(Text and Audio)
Title: Family
Today we are going to wrap up our study in Matthew chapter 12 with a teaching on the topic of family. Now, chronologically speaking, there is no time break between what Jesus says at the end of chapter 12, and what he begins to teach in chapter 13.
If you look at chapter 13, verse 1, we read “On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea.”
So why has there traditionally (since about the year 1000 A.D.) been a chapter break at this point? The reason is because chapter 13 is an entire section of Matthew dedicated just to the teaching of 8 separate parables. But chronologically speaking, it’s all part of the same teaching by Jesus.
But that last lesson that Jesus teaches, before he goes on this great discourse into these parables has to do with the question:
Who, and what, identifies someone as “family”?
Let’s begin. (Read/Pray)
So let’s start by looking at the most common wisdom on family and see how it stacks up.
The Concept: “Blood is thicker than water.”
The Meaning: Your ties to your blood family should be stronger bonds than to anyone who isn’t family.
The Reality:
1. This is accurate only on a case by case basis. (Some blood family members have disqualified themselves from that intimacy for various reasons.)
What types of things can disqualify someone as a true family member in your mind? (Take answers). Remember these things, we’ll come back to them.
2. It isn’t biblical. (Your spouse is not a “blood” relative, yet who would argue that scripture does not teach that a man an woman will leave there parents to be joined as one, and their first priority is to each other?)
Insights from Parallel accounts:
Luke 8:19-21 Jesus taught this concept a few different times.
John 2:12 It was not uncommon for his mother, brothers, and disciples to travel together during different parts of Jesus’ ministry.
John 7:3-5 His brothers seemed to understand that Jesus had a different type of relationship with his disciples than He had with them, and even gave Jesus advice occasionally. (Jesus often politely ignored the advice.)
His brothers struggled to believe Jesus was the Messiah.
Matthew 13:55-57 (We will get into this in a few weeks in more detail.) The world tried to qualify Jesus by who his family was, and Jesus rejected that notion.
John 20:17 One of Jesus’ most consistent teachings in the N.T. is the concept of a spiritual family.
- Why does the messenger tell Jesus: “Look, Your mother and Your brothers and sisters are standing outside, seeking to speak with you.”
The assumption of the messenger was that Jesus would show preference to these people because they were his family. And that seems reasonable. If I’m busy and my phone rings, and I look down and don’t recognize the number that is calling me, I let it go to voicemail.
If I look down and I see that the call is from someone I know personally, I’m more apt to pick up the phone, depending on what I’m doing.
But if I look down and it’s my spouse, or my mother or father, the priority gets elevated.
Have you ever been in a really intense conversation with someone and their cell phone rings and they don’t even look at it. They just reach in their pocket and silence the ringer. They just click a button and never take their eyes off of you.
How does that make you feel?
Think about what Jesus illustrates to his people by essentially ignoring his birth family. This is really profound. He not only tells them that “his family” are those who “do the will of My Father in heaven” He demonstrates that by essentially not even looking down at his phone. He not only talked it, he believed it, he lived it, he lived up to it.
2. Jesus is not negating his birth family.
There is no scriptural evidence to suggest that Jesus did not love his family very much. He was without sin, and full of love. Logically, he would have loved his mother and father, and brothers and sisters in a perfect way.
Rather, what Jesus is trying to communicate was that blood was not an instant qualifier of family.
You catch that?
How might that have hit the Jews?
They had been living under the concept that just because they were Jewish they had favor with God. That had considered themselves God’s children for scores of generations, even though they had behaved nothing like his children for the vast majority of that time.
When Jesus teaching things like “Those who obey me are my family” and that thought is later echoed by the apostle John in 1 John when he writes, “Those who remain with us are the family.” we start to see a startling truth being poured out to these people: Salvation was for anyone who believed and obeyed.
In other words: Jesus is opening up the parameters of what His family really is. On the surface, this seems like a message that suggests that Jesus binds us all as a family, and that’s true.
But it’s also much more than than. This is about a man, who, without sinning, put his flesh and blood on the back burner to tend to the needs of those who believed in him.
Jesus chose who to pay attention to, and who to ignore. He chose it, and he did so against convention, against expectation, and against tradition.
It is a parallel and foreshadowing of the Gentiles coming into the Kingdom. And it is a parallel to your personal salvation as well.
And remember when we started this message we talked about possible disqualifiers for people being our family, those parallels, sadly, apply to the unbelieving Jews as well. (Go over that list again)
Closing thought: Being part of God’s family is about God’s sovereign design. What Jesus is talking about here is not qualification, but identification. He’s looking at the masses and saying, “These. These that believe. These that obey. These are my family.”