Mark 3 - The Danger of a Hard Heart

Welcome to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. Journey from Genesis to Revelation as Pastor Paul guides you through every verse, leading you to a deeper understanding of the scriptures that will strengthen your faith and transform your life. Now, let's get started with today's teaching as we open God's Word together.

Have you ever thought about what goes into a hard heart, or what makes a heart hard. And by hard, obviously, we're talking about an attitude that we take on that makes us less teachable, less responsive, and less open, I suppose, to the things of the Lord. Sometimes it can be a real stubborn kind of refusal to follow God.

We dig in our heels and say, I'm not going. But other times hardness of heart can come upon us in a very I Guess unpronounced sort of a way. I'm not sure if that's even right wording, but I think you know what I mean. We we don't necessarily We aren't really trying to be contrary But have you ever noticed when you get out of the habit of like reading your Bible? How difficult it is to pick it up and read it again. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that when you get out of practice of coming to church, maybe you just have an incredibly busy summer like many people do, and then fall comes along and it's time to go back to church and you know it, but you're just like, it's just getting back

and doing it is like pulling teeth and we're talking permanent molars here. Then you finally do come to church and you feel like, You're standing there and every you know other people are kind of worshiping the Lord and you're kind of And it's just like you're it's like I don't it almost feels like you don't belong You do belong, but it feels like you don't Because you've allowed this very simple Process to begin to take place in your life Where you've gotten? out of the routine of hearing God's Word, hearing His voice, and responding to Him. And now, the whole church Bible praying fellowship thing feels weird. It feels like something other than your normal life.

Can I just suggest to you for a moment that the natural tendency of our hearts is to become hard? If we don't keep up on the Word of God, fellowship, prayer, connecting with other believers, can I just suggest to you, and so I'm saying this so that you're not going to feel guilty about those times that when you feel like there's been a hardening of your heart, it's not a guilt issue.

But you do need to understand the serious nature of it, and you do need to take steps to reverse it. But I want to just suggest to you that by nature, we don't stay connected to God. By nature, we don't stay sensitive to God. It is not natural. It is supernatural. So if you're going to just allow the natural to take place, I'll tell you what's going to happen. There's going to be an increasing level of hardness in your heart that can eventually have some very serious consequences.

I bring this up because Mark chapter 3 is a reminder to us in the whole chapter about hardness of heart. And we're going to see some extreme examples of hardness. And by toward the end of the chapter, we're going to see exactly what that hardness can ultimately produce. So, Father God, speak to our hearts, Lord. You know, we don't want to be hard. We want to be soft. We want to be responsive. And we recognize that it is through Your Spirit, Lord, that the Word comes alive.

So even though there may be some of us here today who have not been in the Word like we should, and the frequency of our time in prayer and fellowship has not been good, Lord, I pray that You'd press through, that You would just break through the hardness of our hearts, and You'd speak to us today about the things that we need to hear.

We ask it in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Verse 1. begins by saying, again he entered the synagogue, and so obviously it's the Sabbath day because that's the day they would do that, and a man was there with a withered hand. Now Mark doesn't specifically tell us, but we know this man was a plant. He was put there by the religious leaders to see what Jesus would do on the Sabbath. And it says in verse 2, they watched Jesus to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And now the whole accusation thing, the whole Sabbath. We talked about that a lot last Sunday. So if you missed Mark chapter 2, I want to encourage you to go back and listen or watch that one. It's on our website. But I

talked a lot about the Sabbath and Sabbath keeping and where we as believers land on the issue of the Sabbath. And it's important you know that. Otherwise, Mark is going to be a challenge for you because The Sabbath is a huge club that the religious leaders tried repeatedly to beat Jesus over the head with, because they wanted to somehow prove that He wasn't being true to the Sabbath.

And what we're going to find is that Jesus helps us to understand the true meaning of the Sabbath for the Jews. Let's keep reading. It says in verse 3, and He said to the man with the withered hand, come here. And He said to them, meaning the rest of the people, Question now is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm? to save life or To kill now all mark tells us here in the end of this verse is they didn't answer him They were silent because they didn't want to answer every time they ended up opening their mouths. It didn't go well for them So they decided they're just going to be quiet this time and they're going to try to let Jesus hang himself And they thought that if they can get Jesus to

respond graciously to this man by healing him, they'll be able to go and say, see, this man doesn't keep the Sabbath. He works on the Sabbath. He obviously cannot be a true man of God because he's violating the command of the Sabbath. So Jesus begins to question them on the purpose of the Sabbath and how they apply the Sabbath to their daily lives. And he says to them, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath? Is it okay to do good things on the Sabbath? Now, again, Mark doesn't record for us the answer because they didn't answer, but Matthew, who also witnessed this event, told us that Jesus gave the answer.

He actually answered his own question. It's in Matthew chapter 12. We put it on the screen for you. And this is Jesus responding. He said to them, which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? of how much more value is a man than a sheep? Here's his answer to the question. So, it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. There's your answer. See, here's the problem. God gave the Sabbath to the Jews as a day of rest. He said, take a day. Take a day and rest. Now the Jews decided that they were going to add to it, which is, by the way, never a good idea. to add to God's Word. But they came up with all kinds of sub -regulations and rules that went along with Sabbath keeping.

Oh, they came up with how far you could walk on the Sabbath. They called it a Sabbath day's walk. If you went one step past that, you were working on the Sabbath. It was ridiculous. Jesus knew it was ridiculous. He's reminding them that the Sabbath was given to them as a day of rest, but that they had added all these things. The point is that ultimately the Jews came to see the Sabbath, or keeping the Sabbath, as more important than people. And guess what, guys?

That's what happens when you get caught up in legalism. Some of you guys have been caught up in legalism before. You've gone to a legalistic church. for a period of time, or you've been involved in legalism, it literally creates this backbiting kind of a thing where people are always looking down at people, always judging, and always condemning because they're not keeping the rules the way they should. Right? And that's exactly what it produces. So pretty soon, the rule is the greatest good. Keeping the rule becomes The goal, are you keeping the rules? Whether it's the Sabbath or whatever. And pretty soon, people are just like, dude, you're getting in my way from keeping the Sabbath, keeping the rules.

You're in my way. So here's this man seated in the front row at the synagogue with a shriveled hand, deformity of some kind. And here's Jesus. the compassionate, gracious, healing God that we serve. And He's facing this crowd of hard hearted people who think that it's wrong to do good for someone on the Sabbath, which is absolutely ridiculous. Look at verse 5. It says, And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness, of heart." There it is. And said to the man, stretch out your hand. He stretched it out and his hand was restored. Can you imagine what that would be like to be in the room and see that happen? I mean, I'm assuming this probably isn't an enormous crowd that is witnessing this,

but there's a crowd nonetheless. There's people. Jesus tended to attract crowds. We don't know what the seating capacity of the local synagogue was there. But here's a groom full of people. There's a man in the front row, the deformity of his hand, and Jesus says to the man, stretch it out. The man stretches it out, and as he does, it is literally made whole. The hand that was withered becomes full and healthy and normal.

Can you say wow? I mean, don't, but... I mean, I would, if I were there at the time, I'd go, whoa, did you see that? I'd be freaking out. Check what they did. Verse six, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. Okay, what you've just witnessed here. is hardness of heart. A hardness that is so hard that this individual can witness a supernatural miracle healing that you just don't see this stuff happen on any kind of a regular basis. And it happens before your eyes. And your response is to walk out, call a meeting, and say, this man has to die. This man is dangerous and he needs to die.

Hardness of heart. That's what you're seeing. I can't imagine somebody doing that, but we read about it right here. The last thing that I want to bring out here before we move on, I want you to notice that the response of Jesus to the religious leaders upon them not responding to his question. Look at it again in verse 5. He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart. You want to know what makes God angry?

You know, we Christians, we tend to like point out there at the things that make God angry, and we talk about His wrath, and you know, we'll bring up things, we'll bring up some of the notorious sins, you know. And we just like, oh, we wag our head. God's going to rain down fire. And we get all kind of hot and bothered about the wrath of God. And my Bible says that what makes him angry and what grieves him is hardness of heart. And what's kind of awakening about that is that I've experienced hardness of heart as a believer. As a Christian, I have hardened my heart against the Lord. I have grieved God. He's told me to obey Him, and I've dug my heels in.

And I've said, no, I'm not going to do that. Or He's told me something that He's made it very clear that that was wrong. It was bad for my life or whatever. And I've just gone ahead and just said, well, you know, whatever, and done it anyway. That's hardness of heart. I've done it. I've grieved God. That's a wake -up call.

I mean, we're always pointing outside, you know, at all the sins of the world. And my Bible, your Bible says that we can grieve God's heart by hardening our own hearts against His Word and not being responsive, you know, to Him. Boy, I thank God. I thank God that on those occasions when I do harden my heart, I thank God He makes my life miserable in the midst of that hardness.

Amen? I mean, it's just like when I do that and I kind of just, you know, I brace myself, you know, and God just makes my life miserable. It's horrible. You know? And then I finally come to that place of realizing the gravity of my sin, and I repent and get right with Him. And it's just like my connection with God is back on, you know? Now we can talk and we can have a relationship, but I didn't even notice. It's kind of like the frog in the boiling pot scenario. I didn't even notice that the phone was off the hook. I didn't even notice that the connection was broken. I didn't even notice I wasn't hearing because I wasn't listening. We weren't connected because sin was in the way. And hardness of heart had

become a problem. Verse 7. Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea, and Jerusalem and Idumia, and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. That's a way of saying for pretty much all around the area, people were coming to hear Jesus and so forth. And when the great crowd heard all that he was doing, they came to him, and he told his disciples to have a boat ready because of the crowd, lest they crush him.

And Jesus liked to do this. He would get in a boat and just pull off. the shore just a little ways, maybe 20, 30 feet so that the people wouldn't crowd and he could talk to them. It created this natural, very workable kind of amphitheater sort of a situation. It was more productive that way. It says in verse 10, for he had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around him to touch him. Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, and that's the demonic spirits that had begun to possess people. It says they fell down before Him and cried out, You are the Son of God. And He strictly ordered them not to make Him known. And He went up on the mountainside and He called to Him those whom He desired and

they came to Him. And He appointed twelve whom He also named apostles so that they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons, and by the way, in that description of what Jesus called them to do is the definition of the word apostle. The word apostle means one sent forth with authority.

And so Jesus chose these individuals that he might send them out and give them authority. And that's what the word apostle means. It's not a weird word or strange. It just means somebody sent out with authority. Can we have apostles today? Sure. We're not going to make a big deal of it, but yeah, we can send people out with authority and so forth. It says that he appointed the 12, it names them here. Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, call him Rocky. James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom he gave the name Sons of Thunder, Boenigris, but Sons of Thunder, you got to know those guys were a piece of work. That's, you know, you don't just call somebody sons of thunder unless they're

like a pill. You know what I mean? They're like a handful. Anyway, Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James, the son of Elpheus and Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot. Oh, and look here, verse 19, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. You know, you read that and you're reminded of something. Jesus chose Judas. There were a lot of people by this time who were following Jesus on a fairly regular basis, but he called twelve that he chose to be the closest to him.

And there are some people who believe that the reason he chose Judas was because Judas was born to be a betrayer. In other words, they believe that Judas was simply destined to betray the Lord all along, and so Jesus chose him so that he could fulfill his destiny. And I have a problem with that, I have to tell you. Now I believe that Jesus always knew who Judas was. I believe that with all my heart. Jesus knew from the beginning who Judas was and what he was going to do. But I don't believe God's foreknowledge on a matter dictates the outcome. I just don't believe it.

I believe that God always foresees everything. But I don't believe his foreknowledge makes it happen. He simply knows it's going to happen. But we are still the product of our choices. And Judas chose repeatedly to harden his heart, to not change his life, and he paid at the end with his life. You know, we know that Judas chose to dip into the money bag. He was kind of the treasurer of the group. He made the choice, you know, to lie and to steal. He made the choice to criticize Mary when she anointed him prior to his death and burial. You remember that? Judas criticized, oh, that ointment was expensive.

It should have been sold, the money given to the poor. He didn't care about the poor. He cared about money. That was his choice. And he chose to also, for 30 pieces of silver, betray the Lord and give away His nighttime resting area, the place, so that the religious leaders could go and arrest Him under the cover of darkness.

And so, Judas just made a series of choices in his life, just like we all do. Did Jesus know ahead of time what He would do? Yeah, sure. Does Jesus' foreknowledge fix the events in such a way that you and I can't change them? I don't believe that. I do not believe Judas was created to suffer in hell. I believe he chose. He chose.

Verse 20 says, 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. The brothers of Jesus. And by the way, the idea here in the Greek is actually could be translated brothers and sisters. Joseph and Mary had other children. I'm sorry the Catholic Church told you otherwise, but it's just not true. It is clear in the Bible that Joseph and Mary, after Jesus, had a regular marital relationship and had other sons and daughters. And they didn't believe that he was the Messiah, even in the midst of all that he was doing. His brothers did not believe. James, we don't think, who was

his brother, didn't come to faith until Jesus appeared to him after his resurrection. So this is another form of kind of hardness of heart, you know. And, you know, these people, his family, they came to kind of take him in hand because they thought he was out of his mind. Pretty interesting, isn't it? But I want you to know something. Jesus is experiencing here what many of you are experiencing right now. And he talked about it in Matthew chapter 10, where he said a person's, on the screen, a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Now, that doesn't apply to certainly all of you. Some of you were raised in godly Christian homes, and there's a great blessing that comes from that. But many of you know what

it means to be in a divided home. And you know that sometimes the most difficult thing about walking with Jesus is going home. Because there's someone there who's ready to make you feel stupid and small just because you believe that the Bible is true and that Jesus is who He said He was. And that's hard. The pain of living in a divided home or a divided marriage for that matter, some of you are living in a divided marriage, you're saved, your spouse is not. That's very, very difficult because here you are one flesh and yet divided because of your belief and their unbelief. The pain of that sort of an existence can very easily cause an individual to begin to throttle back. as it relates to the level

of commitment they might otherwise show in their Christian life. Because they just don't want to ruffle feathers and they're tired of all the drama, you know? It's like, man, I go home and there's drama. And they're always asking me questions and criticizing and belittling. And I'm just tired of it. And so I'm going to stop going to church. And I'm not going to keep my Bible out of the view of anybody in my family that just might see it. And you become kind of this privatized version of what it means to be a Christian. And pretty soon, you've kind of withdrawn to the point where there's something dangerous going on. You know, I didn't go on to quote any further here in Matthew chapter 10, but you can read

it if you want to. Right after Jesus made this statement here, He went on to say, but unless you love Me more than Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, the whole thing. Because Jesus knew and understood what it meant to be divided in your family. He experienced. We see it right here. and yet to hold the course, and to be all that God created you to be, and to live your life out loud. I'm not talking about being boorish and dumb about your Christian life, but I'm talking about not throttling back. I'm talking about being the person that God created you to be, and let the fallout be the fallout. I understand how difficult it is. Please, I do. But there is a point in time where we have to kind of make

a decision. You know what? I'm going to live for Jesus. I'm just going to live for Him, you know? And there's nothing I can do except pray for these people. And I will. I'll continue to pray that God would bring them to a saving knowledge of Jesus. But you know what? For Christians throughout the centuries, living for Jesus has been hard.

And the opposition that we face is part of the package. of what it means to follow Christ. Look at Jesus. I dare say your family probably hasn't come to take you away, you know, with those little white things that tie in the back, because they think you're out of your mind. This is what His family was doing. They're like, well, he's obviously touched. We're really sorry about this. He's making a big thing, all these crowds. He's just a guy. We've come to take him home, and this stuff is going on. It's funny too, Jesus doesn't get all up in arms over it and create a bunch of drama. He just keeps on doing what he's doing.

He's going to serve the Lord, keep giving my life away. We can spend so much time trying to defend ourselves. Verse 22. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, he's possessed by Beelzebul. You know, Beelzebul was, in fact, it's a bad rendition of another. It's Beelzebul. It was a pagan god deity, I should say, pagan deity. In fact, it literally means like Lord of the Flies. The Jews adopted it as just another moniker for Satan, that's all. So what's going on here? They're saying by the prince of demons, he casts out demons. So here's what's happening.

Jesus is casting demons out of people left and right, right? And they can't deny it. They can't deny it. I don't know if you've ever seen a demon possessed person and seen a before and after picture, but it's amazing because they're frankly just whacked out at first. and no control and blasphemous things coming out of their mouths and violent and strong and stuff like that. Then the demons are cast out and suddenly they're in their right mind and they're praising God.

You can't deny that something has happened. It'd be ridiculous for the religious leaders to go, he's not really casting out demons. They go, what are you saying? Look at these people. They have been transformed from bondage to freedom. What do you say? So they couldn't say that. So what are they going to do? They're going to spin it. Oh, well, yeah, OK. So maybe he's casting out demons, all right. He's simply doing it by the power of the devil. And we all know it. So you see, it's just a big light and smoke show, because it's a deception. And there you go. That's the explanation. Now, notice that Jesus responds.

Verse 23. 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." This is a great argument, basically, because, again, what you and I don't see when we read this is the byproduct of people who've been set free from demonic possession. And what these people saw were people who were whacked

out one minute and in their right mind the next. And so what's happening here? People are getting set free. Jesus comes back and he says, okay, so Satan's MO is to bind people and to destroy their lives, but you're telling me now that I am setting them free through the power of Satan. That means that Satan is in the business of binding and destroying and setting free and giving life.

And that means his agenda is completely at odds with itself. There's a division in the kingdom. He says, that's impossible. In other words, you can't serve two masters. You can't be, you know, you get it. You can't go for the Vikings and the Packers at the same time. You just can't do it. It's just impossible. So, you know, I don't know where that came from. But you know, There's this statement that Jesus makes here to the religious leaders as we move on that is very very important look at verse 28 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

These verses have challenged and perplexed believers for a great many years, and they have caused a bit of fright to others. And I've had the opportunity to talk to people in a state of panic who believed that they have blasphemed the Holy Spirit and are therefore ineligible for forgiveness. What is important for you and I to see in these verses is that they are given to us within the context of a chapter that is all about hardness of heart.

It begins in the first story with the religious leaders who watched Jesus perform a miracle and went out and said, this man must die. We've seen what happened with his brothers, seeing what they saw related to what Jesus was doing, and they were saying, He's out of his mind. And now we come to these scribes and religious leaders who watch as Jesus supernaturally sets people free from demonic bondage, and their response is, he's simply in cahoots with the devil. And the level of hardness of heart that is being displayed here for you and I is absolutely astronomical, but it ought to get our attention. Because this is what happens when hardness goes so far that it can no longer be reached by the Word of God.

In other words, there's no turning back. So what is the unforgivable sin? Actually, Mark tells us in verse 30. Look at verse 30. What is the unforgivable sin? It says they were saying he has an unclean spirit. They're basically saying Jesus is doing these things by Satan. That's it. So blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is, first of all, witnessing the power of God being displayed through the person of Jesus Christ and crediting that power to the work of the enemy for the purpose of deception and confusion. And that's what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit.

Who would do such a thing? Who would say such a thing? Listen, nobody by accident. You know, I've talked to so many people over the years. Had a gal call me a number of years ago when we were up in Washington, just panic -stricken. I think I blasphemed the Holy Spirit. I said, you're kidding. You think you did? Nobody ever blasphemed the Holy Spirit by accident. You have to have such a hard heart that not only did you do it, you don't care that you did it, There's no concern. Listen, if anybody has any concern that they've ever blasphemed the Holy Spirit, you haven't done it. Because that shows a level of sensitivity that shows that the Holy Spirit's working on your heart. That hardness is not there.

You've got a soft heart because you're concerned that maybe you might have done it. People who blaspheme the Holy Spirit aren't concerned because their hearts are so hard. They're so gone. They don't care. So please understand. Don't worry about it. Don't leave this place and don't let the enemy play with your mind and get you somehow thinking, entertaining the idea. I think I might have let, no, you didn't. You didn't. How do I know? Because you care. That shows a soft heart.

To blaspheme the Holy Spirit, your heart has to be rock hard. And that's what was going on in this situation. So here's the next question that we need to answer. And that has to do with why is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit unforgivable? I mean, prior to saying that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was unforgivable, Jesus said every other sin and blasphemy that is ever uttered by man will be forgiven. But...

Blast me against Holy Spirit. Uh -uh. Why? Well, to understand that, you've got to know the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Do you guys remember when you first heard the gospel and you first were made aware of the fact that not only are you a sinner, but it was your sin that put Jesus on the cross? Do you ever remember coming to that realization? It happened to me when I was a teenager. I didn't actually start walking with the Lord until I was in my twenties.

But as a teenager, I heard the Gospel and I heard it very clearly. And I remember it hit me like a freight train. I suddenly knew and understood not only am I a sinner, my sin put him on the cross. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Guys, that's the Holy Spirit. That's the Holy Spirit doing what He does. And in order for that to happen, in order for us to get saved rather, that has to happen. The Holy Spirit has to do His work in order for us to get saved. Let me show you something Jesus said. It's from John chapter 16 verse 8. It says, And when He comes, and He is the Holy Spirit, He will convict the world concerning sin. That's what He does. That's the role of the Holy Spirit, one of His many.

But He will convict the world concerning sin. If you know today that you're a sinner, and if God convicts you on a regular basis of the things you do wrong, that's proof positive that the Holy Spirit is in your life. If you can say right here, right now, I'm a sinner and I need Jesus to save me from my sin. You can only say that through the Holy Spirit. You can only be made aware of that through the Holy Spirit. So what happens When a heart is so hardened that they've just been shut off completely from God, they don't care. And they're not listening and they don't ever care to listen. What happens now?

That person can't be saved. There's no way they can come to a place of salvation because their hearts are so hard, they're never going to ever be convicted of sin. And the only people who prove that hardness of heart are the ones who would say something like this, something related to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. That's what it takes to do that. Remember when Stephen was giving his speech in front of all of the religious leaders, and he was telling them truth after truth after truth after truth, and everything he said just made him increasingly more mad at him, to the point where they finally just freaked out and picked up rocks and killed him on the spot. One of the last things he said that really angered

them is recorded for us in Acts chapter 7 verse 51. It says, you stiff -necked people. That is a biblical term to describe hardness of heart. He says, you're uncircumcised in your hearts and ears. And look at this. You always resist the Holy Spirit. You always resist. In other words, it's an unbroken expression of resistance.

See, that's the scary thing. I know that I can resist the Holy Spirit. I've done it. I bet you have too, if you're human and fallible. But it doesn't go unbroken in our lives. He ultimately convicts us to the point where we break and we say, you're right, forgive me. But there's this condition that begins to come upon a human heart when it is given over and given over and given over to hardness of heart to such a point where now, The word, and I believe this was inspired by the Holy Spirit, when Stephen spoke to them, he said, you always resist the Holy Spirit. There's never a time in your life when you open your heart to what He wants to say to you. So, the last few verses of the chapter, look at verse

31 in your Bible, it says, And these are the same brothers who claimed that he was out of his mind. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, hey, your mom and your brothers are outside. They're 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 is my brother and sister and mother. Stand with me if you would please. I want to just talk about this for a second as you stand. Go ahead. At the risk of sounding repetitious, I'm going to say again, this last part of Mark chapter 3 is a reminder to you and I that if you are a Christian today,

you have not just been born again as a child of God, you've been born into a family. Jesus said, you want to see my family? Look around these are the people that want to know God they want to do his will these are my family We are family in this room. You are my brothers and sisters, and I am your brother. I am NOT your sister But we are family nonetheless and We ought to treat one another like family now some of you didn't have a good family Example while you were growing up some of you had a wonderful family example But you know what? It doesn't matter whether you had a bad example or a good example.

We all know what a good family is. For those of you who had a good family, just do what you, just treat other people in the body of Christ like you were treated in your home. For those of you that had a lousy family upbringing, treat people the opposite of the way you were treated in your home. We all know what good is because it's either the opposite of what we had or it's what we had. And there's no excuses. Well, I never saw a good family, so I don't know how to do that. Oh, yes, you do. Do the opposite of what you had. And that's how we're supposed to treat one another, not as strangers. You ever wondered why we come to that time in the early part of our service after worship where we encourage

you to greet one another? I know some of you hate it. It's like I want to just stay out in the foyer until after people have greeted, then I'll come in. Guys, we're trying to get you to get to know one another a little bit, at least to acknowledge one another. What ought to be going on in our hearts is looking at each other saying, wow, you're family. I don't even know you very well, but you're my family. You're my brothers, my sisters. And that is going to go on for eternity. All these other blood relationships that I have, When the body ceases to function, those connections are no more. This connection in Christ, this one goes on forever. We better start getting used to it now. Start treating

each other the way we're supposed to treat each other. You've been listening to Through the Bible with Pastor Paul from Life Bible Ministry. For the complete library of Pastor Paul's teaching and full transcripts, visit LifeBibleMinistry .com. We hope today's teaching has encouraged and inspired you. We look forward to you joining us again as we continue our journey through the scriptures.

Mark 3 - The Danger of a Hard Heart

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