Mark 3:7-21 (NASB)

Sermon Notes - Son of God

• The crowd was relentless in its pursuit of Jesus and Mark makes the point to mention the specific areas from which people were following Him.
• These geographical locations (South, West, and North) indicate that Jesus' reputation had now spread outside of traditional Jewish territory and it also revealed the mission of Jesus who was not confining His message and ministry just to the confines of Israel.
• When the Bible speaks of saving faith it means one thing - trusting in Jesus as Lord and Savior. It means transferring trust from anything else to save you and completely trust, put your faith in who Jesus is, God the Son and what He did, died on the cross for your sin.
• Saving faith is a one time, complete, and permanent transfer of trust to Jesus.

• Demons know who Jesus is. So, it is possible to give intellectual assent, to accept the facts, to acknowledge that something is true, confess that something is real, and sill not have faith. Their confession was not a confession of commitment, but of fear and even opposition. The demons believed in Jesus but they didn't trust Him. When they saw Him, they fell down before Him and shouted You are the Son of God but it was not an act of worship. Their Christology was accurate, their faith was absent.
• The irony is that the demons were willing to confess who Jesus was but the religious leaders were not.

• When we hear the word disciple we probably think of the twelve disciples that Jesus appointed in these verses, but Jesus had many disciples or people who initially followed Him but did not continue to do so.
• But the appointment of the twelve involved a different kind of responsibility and authority, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons.
• The number 12 may parallel the 12 tribes of Israel, expressing Jesus' claim on the whole nation of Israel.
• We don't know for what Jesus prayed but the context seems to indicate that He was praying about those whom He would choose to be His disciples. Maybe He was praying specifically for each of these twelve men and the fact that He would spend all night in prayer is an indication of the seriousness of His choice.
• Jesus called a group of very diverse individuals to serve Him. As far as we know they had no formal religious training, were not men of higher education; not one was a scholar or rabbi. They did not hold positions of prominence or importance and with perhaps the exception of Levi, were not wealthy. They had no extraordinary skills and perhaps as many as seven of the twelve were fishermen. They did not all hold to the same political views and did not agree on everything.

• Jesus is going to come to under attack from two very different fronts.
• The first is His own family.
• What had Jesus' family heard? The immediate context seems to indicate that they heard He was not able to eat, was not giving consideration to His own needs or taking proper care of Himself so in a kind of intervention they traveled thirty miles from Nazareth to plead with Him to come home and get some rest.
• But Marks says they came to take custody of Him because they were concerned that He had lost His senses. The word for take custody means to grab, to seize, to get authority over. It seems they came to physically remove Him from His environment.
• From their perspective Jesus had lost His senses. The word means to be out of one's mind, to be insane so perhaps His family thought He was having a mental breakdown and becoming mentally unbalanced - that He was going crazy.
• The second group of accusers are the Scribes who travel ninety miles down from Jerusalem with the accusation that Jesus Himself is demon possessed (v. 22).
• Matthew gives us some background omitted by Mark (Matthew 12:22-24)
• The fact that the scribes make the journey is a strong indication that the stories of the "Miracle Man" had reached the upper echelons of Jewish leadership!
• The scribes had previously accused him of blasphemy and criticized him for eating with sinners but now they claim that Jesus' ability to cast out demons is because He is possessed by Beelzebub.
• Beelzebub means lord of the flies but in Hebrew and Jewish literature, it was translated lord of dung or lord of filth.
• The evolution of Beelzebub as a reference to Satan is linked to the Pharisees. The name became a bitter, scornful word and Jews began to use it as a reference to Satan.
• Jesus responded to their accusation with two illustrations (vv. 24-27) to show not just the illogic, but the absurdity of the scribe's slander.
• Jesus dealt with the second accusation first to make the self-evident point that if a kingdom or a house (household) is divided against itself in purpose and goals, it cannot stand.
• In short, the unforgivable sin is attributing the mighty miracle working power of Jesus to Satan.
• The only unpardonable sin today is continued unbelief. There is no pardon for a person who dies in his rejection of Christ.

• Jesus is not denying the existence or the importance of physical family but He introduces a new concept regarding the family of God, that there are relationships that are higher than flesh and blood which even transcend loyalty to earthly families. Dearer even than His own earthly family were those who were His brothers and sisters and his mother in the family of God.
• All who do the will of God are His family which means that we who are brothers and sisters in Christ are family and Christ's command to us is to love one another.