I invite you to open up your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 3, verses 20 to 35, and I hope you're enjoying the study of the gospel of Mark. If I can be honest, the gospel of Mark, in my mind, was ranked four out of four gospels, right? I don't know. I just always was least interested in the Gospel of Mark when you could go to Matthew, who has more teaching, and Luke has more different accounts, and John's just like my favorite book ever written. And so, Mark was coming, I mean, he wasn't on the podium, he wasn't getting gold, silver, bronze, he was just Mark. And the more time that I have spent with Mark, the more I've realized how underestimated his writing of the gospel really is. And I'm excited because tonight we get to our First Markan Sandwich. Alright, and I don't know if you know what this is, but this is something that Mark uses regularly throughout the book. The technical term for it would be an interlacation, where he begins one account or one story and then interrupts it with another story, and then comes back to the original story in a way that just gives a deeper meaning than if he told the stories by themselves. I don't know why I thought we needed to do this, but this is what a sandwich looks like. If you've never seen one before, everybody, okay? And we also have one on the screen, so we're really making a point here, right? But if you take your Jersey Mikes, I don't know if anybody's been there lately, right? But it's delicious. We're going to start here with Jesus' family, then the Pharisees are going to show up and have some beef, and then we're going to get back to Jesus’ family. So let me read the text and show you the genius level that Mark is working on. And when you realize how many sandwiches there are going to be in the Gospel of Mark, you might go look at it in a different way than you have before. So, out of respect for God's word, I want to invite everybody to stand for the public reading of Scripture, and I want you to follow along as I read about Mark 3:20-35. This is the word of God.
Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him and 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 has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But 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. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.” And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
That's the reading of God's word. Please go ahead, grab your seat. There is a handout there in your bulletin if you want to take some notes as we go through this sandwich. So, hopefully you can see that, everybody. In verse 20 and 21, Mark clearly brings up how his family is going to come and talk some sense into him. It's like they're going to arrest him. They're going to take him aside and set him in order, because he's out of his mind. He's not even eating. Alright? Well, he's so busy teaching, and there are so many crowds coming to him, he's not even eating. You can imagine the conversation that would happen back in Nazareth with perhaps Mary and the brothers. And I heard he's not even eating. What? How? What about his health? How is he not even eating? They're concerned. And so here they come. But then, while we hear about them coming with their concern about him, well, here come scribes from Jerusalem, all the way down, perhaps from the Temple, from the Council of the seventy in the Sanhedrin. And here they come all the way to Galilee because they want to see for themselves what everybody's talking about with Jesus and what he is doing. And so, they come and they're not saying that he's out of his mind. They're saying he's of Satan.
And so, this sandwich that we have, these two different accounts mashed together by Mark, it's two examples of opposition. So, when Mark does these intercalations, sometimes there's a comparison that you can see. Sometimes he uses them to form a contrast, kind of like it's like a proverb. You might have two lines that say the same thing, and by having the two lines together, you can get more meaning out of it. Or sometimes, the two lines will say two opposite things, and that can teach you more about it, but Mark decides to show us this open opposition that Jesus is now experiencing, and he shows it through family, and he shows it through religious leaders.
So, if you are going to take notes, let's get that down for number one: “Jesus experienced opposition.” That's what both of these accounts are all about. There's already been controversy in chapter 2 and into the beginning of chapter 3, about the ministry of Jesus, controversy where the Pharisees, at the end of it, were meeting with the Herodians because they wanted to kill him. Well, now we have just outright opposition against him, where his family thinks they need to talk some sense into Jesus. And these religious leaders, these scribes, they're just openly speaking contradictory evil things against Jesus, blasphemies, really. And Jesus, he's really offended because they're blaspheming the Holy Spirit specifically. So, let's look at what it says there in verse 21, “When his family heard it, they went out to seize him.” Now this is pretty serious, because this same phrase here for “seize him” is when they're going to arrest him later on in the Garden of Gethsemane. So, this isn't just like we need to talk to Jesus. This is like, really, he needs an intervention, is the idea right here. The crowds being all around him, he's not even eating. He's out of his mind. He's going crazy.
So, your first dash there under point number one is: “His family called him a lunatic.” I mean, that's what they're saying here. They're saying he's out of his mind. He's not thinking correctly. He's losing perspective. They're acting like this is crazy. He's in that house, and there are all those people jammed in there, and he's teaching them way into the night. This is not normal. This is he's getting a little too into this, and his family is going to come talk to him. Now, turn over to chapter 6, verse 3, and we can see how we're going to see who is the family of Jesus? Who should we be thinking of here? Well later on in chapter 6, when he goes to his hometown of Nazareth, they're going to say about Jesus in verse 3. And he gets a very rough reception in his hometown of Nazareth, and they're going to say in verse 3, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of,” and notice here we get four brothers, James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and two of those brothers we end up knowing because they write books of the Bible, the Book of James and the book of Jude but those are two of the guys mentioned there. But notice, “and are not His sisters here with us.” Okay, so sisters in the plural. So, we've got Mary, we've got four brothers, and then we've got at least two sisters, meaning that Jesus is one out of at least seven children, and he was known in Nazareth for being a carpenter, following up in the way of his father, Joseph, who apparently, maybe is no longer living, because he's not mentioned here anymore. And he's not mentioned when his family comes. It's his mother and his brothers, specifically.
Now, if you're taking notes, under that, you might want to write down John 2, because in John 2, Mary, when they're at that wedding in Cana and they run out of wine, Mary's the one who instigates like, hey, Jesus, they're out of wine. Like, you should do something about this. And what does Jesus say to his mom, Mary? He says, “Woman, my hour has not yet come.” So, she understands there's something to Jesus, and she's pushing Jesus towards it. And he's like, hey, I'm not really thinking I'm going to do this right now, but he does end up doing it. If you write down John, chapter 7, you can see his interaction with his brothers. When there's a Feast of Booths or Tabernacles going on in Jerusalem, his brothers give him a hard time and they're like, hey, if you're really somebody, why don't you go to this feast and kind of show everybody who you are? Wouldn't that be what you would want to do if you want everybody to believe in you? So, it's clear that his brothers are not believing in him. In John, chapter 7, which would be around the same time here as Mark, chapter 3, Jesus' own brothers are not ready to be leaders in his church or writers of the Greek New Testament. They're kind of giving their brother a hard time, like, why don't you go there? They're putting this pressure on him, and it's out of a skepticism that they have about their own brother. Okay, so you can see there's tension. This is what I get so concerned about when the kids come back home. Obviously, somebody sent them to camp with a church. So, that bodes really well. But I wonder, like, when people get saved and then they go tell their mom and their brothers and their family members and their friends, hey, I'm following Jesus. Like, not everybody's like, hey, that's a great thing. You should do that. Not everybody's encouraging them. A lot of people are like, I think you're getting too into this. I think, yeah, I don't know if you want to start going to church all the time, or reading your Bible all the time, or listening to worship songs all the time. That seems like you're a little out of your mind. This is a common reaction that family members have in Matthew. When he sends out his twelve, he warns them that he didn't come to bring peace, but he came to bring a sword. He says in Matthew, chapter 10, that that the gospel of Jesus is going to divide families and some of the harshest, most intense persecution against believers comes from the members of their own family. And Jesus didn't just say that. That's what's going to happen to other people.
Mark is giving us a glimpse that Jesus experienced but it doesn't tell us what happens when Jesus eventually goes out there and talks to his family. But they had some words for him. They had something to say to him. They were trying to take him away from there, like Jesus, you've gone too far with this. And so, he experienced that from his family. Now, the second way of opposition here, notice how we just get a little bit of that. If you go back to Mark 3, we just get two verses and the scribes, right? So, we go straight from the family to the scribes coming down from Jerusalem, and they've got something even more intense to say than you're loony, you're losing your mind. No, you are actually of Satan. You are actually demon-possessed yourself. Beelzebub. Here is a very interesting idea. It could come from Baal, if you know that idol, that could be what it morphed into. But clearly, when Jesus responds about Satan casting out Satan, the term Beelzebub is referring to the prince of the demons, the leader of the evil spiritual forces in the heavenly places. Oh, yeah. The reason this guy can cast out all those spirits is he's one of those spirits himself. That's what the religious leaders are now promoting about Jesus.
Let's get that down for our second dash: “Religious leaders called him satanic.” They called him satanic. They're not acting like he's doing good things. They're acting like he's evil, and they've come from Jerusalem, probably on an official mission to squash whatever this is going on with Jesus, and to tell everybody this isn't from God. This is actually evil. They're here to contradict Jesus, to oppose him to his face, and to spread a counter message out there about Jesus Christ.
Now go over to chapter 7, verse 1, and you'll see that these scribes from Jerusalem, they're going to stick around and be an ongoing part of the gospel of Mark. So, we're meeting the family of Jesus, and we're going to keep hearing more about them when we go to Nazareth, and we're also meeting these scribes from Jerusalem, if you look at Mark 7, verse 1. “Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.” And now we're going to give Jesus a hard time, always trying to find problems with him. Never able to find problems with Jesus they could sometimes find problems with the disciples. So, they go after them to try to get to Jesus. But you can see that this is going to be an ongoing opposition against Jesus, where there are scribes from Jerusalem teaming up with these Pharisees who already want to kill him, and their goal is to find a reason to turn the crowd against Jesus.
So, if you're trying to really do ministry, if you're trying to really make disciples and spread the gospel, you should expect opposition in the same way that Jesus experiences it here. A lot of times, the strongest opposition comes from the most zealous religious people. That's a lot of times where the strongest opposition comes from. If it doesn't come from a family, it can come from people who claim to be Christians. I have definitely been opposed by people who claim to be Christians more than any other group of people in my life. That's how it goes. Somebody comes and they say, Jesus taught me this. I learned this at camp. Wow. God really opened my eyes to see this. And they say that to somebody else, thinking we're all on the same team, and then the other person starts saying to them, oh no, it's not like that. It's more like this. And immediately, they take this impressionable, zealous new believer, and they just conform them into what they think religion is. Happens all the time. Hey, I just realized the other day I'm still living in my sin. God opened my eyes, and I just became a Christian the other day. What are you talking about? Man, you've been a Christian for a long time. It's just like this. People say that to each other all the time. What do you mean? Like, here's somebody telling you, hey, I have a secret. I've been in sin this whole time. I never told you about it before, but now God's opened my eyes, and now I'm turning to him, and he's doing this new work in my life. And immediately it gets contradicted. It gets opposed. No, it's not like that. You're already here with us over here. This is how it is. No, Jesus can't come and start this revival, this movement of discipleship, this kingdom, he can't come. No, no, no, no, we already have this figured out. Since Moses, it's just like this over here. Stop that. No, it's like this. In fact, that's evil, that's satanic, that's wrong, that's not what it is. So, these are the two ways that Mark wants to say, hey, is your family persecuting you? Are religious people opposing you? Well, look at how it happened with Jesus.
And now, let's learn not just from the two accusations against Jesus, but look at how Jesus addresses these issues that maybe many of us have been opposed by religious people or our own families. Let's make sure we really hear what Jesus says. Let's start with what he says there in the middle of the sandwich. If you go back to Mark 3, look at verse 23; Jesus initiates a dialog with these scribes who came down from Jerusalem. He called them to him, and he starts with parables. He starts saying, so let me get this straight. You guys are saying that Satan is casting out Satan. So, we're in agreement that there are a lot of unclean spirits in the Gospel of Mark. We're in agreement that there are a lot of unclean spirits being cast out in Galilee at this time. It would be pretty hard to disagree when the spirits are crying out and the spirits are, we'll see, there's legions of them. We'll see they're throwing people around like there's definitely unclean spirits. So, we can agree that there are unclean spirits. Okay, so now you're saying that Satan is casting out Satan. Well, how's that going to work? If a kingdom is divided within itself, is that kingdom going to stand? If a house is divided in itself, is that house going to be able to stand? So, if Satan, if there's some kind of civil war going on among the evil spiritual forces, then how are they still going to be here, possessing and oppressing so many people? Is that really making sense, that Satan is casting out Satan? Is that what you're saying? There's a civil war going on there? You see how Jesus is using kind of parables, stories, examples, analogies here to say you guys really think that the forces of evil are just going to implode upon themselves. Is that how you think it's going to work? Like we can tell they're out there possessing people, and they're out there deceiving people, and they're out there causing destruction and lies. I mean, the thief. He came to steal, kill and destroy, and he's doing it. And you're going to say they're just going to fight amongst each other. And I think this passage because this idea of the unforgivable sin, which comes up here in verses 28 and 29.
So many people over the years have asked me about the unforgivable sin that Jesus mentions here that I think people kind of miss what he says in verse 27. He says, “But 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.” Like I'm coming and I'm casting demons out of people. Something Mark has made very clear to us, Jesus keeps doing over and over and over again. In fact, back in verse 12, we got the idea that he was strictly ordering these demons not to make him known, like he had to do this many times or much times. And so, what Jesus is saying there, talking about, you’ve got to go into the strong man's house. You’ve got to bind the strong man if you want to take possession of what he has and take the plunder. Jesus is saying, no, I'm stronger than these unclean spirits. I'm coming and I'm overpowering them. I have authority over them. I'm casting them out because of who I am. Jesus is saying he's able to bind the strong man. He's able to take the strong man. He's referring to Satan as someone who has strength, someone who's not infighting among the rest of the demons. No. Satan has a kingdom of darkness, and the kingdom of darkness is out there doing something. It just can't compete with the kingdom of light. And when he comes and he binds the strong man, then he can take what belongs to the strong man, and that's these people that he's delivering from demonic oppression.
Go with me to Isaiah 53. I showed you this on Good Friday, if you were here, but just to remind you, or in case you weren't here on Good Friday, I want everybody to go to the end of Isaiah 53 because when Jesus talks about plundering the strong man's house, I think he's referring to this prophecy that we know is about him being the Man of Sorrows, how he dies for us. He's pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and then also how he how he rises from the dead, how his days are prolonged. And that's what it says in verse 10, that he shall see his offspring, those that he dies for. He's going to get to see them. His days will be prolonged. He's not going to stay dead. He's going to have days after he makes the sacrifice for our sins. And so, the last two verses of Isaiah 53, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,” that's Jesus, “He shall make many to be accounted righteous” by Jesus offering Himself in our place, being our sacrifice to pay for our sins. And then all of us who put our faith in Jesus, we receive his righteousness imputed to us and given to our account as a free gift by God's grace. Well, it says, the righteous one is going to “make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”
So, Jesus, he's going to win many souls out of darkness and into light. He's going to turn them from the power of Satan to the power of God. And how's he going to do this? He's going to come in and be stronger than Satan. He's going to plunder Satan's house. He's going to bind the strong man and take what belongs to him. If Satan is the god of this age, if he's the ruler of this world, if he's the prince of the power of the air, well, one thing you can know here tonight is Jesus is much stronger than Satan, and he can stop Satan, contain Satan, and he can take what belongs to Satan for himself. That's what he came to do. Now he didn't come by the power of Satan to defeat Satan. He has his own power, and he wants to even say where his power comes from. Go back to Mark, chapter 3, and this is the part that I want to make sure everybody here sees because there are so many, if you start doing internet searches and chat GPT and YouTube videos on the unforgivable sin, the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, who knows what you might find out there on the internet, my friends. And so, I just want to help you really think through what Jesus is saying here, because he says, and he says it in a provocative way. Jesus, he says things to make an impact. Especially this is our first time we get to hear Jesus say in Mark 3:28, as we go through this gospel, “Truly, I say to you,” the first of thirteen times in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus says, I'm about to say something that's going to be hard to believe is true, so I want to front load it with “truly”. I say to you, you need to listen to this. This is important. All sins will be forgiven the children of man. Now remember, back in chapter 2, verse 10, he made it very clear to the scribes that he had authority on earth to forgive sins. So, here he's now saying, hey, I'm here to forgive sins. All sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter, you say some something bad about God, you say some curse about me, even perhaps Jesus is saying here, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin, for they were saying he has an unclean spirit.
So, notice verse 30. So, what is this all about, this unforgivable sin, this blasphemy that you can do, that you can't ever be forgiven of? Well, it's about the Spirit. By which spirit is Jesus casting out the spirits? Okay, so the Greek word for spirit is pneuma and Mark, he calls them demons sometimes, but a lot of times he calls them unclean spirits. So, if you're reading in Greek, it becomes very clear we have the agios spirit there in verse 29, and then we have the akathartos spirit in verse 30. So, you have the Holy Spirit, and then you have the unclean spirit. And Jesus is saying the thing you can't be forgiven for, the thing you can't come back from, is when you act like this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, is an unclean spirit. No, I'm doing this by the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, and you guys are calling the Holy Spirit an unclean spirit; you're rejecting the way that God is working by the power of his Holy Spirit.
So, this is something we need. Jesus has power. Jesus has authority. But if you listen to Jesus, Jesus doesn't just talk about himself. He often refers to the Father giving him authority, to the Father sending him to do his will. And Jesus here is referring to not just his own strength to bind Satan, but Jesus is referring here, I'll tell you by what spirit I'm casting out these demons, by the Holy Spirit. How dare you call him an unclean spirit when he is the Holy Spirit.
And so, Mark has already made a very compelling point that Jesus was really empowered by the Spirit. When Jesus put on flesh, and Jesus is one of us as a human being, the Spirit descends upon him, and the spirit is empowering Jesus. Go back to Mark, chapter 1, where Mark really tried to make this very clear as the introduction, and really, Mark's introduction is not the kind of introduction that you can just move past and then read the rest of the story. No, the way Mark tells the beginning, everything's building off of that. And so, when John the Baptist comes and John the Baptist is fulfilling the prophecy, hey, make your paths straight. Hey, straight away, immediately, at once, you need to get ready, because here comes the Lord. And then when Jesus comes and John baptizes him, look what it says in Mark 1:10, “And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove.” Now, let me just make it very clear, the spirit was not a dove, right? Just like a dove might land, so the Spirit descended upon him. And then look at verse 12, “The spirit immediately cast him out into the wilderness.” So, the same word that is used about Jesus casting out demons, like Jesus has the power and authority to send those demons out, well here it says the Spirit has the power and authority to send Jesus out into the wilderness. It uses the same word; Mark is using that word intentionally. Jesus has a spirit. Yes, it's the Holy Spirit. That's the spirit that Jesus has, and the spirit sends him out into the wilderness where, look what it says about that in verse 12, “The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.” So, he already did a forty day face-off with Satan. And how he was able to have the power to endure forty day face-off with Satan while he was sent there by the Spirit.
Now see, Jesus is claiming to have a Spirit. He's claiming to have a power, but he's saying it's agios, it's holy. It's of God. It's not akathartos, it's not unclean, like the way you're talking about it. Jesus is offended, not necessarily about what they're saying about himself, but what they're saying about the Holy Spirit. And the whole promise that the gospel of Mark began with when he quoted John the Baptist, was not only that your sins could be forgiven, but remember in verse 8, go back to Mark 1:8, where John the Baptist said that this “one who's coming, the one who is greater, who's mightier than I. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with” what, everybody? The Holy Spirit. So, Jesus now has the Holy Spirit. He's doing powerful things. And the promise of John the Baptist to everyone who would listen is that he can place you into the Holy Spirit. So, it's not just that Jesus has the Spirit. No, the promises like Jesus, yes, he has the spirit, and he's going to give his people the Holy Spirit. So, this is the thing. If you do this, you can't be forgiven. If you do this, you're never coming back from it. You'll always be guilty of sin for all of eternity. The thing you can't do is reject the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit is doing a mighty work, and clearly Jesus casting out these demons is a mighty work that the spirit was doing. And then you say, no, I don't think that's from God. No, I don't believe in that. I reject that. Well then, how can you be saved if the Spirit that comes to save you is being rejected by you? That's the issue. The issue is what they're doing with the Holy Spirit. They're claiming that the Holy Spirit, the power of the living God, working through Jesus, they're saying it's of Satan rather than of God. Well, if God's going to come and reveal himself to you, and you're going to reject it and say, that's of Satan, then how do you get saved if you're rejecting the way of salvation?
See, so the Holy Spirit, he does work on each one of us, even before we are saved. The Holy Spirit is working on us so that we can even understand the things we need to know to be saved. Go to John 14, 15, and 16 with me. Let's go and hear what Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit. Not only is the unforgivable sin, got people all over the internet saying all kinds of crazy things. Just the idea of the Holy Spirit has people at churches saying all kinds of crazy things about the Holy Spirit. If you really want to know who the Holy Spirit is, who also goes by other names, like the Helper and the Spirit of Truth. When Jesus introduces him here in John 14, 15, and 16, I would suggest to you that the best text of Scripture to read to try to understand who the Holy Spirit is, and what he's here to do is let Jesus introduce him to you as he teaches his disciples at his last supper in John 14, 15, and 16. And so, Jesus, he's going to say a couple of things here about the Spirit.
Now I think we have a verse I want to throw up here on the screen before I keep going on into the spirit, I want to give you Matthew 12:28 just to help you see that the issue of the unforgivable sin, or the blasphemy that you can't be forgiven for, is the Holy Spirit, because look at how it says it in Matthew. “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” So, I'm not doing this just in and of myself. I do have a Spirit, but it's the Spirit of God. And if I'm casting out the demons by the Spirit of God, that means I'm bringing in the kingdom. And if you're rejecting the Spirit of God, then how are you going to get in the kingdom? And so, that's what he's saying. The issue here is whether you reject the work of the Holy Spirit, or whether you receive the work of the Holy Spirit. That's what's going to lead you to salvation, or not. And if you listen to his teaching, like here in John 15, if you go to John 15 to the end of the chapter, verse 26, we'll just jump in with this. He calls him the Holy Spirit, but he also calls him the Spirit of Truth. He also calls him the Helper. I would encourage you to use all three of those names when you refer to the Spirit of our God, the third person of the Trinity. Yes, he is holy. He is set apart. He is of God, yes, but he is also known for bringing us the truth. And he's also known as the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside the one who is the helper, the encourager. And so, look what Jesus says here in John 15:26, “When the Helper comes and whom I will send to you from the Father.” Hey guys, here, he's coming. Let me tell you the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father. He will bear witness about me. So, the only way that you could have the witness of Jesus brought to you, I mean, you need somebody like the disciples telling you about it. You need somebody to share with you the gospel. Faith comes by hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. Somebody's got to speak it. But the Holy Spirit is the one who opens your eyes so you can see that Jesus really is the Son of God, and he really did die for your sins on the cross, and he really did rise from the dead, and he's alive right now, glorified at the right hand, ready to return and reign in his kingdom. If you believe all that, there's only one way that you believe that the Helper, the Spirit of Truth, he's the one who bore witness to you, you couldn't even see that. That's spiritually discerned, that's not naturally discerned, that's not just common sense logic. Figured it out. No, the way you could really see who the Savior is, is the Holy Spirit helped you to see that. The Holy Spirit gave you the truth to see that.
Go over to chapter 16. Look what Jesus says here in verse 7, as he continues to interweave the Holy Spirit throughout his teaching. On the last night, he says, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth.” So, here's another hey, let me front load this, that this is true, because it's going to be hard for you to believe, “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I go, then I'll send him to you.” Do you realize what Jesus is saying to these disciples who are heartbroken at the thought of Jesus leaving them and are scared about being without Jesus. Jesus says it's going to be better than having me here with you to have the Holy Spirit in you. Do you believe that it's to your advantage? Like if somebody gave me the choice, especially a few years ago, before I started learning this from the Gospel of John. Would you rather have Jesus here right now, or the invisible spirit of God inside of you right now? Most of us, I think, would be like, give me Jesus, right? Well, no, Jesus would not say that. Jesus says, it's to your advantage that I go, because then wait till the Helper comes, and the Helper, look what he says in verse 8. “When He comes, he will convict the world concerning” what? Sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me. So even ever before you believed in Jesus, you started realizing I'm not living the right way. The things that I'm doing are wrong. You started feeling guilty. You started getting convicted. You started to have your eyes open to see I am wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, naked, I'm not a good person. I am a sinner. If you ever came to the realization that you are a sinner, do you want to know how that happened? The Spirit of the Living God convicted you, and the Spirit of the Living God showed you Jesus.
So, even before you could believe in Jesus, you had to be convicted of your sin by the Spirit, and you had to have the Spirit bear witness to you who Jesus is. Then you could believe in Jesus, and as you believe in Jesus, well, now the Spirit comes and indwells you and empowers you and causes you to live a new way and walking the way of Jesus and be careful to obey his commands. But the Holy Spirit, he had to convict you of your sin and show you Jesus is the Savior before you could even be born again. This is the work Jesus is saying, if the Spirit of God is coming and he's doing his powerful work upon you. And you're like, that's satanic, that's demonic. I'm not a sinner. I don't need Jesus. If you reject what the Spirit is teaching you, then how are you going to be saved? You could forget. You could be forgiven for all of your sins, if you would let the Spirit convict you that you are a sinner. You could really know who Jesus is, if the Spirit could open your eyes to see. But if the Spirit comes to do his work, and you're like, that's not the work of God, that's satanic, well then, how do you get saved? When the Spirit’s over here just putting the demons on notice and casting out all the unclean spirits in the area, doing a mighty work through Jesus, and then these guys are going to come from Jerusalem and say it's actually an unclean spirit. He has a demon himself. That's why he's able to do this. No, this is the work of God. Jesus is saying; the work of the Holy Spirit is what leads you to salvation. And if you reject the Holy Spirit, how will you be saved?
I wonder how many people have come to this church, and they have heard a sermon and the Spirit speaking through the word that he inspired through the chapters and the verses that he inspired men to write. And now the spirit is bringing you the Word, and you're hearing the Word, and the Word is convicting you. And your heart, I wonder how many people have heard the word at this church and then they went out and they acted like, yeah, I'm not that bad. Yeah, I'm okay. They rejected the work of the Holy Spirit. I wonder how many times people have come, even this auditorium, just in the short time we've been doing this in here, and how many times people have been like, wow, look who Jesus is, and the Holy Spirit's bearing witness to them as they get to see something spiritually discerned. And then they just go out of here, and they keep living like Jesus is no big deal, and he makes no difference in their life. The Spirit of God was working. I don't really need that. So, when the Spirit of God is working in such a demonstrable way, right in front of these scribes, and they're ready to call it an unclean spirit, when it's actually the Holy Spirit, Jesus says that rejection of the Holy Spirit, now you can't get the forgiveness. Now your guilt of sin will remain for all of eternity if he's the one that convicts you of sin, and he's the one who shows you Christ and you're rejecting him, what hope do you have?
There's no other way to be saved than by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the new covenant that was promised to us. Is God would put His Spirit in us. Do you realize what Jesus is saying? He's saying, How dare you refer to the Spirit of God as an unclean spirit. And you know what? I hear a lot of Christians at this church not necessarily blaspheme the Holy Spirit, but we sure don't act like we have the power of the living God living in us on a flesh to Spirit comparison. I hear a lot of people at church act like the flesh might be stronger than the Spirit. I don't think Jesus would appreciate us talking like that. I think Jesus wants us to know that he is stronger, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” Can I get an Amen from anybody like, yeah, Jesus is overwhelming the demons because he's got the power of the Holy Spirit. And these Pharisees, these scribes, they're not getting it. Here's what Jesus wants you to get. You have the Holy Spirit. You have the Helper. You have the Spirit of Truth. Every day, when you wake up, you have a power that is greater than you, greater than evil spiritual forces, greater than this evil world that we're living in, greater than even the temptations and desires of your own flesh. You have the Helper, the Spirit of Truth in you. Do you really embrace that? Do you have that mindset? Are you one of the people who's like, I want to be filled with the Spirit as often as I can be. I want as much of my life from here to when I get to see Jesus and I get made like him, and then when I see Jesus, and I'm made like him, I won't have any sin within me. Eventually, through Jesus reigning, there won't even be sin around me. Like I can't wait for that. But until I'm there with Jesus, he said it's to my advantage, because I've got the Holy Spirit here in me, and so I want to spend as much of my time from when I wake up to go to sleep, and I want to be under the influence of the Spirit. I want to be keeping in step with the Spirit. I want to be living out the power of the Spirit. I want love and joy and peace and gentleness and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and self-control. I want to do things that there's no law anywhere on earth against them, because I've died with Jesus to who I used to be, and I now live, no longer in my flesh, but I live by the Spirit. Do you live like that? Is it just you against the world? Because you have someone who is greater than the world living in you. And I hear way too many people talk like it's you against the world or us against the world. No, the Holy Spirit has the power over Satan. He's the one.
See, I think some of us, we want everything we do to be manageable, everything we do to be under our control, and you're never going to learn how to depend on the spirit. You're never going to learn how to tap into supernatural power, if everything you do is just nice and neat in the natural world that we live in. When do you come up against the enemy? When do you come up against the evil? Do you ever face opposition? Or are you trying to keep your life so managed that there's no opposition you ever encounter? Maybe you're unaware of the opposition that happens within your own self and your own temptations that you need the power of the Spirit for. Go over to back to Mark and go to Mark 13, because Jesus is going to talk about this time. We're going to get to Mark 13 when he talks about this time of Tribulation. And there's the there's the birth pangs, and then there's the Seven Years of Tribulation. And in the middle of that, there's the abomination of desolation, where this Antichrist figure is going to declare himself to be god in the temple. But, but when Jesus is describing all of this in the Olivet Discourse here in Mark 13, he brings up a couple of things. Look at what he says in verses 12 and 13. “So in that time of tribulation,” like things are going to be maxed out to the most intense degree. And so, notice what it says here. The two forms of opposition we're seeing in Mark 3 are repeated by Jesus here in Mark 13, in verse 12, it says, “And brother will deliver brother over to death. Father his child, children will rise against parents and have them put to death.” So, in this time, anyone who believes there's going to be intense persecution, many people will be martyred. And it's saying they'll be martyred even by opposition within their own families. And then go back a few verses. Look at verse 9. He says, “Be on your guard, for they will deliver you over to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them. And the Gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. And when they bring you to trial and they deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the” who everybody? Are you so busy avoiding any situation that you would have to speak, that you don't experience the power of the Spirit speaking through you? See, that's what we're supposed to have. We're supposed to have like people are supposed to think that we aren't ordinary people. We're not normal human beings. You guys are like, possessed. You guys have a Spirit. Exactly. We do not have an unclean spirit, not a demon. We have the Helper. We have the Spirit of Truth. We have the Spirit the Holy One, the Spirit of God. God has put his Spirit in us. And I just wish we lived more like that, that we have the Spirit. And Jesus is looking at these guys like, no, I've got the Holy Spirit, not the unclean spirit. And if you reject him, the Holy Spirit, there's no forgiveness of sins, there's nothing but judgment down that path. No, the Holy Spirit, he can show you your sin, he can show you Christ, and then he can actually indwell you in such a way that he'll get you doing things you could have never seen yourself doing. He'll make you to become someone you wouldn't even believe you could be. That's what the helper does. This Paraclete, this one, he actually like causes you to do it. He makes you careful to do it. There's a great power that we have in the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, he's saying, if you reject the Holy Spirit, then there's no forgiveness. There's no salvation.
Now go back to Mark, chapter 3, because after he says that in response to them, first part of his answer, I've got more power than Satan, second part of his answer, and the Spirit, yes, I have a Spirit, but it's the Holy Spirit. If you keep referring to it as an unclean spirit, how will your sins be forgiven? How will your guilt not remain in eternity? That's the unforgivable sin, is the rejection of the Holy Spirit. Now, notice how Mark writes it like a sandwich. We just got a little taste of his family. Then we got caught up in the meat of the scribes from Jerusalem. Oh, but almost like the way Mark writes, it is like almost right when this conversation ends, boom, here comes the family. They made it from Nazareth over here to Capernaum. And his mother and his brothers came, and they're standing outside, and they said to him, so I just think this is really well done. I'm now becoming a huge fan of Mark. I'm trying not to rank Gospels of which one's the best, but I just love what Mark's doing, like, almost like we cut to a scene in Nazareth where they're like, he's out of his mind. He's not even eating. I don't know. That's not how we raised him. Let's go talk to him, right? And here they come. And then, oh, here's other opposition. Look at what the religious leaders are saying. And then, so neatly done by Mark, it almost gives you the impression that, right when that was done, they showed up. And so now we're back in this house that's cram packed with the crowd just jammed in there, and he can't even eat. And why can't he eat? Because these people are, they're staying a long time. You know what I mean? I mean he's teaching them, and they're going late into the night, and then maybe one crew leaves, another crew comes in for next service. I don't know exactly how it went, but this is just too much. This is unmanageable. This is out of control. You're out of your mind, right?
So, we’ve got to come and then notice how Jesus uses this moment that his mother and his brothers are outside, and the crowd says to him, it comes in, maybe like the telephone game. Hey Jesus, your family's here. Hey Jesus, your mother and your brothers. They here to see you. Look how Jesus answered them. I mean this. Look how he says provocative things, so that you will think about them. And as we listen to what Jesus says, please don't be like, well, that's not what I thought, or that's not what this preacher said. I just hope you can actually hear what Jesus says before you already think you know what it is. Look at what he says. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Now that's a pretty interesting question. They're the people outside. It's Mary. She's pretty famous all over the world. Jesus means no disrespect to his family when he says that; we’ve got to be clear about that. When Jesus is dying on the cross, he looks at John and he says, John, your mom, referring to Mary. Here's Jesus making sure that his mom is taken care of, that she is showed honor. Okay, the brothers of Jesus are going to end up believing in Jesus, at least James and Jude, and writing books of the Bible, and James becomes a clear leader in the church in Jerusalem. So, he's not disrespecting his family, but he is trying to say something to you and to anyone who will listen to him, looking about at those who sat around him, the people who are spending way too much time not eating, talking about the kingdom with him. Here are my mother and my brothers. Hey, the people that are with me here, we're spending this time together. We're getting into the Word together. You guys are my mother and my brothers. Can you imagine if you're one of the disciples of Jesus. If you're one of the people that's been following him around day after day, you're being with him. You're learning from his teaching. You're learning how he does his healings and casting out demons, and you're seeing this crowd. And then Jesus acts like you're his mother, you're his brothers. Man, that must have made your heart sore if you heard Jesus say that to you. You must have felt like that was, maybe, one of the best things anybody could have ever said to you. And then he clarifies what he means by that. Look at what he says, “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Now I don't know what happens? I assume that after he says that he scooches his way outside and gets an earful from I don't know who Mary or the bros, I don't know what they would say to him about him being out of his mind. So, I would assume that he went and talked to his family, and they had some kind of conversation. But that's not what Mark tells us. The point is, Jesus identified with a new family.
So I haven't even given you guys point number two, alright, so let's go back to point number two: “Jesus operated by the Spirit's power.” Okay? And, not only did Jesus operate by the Spirit's power, but let's get this down for our dash there: “You have the same helper.” All right, so there's opposition, but look at the power that Jesus has, and consider for a moment that you have that power. Yes, you're not one of the three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but you have the Spirit of God in you. Okay? So that's one thing we're seeing is look at the power that Jesus had, a power that is also presented to us.
Okay, but now look at the identity that Jesus had here in number three. Let's put number three up there: “Jesus identified with a new family.” Jesus, he had a mother and he had brothers. But when it keeps saying here in Mark that Jesus went home, he didn't go to their house in Nazareth, he identified, here are my mother and brothers. So, look at how not only is Jesus having a power from within, but look at who he surrounds himself outside of himself, there in his circle, in this house, it's this family. And go with me to Luke 11. I need everybody to see this, because Luke tells the same thing, but in a different way. Like, I don't know if you are a sandwich connoisseur, but you know, sometimes different places put a little different spin on a sandwich. You know, you go and you get your Cuban sandwich here and your Cuban sandwich there. They're not exactly the same, but they're all a Cuban sandwich. Well, that's what happens here in Luke, chapter 11, because look at just look at Luke 11 with me, and you'll see that you have Jesus and Beelzebub. So, we're having the same conversation about how does Jesus cast out demons? Well, it can't be because Satan's divided amongst himself. There's that conversation, in fact, then Jesus goes on to say, if an unclean spirit goes out of somebody, but that person doesn't get a new Spirit, well, then the unclean spirit can just come back later on. In fact, the unclean spirit could get even more spirits and come back later on. So, Jesus is kind of making the point here in Luke 11. The point isn't just to get the unclean spirit out there. You’ve got to replace the unclean spirit with a different spirit, a Holy Spirit. But then look after that, similar conversation happens in Luke 11. Then, as he said these things, you get this interjection from a woman in the crowd. This is Luke 11:27, “A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts at which you nursed.’” I mean, that's like a Jewish way to say that blessed is your mom. Your mom's got to be proud of you, Jesus. And look at what he said. And we know this is no disrespect to Mary, but look what he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” Now, can we just all hear Jesus say that before we start coming up with objections to it? Okay? What did Jesus say? Is the way of blessing those who hear the word of God and what? Do it? He spends a lot of time with these people in this house, teaching them with the expectation that they're going to do it. Hey, your mom, she must be so blessed to be your mom. Jesus says, actually, the people who are blessed are those who do what I say. Now, if somebody just came and said, well, if you want to follow Jesus, you’ve got to do what he says. People around here these days, they'd be like, well, those are fighting words. That's legalism. You don't have to do anything to be saved. How dare you say that? Okay, you could say that to somebody else. This is the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus has no problem saying that his mother and his brothers are those who do the will of God. Jesus, your mom is awesome. No, actually, you're blessed if you hear the word of God and do it.
How can Jesus talk like this? Is Jesus encouraging works-based righteousness? Is Jesus implying that anyone could earn their way to heaven or try to be a better person? Before you start thinking all of those things which Jesus is not saying, let's try to hear what he actually is saying. Okay, go back to Mark 3 and look at it there with me. I want you to see that amazing thing. Here are my mother and brothers. People are just like, wow, that's amazing. I'm in the family with Jesus, but look at what he says, “For whoever does the will of God.” That's the clarifying statement. Let's get specific. The mother of Jesus, the brothers of Jesus are those who do the will of God. Blessed is your mom? Jesus actually blessed is those who hear the Word of God and do it. Have you thought this through that Jesus talks like this? Go over to Matthew, chapter 7, verse 21 at the end of the Sermon on the Mount at the end of the best example we have of the teaching of Jesus is in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, at least. That's like his sermons to the crowds. We have another great example of his teaching at the Last Supper in John 13 to 17, in the intimacy of just his disciples. But if you're looking at what was it like to hear Jesus preach, read Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And then look at what he says in Matthew 7:21, as he's bringing his sermon to its abrupt conclusion, here's something that Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who” what, everybody? “Does the will of my Father, who is in heaven.”
And you know what? One of the brothers of Jesus that is outside the house that is making fun of him, if you're really who you are, why don't you go down there and show everybody? John 7, this guy named James, not the disciple, James, the brother of Jesus. James, he's going to end up after Jesus dies and rises again, he's going to end up believing that his brother really was the Son of God. He's going to end up being one of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, where there's all kinds of opposition. And James is going to end up writing a book of Wisdom to believers who get scattered and persecuted. And James is going to end up encouraging so many people here in this room that you can consider it all joy when you encounter various trials. And you know, one of the things James is going to say is that faith without works is what? Because he actually made it to the family of Jesus. He actually understands the brotherly code that we have. We're not just here to say we believe in Jesus. We're not just here to profess faith. We're here to do whatever Jesus says. I'm in, whatever Jesus tells me, I'll do it.
Are you kidding me? Do you know what Jesus did for me? If I love Jesus, how could I not keep his commandments? If I want to make disciples of Jesus, how could I not teach them to keep all that he commanded us? See, Jesus is saying, you can't just profess that I'm the Lord. If I'm the Lord, do it. Obey. Do what I say. Not because you're trying to make yourself better, not because you're trying to get your way to heaven, just because you love Jesus and you have seen who he really is, and if he says jump, you're thinking, how high Jesus? I'm ready to do what you say. That's what makes us a family. I never feel closer to other people than when we have opened up the Bible together and we're trying to figure out, what are we going to do based on it. Now, what does it really mean to be set apart from the world? Like, what would I actually have to say no to, and what would I actually have to say yes to? Like, like, yeah. How do I keep the commands without making it about me trying to live up to some standard. How do I really obey because I believe that Jesus died for my sins and he rose again, and so that now fuels this new life, empowered by the Spirit. What does that look like to really obey Jesus? And here we are talking about it, people from different families, different backgrounds, different cultures, and all of us now looking at the same words on the same page, saying, let's go do this together. That's the mother and the brothers of Jesus, people who are all in, not just people who are casually in, but people who are living like Jesus is Lord of their lives. And Jesus, he keeps saying this over and over. If you're in Matthew 7, just go a few verses down and you'll see it in his picture of the wise man and the foolish man. And what are you going to build your house on the rock or the sand? Look what he says in Matthew 7:24, “Everyone then, who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
What does it mean to be in the family of Jesus? It means that you do what Jesus says, you want to know what God's will is. You want to know what God's Word says. And as soon as you can see that's what God wants me to do, you're ready to do it because you love God. You're so thankful he sent his Son, Jesus, you're so blessed to have the power of the Spirit living in you. Yes, I want to do what Jesus says. I'm not doing it because I have to. No, I'm doing it because I have a father in heaven who loves me, and I have a Savior who died for me, and I have a spirit who lives within me, and I am the family of Jesus. I am a brother in Christ. I do have a Father in heaven who hears me when I pray. That's why I'm doing this, because I'm in the family.
Let's get this down for our dash there: “You have the same Father.” You have the same Father. Jesus is saying, Hey, who's my mother? Who's my brother, you're here with me. We're the people who want to hear the Word. We're the people who want to do the Word. And that's the family, the people. What is the Father's will? What does the Father want us to do. What has he made clear to us that we can see in the Scripture that the Holy Spirit is putting on our hearts? Well, then let's go do that together. That's what it means to be the family. And Jesus is identifying with the people who are in the house, hearing the teaching and are ready to go and let that teaching of God, that will of the Father, let that change their life and shape their future. And he says, that's my mother and my brothers. Those are the people who will be blessed. Those are the people on Judgment Day, I'm not going to cast them away, because I already know them. They're my family. That's what Jesus says. So, I just want you to hear that, and before you start thinking, well, it doesn't matter what we do, it's all by faith. Well, I hear your argument there. But why does Jesus keep saying, hears the Word, and does the will of the Father. That's who the family is.
We need to hear Jesus say that and think that through it matters how you and I receive the Word of God into our hearts, and it matters how we go and apply the Word of God to our lives. We are on a mission to do God's will and to teach other people how to keep his commands, because Jesus first loved us so that we might love him, and when I see my brother, and I'll tell you what, when I go to camp this year, more than ever, it was clear to me, I'm not at camp with a bunch of young people. I'm at camp with a lot of your kids, and I know some of you, and it was a lot to get your kid to that camp. You were trying to get them to want to go. You were kind of saying you're going to go. And now I see your child at camp, and I know you're at home praying for him, and I'm like, oh, Father in heaven, we’ve got a lot of our family's kids here on this pile of dirt out in the middle of nowhere. What are you going to do here, Father? And we spent hours with these kids, we kept them up late at night talking about the Bible. I didn't care what time it was. We're talking about what the Bible says, right? Sometimes we're preaching, they can't see their Bibles anymore. We're still going. And I'm thinking, Father, will you please save some of these people? I know their parents are praying to you, will you hear their prayers, Father? And I got kids coming up to me, kids saying, Well, how do I pray? How do I confess my sin? I've never done that before. And you start showing him, you start opening up. Well, here's what Jesus said, look at this right here, and here's how you would do it. And it's like, I'm helping brand new little brothers and sisters in Christ take their first baby steps. Here's what we're going to go do. Man, I got on this houseboat. This kid, he just starts crying. I never had this reaction to people before. I just step on the boat. Kid just starts crying right there in front of me. He's like, I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to ask you a question, and just the thought of asking the question, I mean, there was not enough dry material on the boat for how much this young man was crying. We're just trying to find everything to wipe his tears. He's so overwhelmed. He's so burdened. Let me give you the words of eternal life. Man, kids are jumping off boats. They're throwing footballs at our face. They're splashing around me. This kid and his buddy were so locked in, it's like none of that's even happening by the end. Man, this guy, something you could see it's like physical. He prays, he cries out to the Lord. He pours out his heart to the Lord, and his entire countenance just changes right in front of all of us and the rest of the boat. What just happened here? How does this kid go from crying to like, clearly, like having joy, having a smile, clearly, like there was something on him that has now been removed. What just happened? And then, here comes the eats team on another boat, and they come dock right next to us, and they got a whole big bag of guests. Guess what? It is sandwiches. Right? Sandwiches for everyone, and we're just sitting here eating these sandwiches of salvation. I'll never forget it, dill pickle chips, potent chips. It's crazy. They got chips that taste more like pickles than pickles these days. I don't know what's going on, and we're just all out there thinking it feels like a family, like this guy just got saved, and everybody on the boat can see it. Man, that's what we want to be as a group of people. What did Jesus tell us to do? Now, let's go do it together. Let me pray for us.
Father, we need to hear what Jesus is saying and not just stay in the what makes sense in our own minds. God, I pray that we could hear these empowering words of Jesus together tonight. And he faced such opposition from his family who thought he was out of his mind, and then this evil persecution from the scribes from Jerusalem claiming that he's satanic. He's demonic. Father, I just pray that we could hear this together. And I pray that we could see Jesus talking about your Spirit, and that by the power that's casting out the demons. And then I pray that we could hear Jesus talking about your family, that you are our Father, because we do your will, because we're your sons and your daughters, that's how we all end up as brothers and sisters in Christ, is we're now living for you, and you adopt us in by your love. And now we all have that in common, that because of your love, we want to learn your word and we want to do what it says together. So, I pray that that would be true of this church of people in Huntington Beach, California, that we would be empowered by the Holy Spirit, and that we would be a family who does what Jesus tells us, together. And God, I pray that even right now, we could enjoy a meal, a family time, and we could share with one another the work that you're doing in our lives. We could talk about what's it going to look like this week to walk by the Spirit? What are the commands that we're trying to do that Jesus has given us? God, I just wish we could be a church where people would talk about commands of Jesus, not like they're bad things or like they're chores, but that they're marching orders. And there are things we want to do together, because look what Jesus did for us. And so, please give us a great dinner right now. Give us a great conversation together, and then Father let us come back in here and sing even more songs and have some family worship time. So, we commit the rest of this night up to you, and we ask you to use it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thanks for being here. Everybody. Have a great night.