are from, you know, 100 AD, right?

Not the one from 700 AD, right?

'Cause this…

That would be closer to the original.

So the copies of the Bible that are closer to the original don't have verse 47 in it.

That sentence isn't in there.

So that's why we're like, "Okay, let's go with the older copies

rather than the newer copies."

Okay?

So then how did verse 47 get in some Bibles?

Well, if you were copying the Bible, let's say you're, you're

making a copy of the Bible to someone who doesn't have it, okay?

Let's say, um, let's say the, the high school girls are making a copy of the

Bible for the junior high boys, and the junior high boys, they've never

read the Gospel of Matthew before.

And the high school girls have the copy of the Gospel of Matthew, and they're

like, "Hey, we want the junior high boys to read the Gospel of Matthew," okay?

And so they're like, "Let's make a copy of this," and they're writing this down,

"While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and brothers

stood outside, asking to speak with him."

And then they're like, "You know what?

I don't know if the junior high boys are gonna understand what's going on, okay?

They might get confused.

So let's add, like, on the side-" what verse 47 says, which if you look at

your footnote, mine says, "Someone told him, 'Your mother and your brothers are

standing outside asking to speak to you.'"

Right?

So it's like a clarifying comment.

It's adding more detail to the story, right?

'Cause maybe they're like, "You know what?

They might not understand what's happening here."

Right?

And so then they add that on the side.

And then the junior high boys get this copy of, of the Gospel of Matthew, and

they see that note on the side, right?

And they're like, "Oh, that's helpful," right?

"Helped me get a clearer picture of what's going on."

And then let's say the junior high boys are like, "We need to make a copy so we

can give one to the high school boys."

Okay?

And then the junior high boys are like, "Okay, well, the, this,

this comment that the high school girls added was really helpful.

Let's just put it with the rest of the story," because let's say

they don't know how to use margins or footnotes or anything, right?

That's, that's like a ju- that's a junior high boy thing to do, right?

So they're like, "I, I don't know how to use footnotes, so

I'm just gonna put it in there."

And so it can help them understand what's going on.

So then they make a copy of the Gospel of Matthew, and they give it to the

high school boys, and the high school boys are like, "Oh, wow, this is great."

And they, they know, "Oh yeah, verse 47, that's something they

added just to help us explain it."

And then the high school boys make a copy for the junior high girls,

and they forget to say that that's not actually part of the Bible.

See what I mean?

Now we've got the, the footnote that actually got added into the, the Bible

that now the junior high girls have.

Did you track with that?

If, uh, you didn't, you can go this way.

But if you did, you can go this way

Okay.

Some of you were just doing nothing, which is not helpful.

But

So, um, now what we could do, right, what we do today is we

look back at the oldest one.

So which, which of the small groups Bibles would we look at?

Someone shout it out

Starts with high school and ends with- Girls … girls, right?

So we go to the oldest copy and we'd say, "Oh, we have the high school

girls copy of the Bible," right?

We have the oldest one, so let's go ahead and see what the oldest one says.

And in the oldest copy, we would say, "Oh yeah, there's no verse 47."

It just goes from verse 46 to verse 48, okay?

Mostly clear or not clear at all?

It's okay if you're confused.

Okay.

If you have more questions, you can ask your leader later,

or you can talk to me after.

But I just wanted to briefly, as brief as I can, explain why there's a

verse missing from your Bible, right?

And if you notice, there's other places in the Bible that do this,

um, and that's the reason why.

Usually, if you've got a good Bible, they are down below.

See this really small stuff at the bottom of my Bible?

That's where it puts it, okay?

Some translations just put it in.

Actually, if y- with this specific verse, every other translation

besides the ESV has it in the Bible, um, just, just for free.

Anyway, all that to say is your Bible's not wrong, right?

There's, there's a reason there's not a verse 47 in there.

Okay, back to where we were at, right?

Jesus is asking.

He's saying, "Who's my mother?

Who's my brothers," right?

He, is he disrespecting his parents?

Well, let's see what Jesus is trying to say.

What he's saying here in…

Actually, my slides are out of order.

What do I do?

Now, uh, don't look.

Okay.

So then he says, "Who's my mother and who are my brothers?"

Verse 49, "Stretching his hand out towards disciples, he said, 'Here, the disciples,

tho- that's my mother and my brothers.'"

So what's Jesus saying?

He's saying that who I consider to be my family, right?

Jesus says, "My family, who, who I think they are, are my disciples."

And then in verse 50 in your Bible, he says, "Whoever, anyone who does

the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

So Jesus, what he's doing is redefining who his family is.

He's saying that his family, his closest relationships, are not his biological

family but his spiritual family.

He's saying his closest relationships, his, his, his core family is not

the people that share the same DNA as him, right, or the, the

same, you know, eye color as him or the same hair texture as him.

He's saying that, "My closest relatives are the people who follow God."

Those are the people that he considers to be his family.

So we're gonna see tonight what I, what I want three, three points

or, or three things I wanna tell you about God's family, right?

'Cause God doesn't have DNA.

God doesn't have, you know, um, right, a biological family line.

But what God says is that his spiritual family, Jesus' spiritual family,

is actually, if, if you're part of that family, that's your new family.

Even more important than your biological family, okay?

So three things that you need to know about Jesus' family.

The first one is that Jesus starts his family.

If you notice in our verses, Jesus is the one who points it out.

He says, "Here, that's my mother and my brothers."

So Jesus starts this family.

The disciples aren't like, "Jesus, pick me.

I wanna be part of your family."

Jesus says, "You're part of my family," before they even ask.

Maybe some of them didn't even know.

Maybe they were like, "Where?

Oh, us.

Okay.

Maybe, yeah, I guess that's us, right?"

You can't earn your way into Jesus' family, right?

Very simple.

Maybe you probably knew that already, right?

But you don't get into Jesus' family because you're really great, 'cause you're

super fun to be around, or because you know a lot about the Bible, or because

you spend a lot of time in church.

That's not how you get into Jesus' family.

Jesus starts the family.

He picks his family

There's no, there's nothing that you bring to the table that's

like, "You know what, Jesus?

You should consider making me part of your family," right?

Maybe you do your Shark Tank pitch, and you're, like they did at

women's retreat, and you're like, "Here, here's my, my pitch," right?

"You should pick me to be part of your family because

I know a lot of Bible verses.

I'm a really good kid.

I listen to my parents.

That's why I should be part of your family."

That's not what happens, right?

Jesus chooses people.

He says, "Look, this person, I'm gonna adopt them.

I'm gonna save them."

Right?

It's Jesus's idea to save people and make them part of his family.

Now, what that also means is not everyone's part of Jesus' family, right?

Maybe you've heard someone say something like, "Oh, we're all God's children."

Not true.

Everyone is not one of God's children.

Only some people are part of God's family.

So don't assume that you're part of God's family, and we'll

talk about that more later.

How, how do I know I'm in God's family?

But what- first thing I want you to see is that Jesus started this family, right?

And not because the disciples were so great, and he was

like, "Yeah, I definitely, I wanna live with them," right?

But because he cares for them, and he loves them.

But something else I want you to notice is that Jesus didn't

have to make a family, right?

He could have just made a club.

He could've…

That Christianity doesn't have to be a family.

The church doesn't have to be a family.

It could have been a club.

It could have been an, an army.

Right?

Think of all the different types of groups there are.

There's armies, there's clubs, there's all sorts of different, right?

There…

I don't know.

You could…

Jesus could have made the church a book club about the Bible, right?

Jesus could have made the church, uh, he could have called these people

his servants or his employees, right?

But instead, he says, "They're going to be my family."

Now, maybe you haven't thought about that before, but Jesus

didn't have to say that, right?

And, and the, the family idea adds…

There's, there's a, there's a loyalty, right, to your family.

There's affection.

There's love for a family.

There's closeness that comes with a family.

There's belonging that comes with a family.

So Jesus chose to, to call it a family, to call them his brothers, on purpose.

Right?

He- because Jesus is trying to, to make a point to you, right?

If, if, if you are a Christian, you aren't just working for Jesus.

You're part of his family, right?

You're close with Jesus.

Jesus loves you, and it's his idea.

Right?

He decided, "I'm gonna love you."

Right?

If you're a Christian, he said, "I'm going to love you," right?

I'm going to love Morgan.

Jesus decided that.

He said, "I'm gonna…

I care about him, and I want him to be part of my family."

So if you're a Christian, that's just such an amazing thing, right?

Jesus loves you, and he chose you and wanted you to be part of his family.

Now, the other thing about that, right, Jesus loves his family,

is that if you don't like another Christian, what you're telling Jesus

is, "I don't like your family."

Right?

If there's, if there's a Christian a- and you, you know, maybe there's

someone in your small group or someone at your school a- and you're both

Christians, and you guys have beef, you guys have, have conflict, there's

problems, then you're saying, you're telling God, "I don't like your family."

And so that should put some importance on your relationships,

right, with other Christians.

Because if, if you're saying, "I'm not gonna forgive that person," right,

you're saying, "I'm not gonna forgive someone who's part of God's family,"

or, "I'm not gonna love that person."

So Jesus starts his family, right?

He, he didn't have to.

It was free.

He wanted to.

He wasn't obligated to, um, but he wanted to, to love people and

make them part of his family.

Um-

Something else that you notice in these verses, especially this last part,

uh, there's not like a, an option.

There's not like an opt-out from Jesus' family.

He just says, "Here they are.

They're part of my family."

And so kinda like what we were just talking about is, is being

part of Jesus' family isn't…

Uh, you don't get to say, "Well, Jesus, I wanna go to heaven, but I don't

wanna be part of your family," right?

Or, "Jesus, I want a relationship with you, but I don't want a

relationship with your family."

You notice that?

Like, think about this.

What if the disciples were like, "Well, okay, Jesus, I wanna

be, I wanna be your brother.

I wanna be a part of your family.

But this Peter guy, I don't wanna be part of his family," right?

Or, "Oh, that Andrew guy, I don't wanna be a part of his family.

I wanna be part of your family, Jesus, but, but not those people."

And what I want you to see is that if you want a relationship with Jesus, the

relationship with the other people in Jesus' family is not optional, okay?

That's our second point.

Family isn't optional.

If you're a Christian, your spiritual family is not optional.

You can't say, "Well, I want a relationship with Jesus, but I don't

want a relationship with the church."

Right?

I, I, I want, I, I want Jesus.

I, I, I wanna get to know him, but I, I don't really want to love these other

people that he's, he's put in my life.

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be discipled by people.

Or, ugh, I don't wanna disciple other people.

I don't wanna have to forgive people.

I don't wanna have to pray for people.

I don't wanna have to care about other people's problems.

If that's you, but you're saying, "I love Jesus," there's,

there's a disconnect there.

Being part of what Jesus is doing means being part of what his people are doing.

You can't opt out of the church part but opt into the Jesus part

And that's really popular nowadays for people to say, "Oh, I'm a, I'm a

Christian, but I don't go to church."

Right?

Or, "I'm a, I'm a…

I love Jesus, but I, I don't really need to be part of,

like, I don't like religion."

Maybe you've heard it like that before.

Right, being, having a relationship with Jesus also means having a

relationship with his family.

Just like if you get married, you, you also end up in a relationship with all of

these other people that you maybe didn't even know before you got married, right?

There's aunts and there's uncles and there's cousins and there's siblings

and there's, right, the in-laws, right?

You, a- along with the person that you marry, you also get a brand-new family.

You get all of these people that now y- are part of your life,

whether you like it or not.

That's kinda like how it is when you become a Christian, right?

You, you, you, you marry Jesus, right?

You're, you're the bride, he's the groom, right?

That's, that's what the illustration is in Ephesians 5.

And the family, the i- the in-laws are the church.

You're now immediately related to all of these people, whether you like it or not.

If you're a Christian, you are related to all of the other Christians in the world.

In history, in fact.

Ever.

You are related to all of them.

And so this isn't something that you can say, "Well, when I'm older, then I'll

worry about being part of a church."

If you're a Christian, you are part of a church right now.

You have family right now who need you to love them and

care for them, pray for them.

This isn't, "Oh, when I get older I'll, I'll do this."

And, and maybe you're thinking, "Oh, well, you know, Christians are

boring, or Christians aren't fun, or, or my un- my non-Christian friends

are way more fun to hang out with.

They understand me better, or they're not as weird, or they're not as awkward."

Right?

Those aren't qualifications for, for you to say, "Well, that means great.

Don't have to worry about it anymore.

I can hang out with the people I like to hang out with, not with God's family."

'Cause whether you like it or not, if you're a Christian,

you are part of God's family.

Right?

You don't get to say, "Well, too bad.

That's not for me."

If you want Jesus, you get to be part of His f- which is

such a great thing, by the way.

Right?

That you don't have to follow Jesus on your own.

You don't have to deal with all the struggles and hardship

and, and trials on your own.

Jesus gives you a support group.

He, He…

There's built-in friends and protection and love and care that

come with following Jesus, not just from Jesus, but from His family

And then the last thing that I want you to see about this comes from our

last verse here in verse 50, okay?

Matthew 12:50.

Matthew 12:50

"For whoever," so Jesus is saying, right, these are my brother and

my brothers, those are my family.

And then he says, "For whoever," anyone, "who does the will of my Father in heaven

is my brother and sister and mother."

So here Jesus is giving us kind of the family resemblance, right?

I don't know if you've ever seen a family where they all look really similar, right?

Jesus is saying, "This is how you can tell who's part of my family."

And what does he say is the, the distinguishing feature?

It's people who obey the Lord, people who follow God, people who love God.

Those are the people who are part of Jesus' family.

So third thing I want you to know about Jesus' family is that

the family obeys their father

Now there's something that you might easily get confused

by when I say this, okay?

Obeying the Father, is that how you get into the family?

No, right?

Obeying the Father is not how you get into the family.

That's just how the family is, right?

Does, does looking like your parents make you part of their family?

No, right?

It's a product of being part of the family.

That's how you, you're just like, "Yeah, that, that just happens," right?

You didn't decide to look like your parents, right?

You didn't decide to, to have some of the same mannerisms or, or phrases

that your, your parents have, right?

But you end up looking like your family

Obeying God is not how you get into God's family, right?

You don't obey God and then God's like, "You know what?

You're obeying me, I'm gonna put you in my family."

What happens is God puts you in his family, right?

He saves you, and then you start obeying God.

So if you're out there and you're, you're trying to obey your way

into God's family, right, you've, you've got the order messed up

Right?

Obeying God is not how you get into God's family.

It's not even how you stay in God's family.

But everyone who's in the family will obey God.

That's just part of being in the family.

Now, also something that you need to know about this obedience, right, is

this, this is heartfelt obedience, right?

It's inside-out obedience.

This isn't like, "Well, you know what?

I'm really scared of not being in the family, so I better start obeying."

This is, "I, I, I love being part of this family.

I, I love the way this family does things.

I love the way that, that my Father has instructed me to live.

He's given me great things to live by.

He's given me so much, so much great wisdom and so many great

commands that are for my good.

He cares for me.

I trust Him, so of course I'll listen to Him."

That's why the family obeys the Father.

It's not like, "Well, you know, I gotta try really hard to, to

impress Him so He still likes me."

That's not how this family works

But also obedience, it, it really happens, right?

It, this isn't good intentions to obey God one day.

This isn't, "Oh, I'll be better tomorrow."

This is real obedience that really happens in real life.

Real decisions that you really make to love God and, and say no to sin.

Real feelings that you have of, of awe, amazement at God, and love for

God and wanting to be with Jesus.

This isn't, "Well, yeah, I really wish I could," or, "I, I really will start soon,"

or, "I really want to obey God, but…"

Fill in the blank.

Right?

This isn't good intentions.

This is real obedience.

You're really thinking and feeling and doing the things that God, your

Father, has asked you to do because He loves you, and that's why He,

He asks you to do these things.

So this is, this is real obedience, but it's from the heart, right?

It's not outside in obedience

And so if you really are a part of Jesus' family, you'll show it over time, right?

Maybe you won't show it if you just zoom in on a week of your life.

There might not be a ton of evidence that you're part of God's family.

But over time, as you zoom out to months and, and years,

you should see, you know what?

I actually do bear the family resemblance.

I actually do look like, like my father

But be honest about that, right?

Don't, don't make excuses if there's really no obedience happening, right?

It's better for you to be honest and say, "You know what?

I, I don't look anything like my family," than to say, "I, I really,

I really am trying and I wanna be."

It, it's better for you to say, "You know what?

I, I'm gonna be honest with myself.

I, I don't, I don't look like my family."

And then you say, "But I want to be part of this family, so God, please save me

and make me part of this family," right?

So again, God's family is not everyone in the world, but it's

people that God chose, right?

To, to be part of His family.

His idea, right?

To, to bring them into that close, loving relationship.

And because of that, right?

That means that if you're a Christian, you have real res- responsibilities and

relationships with other Christians.

That there's people in your family that you need to love and spend time with and

pray for and think about and get to know

And those should be the people you're closest with.

And those, those are the people that you should have your, your

deepest relationships with, your best conversations with

And that's because they all obey their Father, right?

All these people, those are the people you wanna be around.

If you're a Chris- if you're really a Christian, you're gonna want to

be around other Christians because they, they love the things you love.

They love the person you love the most, right?

If you're, if you're a Christian, you don't wanna be around the people that

are, that are trashing your savior.

Just like if you wouldn't hang out with your friends anymore if

all they did was, was make fun of your girlfriend or boyfriend.

You'd say, "These are bad friends 'cause they, they don't like the person I love."

And so we, right, when you, when you're thinking about your friends, when you're

thinking about your relationships, right, make sure they're, they're with

people, and even the person you date, right, make sure that they're with

people who are part of God's family.

Let's pray, and we'll go to small groups.

Heavenly Father, uh, thank you that you've adopted people.

You didn't have to do this.

You didn't, you didn't have to save anyone at all.

You have the right to send every single person to hell because

we've all sinned against you.

We've all broken your rules.

We're all evil and opposed to you.

But you saved some people.

You didn't just save us to make us your employees or your servants.

You didn't even save us to make us your friends.

You saved us to make us your family.

And so I pray that, um, you would help us who are saved to really just enjoy

the love that you have for us, that you care for us, you know us, you want

us, you're not just putting up with us.

Um, and I pray for anyone here who's not part of your family, that they

would be honest and, and realize that, and that you'd help them to want to

be part of your family, to want to have the, the relationship with you

that you offer freely to all of us.

Um, help us to have good conversations in small groups.

Help us to be honest.

Help us to think about what we're gonna say and, and to think about

how what we're saying is good for, for everyone else to hear.

Um, we pray this all in Jesus' name.

Amen.