The Sign of Jonah
First B Jackson
2022-03-20

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Good morning, everybody. How are you? Good morning. Everybody's alright. Good.

Let's let's stand and sing together. How about I'll fly away first? We'll sing whatever comes up on the wall. I think there are three verses of it. We're planning on singing all three of em.

If there are no surprises. How about how great thou art? We've got some big name songs here this morning. These are the top top 10 classic greatest hits. How great thou art.

Hymn number one forty seven. Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I have a few announcements this morning and I've got a couple that are probably not going to. One of them at least is not going to come up.

I'll get do that one first. So, let me just the first service I said, I got this last minute and I didn't get it into the slideshow, but I'm gonna find it this time because Estelle something sounded sorta silly. Excuse me for a second. So there is a lady who is named Estelle Nadel, who is a survivor of the Holocaust. She's coming to speak at the high school tomorrow night, but she's also speaking at the Jackson Hole Lodge tonight.

If you need more information about it, probably best to Google it or I can send you what was sent to me, But just let me know afterwards if that's something that you'd like to attend. So it's a speaker who survived the holocaust, and it's pretty good when we get out and can hear the people's stories that help us to empathize, I think, is part of it. But, it it should be good at the high school tomorrow night or at the lodge tonight. Monday night's at first beat. Come hang out with us.

This guy's just hanging out. Monday night's at first beat, meal, music, and a message. Tomorrow night's meal is gonna be pot pie and apple pie. That sounds like a really good deal to me. So, pot pie and then apple pie for dessert.

It's a comfort food night meal, and then the music will be Carl and the band, and the message is gonna be from James, the second half of the first chapter of James, which is such good wisdom. Boy, the gospel and work clothes. Jesus is half brother. Come check that out tomorrow night. It's happening at the same time as Awana Kids Club happens in this room and all over the church.

So at 06:00, because kids matter to God, we get here and we try to pour scripture into their heads to reach their hearts and also just being here. There's so many volunteers here during that time that just love the kids. That's good. If you want our Email bulletins, you can sign up for em. I'm pretty sure most of you know that already.

Firstbjackson.org. That's where you can get to the services from the past to the recent pastor up there and you can let us know. I have, I don't see the clipboards up here this time. There they are. So, Nick is trying to put together a church directory and he is going to pass these around.

If you would, look through em and see if your information is in there and if it's in there, is it correct? If it's not in there and you want to put it in there, go through alphabetical order, I assume. Figure it out. Put yourself in there and put all the information that you'd like to concern to have in there. One more thing, this is something that is going to be held as a candlelight vigil and prayer for Ukraine.

That's happening Wednesday, this Wednesday, March 23 at 06:30. It's at Our Lady Of The Mountains Catholic Church which is just two blocks catty corner from here. We're close by. It is to get together and pray and I can't promise you, you won't see something that doesn't hurt your feelings or upset you about theological practice, okay? I can't promise you that but it is a call for all believers in Jesus to come together and pray for Ukraine and the situation in the world right now.

So, if you want to do that, I'll be there March twenty third, Wednesday night, 06:30PM. Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church right over there. Sound booth volunteers are needed. So, Blake is up there in the booth. Nick backs him up sometimes.

Josh Griffith works and edits kinda in between and and he comes in sometimes but we would like to have a little bit deeper bench so that maybe somebody might be able to take some time off every once in a while. So, if you are brave, contact Nick about that because when you see the words kind of not come up on the screen, what does everybody do? They turn and glare at the guy in the sound booth. Oh, come on. It's good but it's for the bold.

Yeah. It's really, it's really fun. We have hymn books if it ever goes really wrong, you know? There's also the if gathering. We talked about this a couple weeks ago.

We had it here at the church and it's a different manifestation of it. The gathering this time is happening down in Bondurant at, Norison Lane Brown's Heart to Heart Ranch, May the sixth and the seventh. This is just letting you know in advance. Plan on it. Register at bondurantfellowship.org.

It's a women's conference down at the Heart To Heart Ranch, May sixth and seventh. Y'all already know that one, don't you? If you're on YouTube and you want for it to notify you when we go online, you can hit the little bell up at the top and it'll turn on your notifications for you. Anything else? Did I cover everything?

Does anybody else have an announcement? Testimony? Word of suggestion? Complaint? No.

No. Save those. Would you stand up and we'll sing worthy of worship. Judy, thank you for picking the songs. It's so good.

We're going to sing through this one a couple times probably.

Worthy of praise

So I said we were gonna sing that one twice. I meant we're gonna sing this one twice. His name is wonderful. His name is wonderful. It's a fairly simple song and we're gonna sing through it two times.

Amen. Y'all can have a seat. I'm gonna invite Steve and Nick if you would come forward with the plates for the offering time and would you just pray with me? I'm going ask also Catherine and Florine if y'all would take the take your positions over there. Catherine's going to sing this morning for us.

God almighty, we're so thankful to be here in your presence, and we're thankful that we have a part in your plan, Lord. Plan a, and there's no plan b. Plan a is that your obedient servants will share the hope that is within them with a lost and dying world. In Jesus' name, I pray that you would bless us to recognize the opportunity, and then when the time comes, Lord, to do what it is you would have us do, that we would be filled with all hope and believing and that we would know the power of your resurrection and be able to share it. In Jesus' name, I'm thankful that from the youngest of us to the oldest, Lord, you have a part that you want for us to play in your plan.

Amen. Amen. What a sermon that was. Amen. That is so good.

Boy. Sorry. Before I start, don't consider this an apology but it is sort of a defense, okay? So, last week in the first service, we had somebody that had called and wanted to do a testimony. Melissa Ripley, she's moving away from Jack from the area and so she had a portion at the end of the sermon.

So, I skipped the last portion that I was planning on covering and so I did the same in this one so y'all wouldn't get ahead of em. I mentioned that last week too but this is somewhat of a transitional sermon. So, it's between a sermon I did last week and the next one I'll do in this series where we're going into Jesus' parables. So, it's kind of an odd, kinda clunky, but it surprised me in the first service how well it went. That's not to say it'll go well right now.

But this is the Pharisees request for a sign. So, I've said many times from the front up here that Jesus always responds to the call of faith. He always responds to the call of faith. In the scriptures, anytime we see Jesus, when somebody says, help me, he does. But he they request a sign which sounds like it's reasonable.

Show us a sign. But he refused and said, nope. No sign will be given. We'll get to it. New spiritual ties are announced.

It's about the family of God. New spiritual ties are announced in this sermon and then Jesus moves right into parables. He'll go out in a little boat on the Sea Of Galilee and he'll start presenting these parables. But I want you to consider before we get to the parables the next time we are continuing in this New Testament Harmony of the Gospel study, we will get to those parables that we've all heard a thousand times. Right?

Every one of y'all's heard them. Even people who don't go to church hear these parables. And some of them will resonate with you more than others. I think that's why he does so many of them because we need to pick, from those. There's truth in all of them, but some of them apply better to us than others.

The first one applies to everyone. Jesus moving towards parables. Isaiah said that, and seeing, they will not see, and hearing, they will not understand. So he's presenting an if the shoe fits sort of message, and plenty of people will hear it and just reject it. But plenty of people will hear it and go, you know what?

That's for me. I know exactly where I fit. And in humility, I'm gonna submit to the plan that God has for me. So it's kinda clunky. Pharisees request for a sign is refused, and we'll go into why, I think.

New spiritual ties are announced and Jesus moves towards parables. That's not as clean as they usually are, right? So, last week, I covered in Matthew, Mark, and Luke all of that's in white up there but I skipped the part that's in green right there. We'll cover that today, and then we'll also cover this little portion. This is the new spiritual ties being announced.

But I'm gonna start with what I covered last week. I'll use the shortest one of the gospel representations of it, Mark, just to get you in the flow because I think it's helpful. So, this says in Mark three, and he comes home and the crowd gathers again to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. So, Jesus and his disciples were so thronged upon by the multitudes, by the crowds. This little bitty town with all of these people that have come either to be healed or to hear his teaching or to see what's going on and they're surrounding him such that he can't even eat a meal.

And when his own people now the most natural way to translate that, his own people is his family, his closest confidants, his closest people. When his own people. In Jesus' case, it could be those 12 disciples that he's already named, right? Could be them and last week, when I presented it to you, I said, when his own people heard about this, they came out to take custody of him. They were concerned for Jesus, and they wanted to remove him from the thronging crowd and get him to a safe place where he could have a meal, maybe rest for a little while.

But it also says that they were saying he's lost his senses. They thought Jesus had gone crazy by just continuing to do the work that he was doing even amidst all the crowd and all of the confusion. And so I sat it in your lap and said, if you consider yourself one of Jesus' people, do you? If you consider yourself one of Jesus' people, can you see this and go, yeah, there were times when I thought Jesus was crazy. That that the way he did things is not the way I would have done things.

That's not that's not that's not safe. That's not good. Those people Jesus, really? Those people? You know?

But have you ever thought he lost his senses? Well, his people did and his own people is kind of vague and ambiguous. Today, I think we're gonna see it probably is talking about his family. If you look in John, it says that at this point, none of Jesus' brothers half brothers. None of Jesus' half brothers believed in him at this point.

And so for them to think, good grief. Come on, Jesus. You're gonna drive yourself crazy doing this. Okay. 22 says, the scribes though so it's his people thought he was crazy, and then the scribes who came down from Jerusalem oh, super religious folk.

We're saying he's possessed by Beelzebub. He cast out the demons by the ruler of the demons. They had made up their mind about how he was doing, what it was he's doing. They did not deny that things were changing. They did not deny that there was transformation, but they did not want to give credit to God for doing it.

And so because why? Think about this. Because why? Because they're on God's team. Because they're the ones that consider themselves to be on God's team.

And if this guy's doing that, he's doing it certainly by the power of Beelzebub. They were giving the devil a lot of credit for doing signs and wonders. And so he called them to himself. He called the scribes to himself and he began speaking to them in parables saying, how can Satan cast out Satan? Think about that.

Just think about what you're saying. If they are demonically oppressed and everybody believes that that's the case and then I cast out the demon and you say it's Satan doing that, why would he possess someone that he was going to set free? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. Actually, going on from there, if a house, kingdom, house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And I kinda put that in your laps last week too and said, you know, whether you don't think anybody doesn't realize it.

We in this country, in this time, are living in a divided house. Are we not? We shouldn't be living in a divided house if we're in the church. The church is called out from every other affiliation into kinship in Christ and unity in Christ. So we should not be drawing barriers between brothers and sisters in Christ.

If a house 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 he's finished. He has an end. But no one can enter the strong man's house. And in this case, Jesus is saying, Satan is a strong man.

The other two gospels that mention this too, the other gospel that mentions this says, but no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. And Jesus was himself tying up the strong man by casting out those demons. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven of the sons and daughters of men, and whatever blasphemies they commit that was a big point in last week's sermon, that blasphemy is being slow or sluggish to call what is good, good, and not to call what is evil, evil. That's blasphemy. And whatever blasphemies that they commit can be forgiven.

It says that all sins will be forgiven and whatever blasphemies they may commit, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit's job is to convict us of our own sin and to convince us of the righteousness of God. It is to illumine scripture and to elevate Jesus. And if someone will not go along with that, that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Billy Graham and many of his sermons was saying, you may never be any closer than you are right now.

The Holy Spirit is very active. And if he is saying, trust Jesus, trust Jesus. Don't reject. Don't deny. Don't send them away.

Because whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin. And he said all of this because they were saying he has an unclean spirit because the scribes and pharisees had looked at what Jesus was doing and said, he has an unclean spirit. Well, the spirit he had was definitely the Holy Spirit of God. No doubt about it for anyone who would humble themselves and trust. But what they were saying was that what was actually the Holy Spirit was an unclean spirit.

So this is where we pick up today. Jesus continues, either either one or the other. Assume that the tree to be good as well as its fruit good. Now, they had just seen a blind, mute man healed. They saw it right there in the crowd, same time.

Blind, mute man is healed. He now speaks and is giving glory to God, and he now sees. And that's good fruit, is it not? Sounds like good fruit to me. Either assume the tree to be good as well as its fruit good, or assume the tree to be bad as well as its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.

This is something Jesus has been saying since the sermon on the mount. It stands to reason anyway. His agricultural examples are, pretty simple examples to see if you can tell a tree by its fruit. Would you agree that what just happened to this man is a good thing? Yes.

Then the one who did it is a good guy. But what they said is, this is a good thing, but the guy who did it is of Beelzebub. That didn't make any sense. Jesus is pointing out that what you're thinking here doesn't make any sense. You oh, boy.

This is the first time he does this. First time he does you offspring of vipers. Y'all sons of snakes. How can you, being evil, express only good things? Now what did they what did they think of themselves?

They thought they were the holiest of the holy and the best. And he calls them an offspring of vipers. How can you, being evil, you're evil, and what has just come out of your mouth is evil. By the fact that you're saying that I did this by Beelzebub, it proves you to be evil. What I've done shows me to be good, and what you're saying shows you to be evil.

You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, express any good things? This is the first time he uses that term in Matthew and he'll use it again and again and again. For the mouth speaks from that which fills the heart. Wow. Luke says the same thing.

If I go right here, the last part, For his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Let me back up. For the mouth speaks. I had a counseling professor. His name was Larry Wagner.

Larry was great. Well, I still call him from time to time. He's just a fantastic counselor. Good guy. They called him the Velvet Brit because he was so smooth, but he hit so hard.

He said ninety percent of couples, if you're doing couples ministry, 90% of the couples that come in, if you ask them, how might I help you today? Why have you come here? What do you think I can do for you? They say, well, we think that the problem is what is it? Communication.

Communication. He said, it's always gonna be communication. We're just not communicating. Communication. Communication.

And he said, Look this verse up from Luke. And he says, Look this verse up from Jeremiah. And the verse from Luke says, Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Okay. Got that.

Communication is what that's about, right? Out of the overflow, the heart of the mouth speaks. And then he says, read this one from Jeremiah 17. It says, our hearts are desperately wicked, and who can understand them? Now, apart from the Holy Spirit, our hearts are desperately wicked.

And the problem that we face is we are not always, always submitted to the Holy Spirit. And so, some of the stuff that comes out of our mouth is from our evil heart, and it is communicating exactly what's in there. And that is what hurts our partner. That's what hurts the other person. But the truth is it's in there.

He said what we need to get to is not just the communication, but the root of that communication, what is in your heart. For the mouth speaks that which fills the heart. Luke agrees. Matthew, the good person brings out of his good treasure good things, and the evil person brings out of his evil treasure evil things. Now, considering that Jesus is the one who has just spoken a man well, he's bringing forth good things.

And considering they just said he was of the devil, they're bringing forth evil things. And then he says this, this is almost a mic drop kind of moment, but I tell you, certainly, that for every careless or idol or word, for every careless word that people speak, they'll give an account of it on the day of judgment. There is a day of reckoning coming, and what you say is what fills your heart. What comes out of your mouth is evidence of where your heart is. By your words, you will be justified.

I trust in Jesus. Yes, Lord. He says, all who call on the name of the Lord, help me, will be saved. Right? But by your words, you will also be condemned.

I don't need that. I don't need him. I'm fine on my own. I think I do more good than bad. I'm better than that guy.

By your words, you'll be justified. By your words, you'll be condemned. There is a perfect and righteous example. He's been given as a lamb that was slain. And what you do with Jesus and what you do in your heart with Jesus is what's going to flow out of your mouth.

And these guys that he was talking to were rejecting him out of hand. Now, put a blank slide in there, just let that land. Every careless word. They're muttering among themselves, he's devil. Devil.

Ruler demons, Beelzebub. He said, every one of those is what's gonna condemn you. Or a change of mind and repentance, you can still, while you're breathing, make this decision. Then some of the scribes and pharisees said to him, this is funny, they kind of divert attention. Okay.

Okay. Be that as it may. Then some of the scribes and pharisees said to him, teacher, we want to see a sign from you. In Matthew, whenever you see somebody call him teacher, it's not a disciple. Master is what the disciples call him.

Teacher, we wanna see a sign from you. They just saw him heal a guy of blindness and muteness right in front of him and there was something that brought him to that little town anyway. They were coming to see him. And he says, either consider it to be good and it's good or consider it to be bad. Why are you even here?

You know? Teacher, we wanna see a sign from you. Now, some commentators have said this is an honest request for a messianic sign, but it was a demand, and we can see it was a demand because of the way that Jesus responds. He always answers the call of faith, and with them, he answered and said to them, an evil panoras, an evil, an adulterous generation craves for a sign. So adulterous is used often in the Old Testament as a sign of idolatry.

People purporting they were the chosen people of God began to worship Baal or they began to worship at the Asherah poles, and they got drawn away into the other religious systems around them. And they played the harlot or they were adulterous or idolatrous. That's a common way in the Old Testament which the scribes and Pharisees study all the time. He says, this generation right here in front of me, the ones of your elizabeth, an evil and adulterous generation craves a sign. What you're looking for is proof.

Prove it. It's not the call of faith. It's a demand that you dance for us right now because we're saying so. You answer us with that sign. But he answered and said to them, an evil and adulterous generation craves a sign and no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet.

This exception is interesting. Except for the sign of Jonah the prophet, Crystal has been teaching downstairs through Jonah to the kids. And I remember my kids lessons about Jonah. I remember that Jonah was called of God and God said, you are my man to carry my good news to Nineveh, to the Ninevites. They're evil.

And he knew them to be evil. And he said, Jonah said, I hate those people. I can't stand them. Don't like them. They're different from me, and they deserve whatever punishment they get.

But God said, Jonah, you're my man. You're gonna deliver this message to them so that they may repent. And Jonah, rather than just say, may it be to me just as you have said, he said, I'm getting out of here. And he took off headed for Tarshish on that fateful trip as the song goes. And when he took off, the sea became calamitous and the other sailors wondering what they would do, and Jonah knew what was the problem.

He said, just throw me overboard. It'll be alright. They do. And then this great fish takes him up. He's in the fish for three day.

We all know the story. Right? The sign of Jonah. He goes on to explain the sign of Jonah, the prophet. Now, I'm sure that all these scribes and pharisees, they know the story.

They're going back and going, what does that even mean? Honestly, that's what I did. Jonah? Really? What is the sign of Jonah?

Well, Jesus further explains. For just as Jonah was in the stomach of the sea monster for three days, the great fish, it doesn't it doesn't say whale anywhere, just a great fish. Sea monster for three days and three nights, so then will the son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. The three days and three nights is a Jewish idiom for three days. Okay?

It's just the way that they say it. And I know it seems problematic because Friday, Saturday, Sunday, there's no way to get an extra night in there. Right? And so in your head, you might be going, well, that bothers me. If it really bothers you, I'll say, and the sun went down.

Right? The sun when Jesus was on the cross, it it went down in the middle of the daytime, so there's an extra night in there. If you have to go that way. But it's just a a Hebrew idiom. What's funny about it is Luke, because he knows his audience is Gentile, doesn't include that other night.

He just says he says it like it is. Just like Jonah was in there for three days in the night. The the or just three days. So will the son of man be in the heart of the earth for three days. Jesus is forecasting.

This is the first time in Matthew. He's forecasting his sacrificial death and burial and resurrection because that fish throws Jonah up where? Nineveh. Right? To deliver the message that God had for him and Jesus is saying, hey, the sign of Jonah, God told him he was gonna be the guy to deliver the message and whether he wanted to or not.

Now Jesus wanted to. Don't stretch the analogy too far. Jesus wanted to with sacrificial voluntary, no doubt about it. But Jonah running from the Lord. When he lands on that beach convinced after his time in the great fish, he said, repent.

Repent. And you know what the people did? They repented. They were given the good news and they accepted it. We're gonna go on in just a second to see what Jesus says about those folks in Nineveh, what happened to them.

But think about that, and think about this. Jonah delivered the message and they repented. Now what happened after that? This is the main point of the book of Jonah. He went up on a hillside, sitting there in the sunshine.

He said, this is why I didn't want to deliver that message. Because they listened and they repented. And instead of being happy that they had come in, he was upset that God was saving those awful people. They deserved whatever hell they got. I knew that you were gonna do this.

That's why I didn't wanna go. And all the time when he's sitting there in the sun, God is causing a tree to grow up over him to shade him, and he looks around and sees that. And he could've just been really thankful for that thing. Doesn't say anything about that. But when God caused it to die off, he got mad at God again.

He had not done anything to deserve to be that messenger. He had not done anything to deserve that shade. He was literally upset with God for having saved somebody else. That's terrible. That's just extra.

That's not in the new oh, here we are. The men of Nineveh. This is it. So it goes back. The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment.

So all people of all times will stand up one day at the judgment. And this says that the men of Nineveh, those who received the message and repented, they will condemn these people that Jesus is talking to right then. Scribes and Pharisees who should have known better, had every chance. Men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation of judgment and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and you are doubling down right now in your own pride. Behold, something greater than Jonah is here right now, right in front of me, and you're not seeing it.

The queen of South, Queen of Sheba. Remember, the queen of Sheba came to see Solomon. She came up to visit Solomon because he was purported to be so wise and she wanted to know the wisdom of Solomon. So the queen of the South will rise up with this generation too at the judgment and she also will condemn it. Listen to that.

She accepted the good news that God gave even through Solomon because she came from the very ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. She was drawn to the truth of God. Now here you are. You came to see me, but when you got here, you've rejected me. Behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

Now, this is a little pericope, a little story that was already included in the book of Luke, I believe, that says an unclean spirit comes out of a person. It passes through waterless places seeking rest, and it does not find it. This unclean spirit that comes out of the person, if it is by anything except for the spirit of God, This is a dangerous position to be in because once you've rid yourself of whatever that besetting sin or demon is, if you do not have the spirit of God replacing it, it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes and finds it unoccupied, there's nothing that has replaced it there. It's unoccupied but it's swept and it's put in order, then it goes and it brings along with it seven other demons, more wicked than itself, and they come in and they live there.

And the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first. The pharisees and the scribes that Jesus was talking to, he's saying that you've done everything else that you can to cleanse yourself and modify your behavior, and you think that you've handled it all. And the problem is that the demons that are in you now are worse than the first. Who's he always blasting? He's always blasting the religious folks.

The folks who are sinners, he's calling them away from their life of sin. He's calling them out of their addictions, but he's saying it's by my spirit. It's by my spirit. And they recognize that. The legalists have a harder time, and they become knowledgeable and prideful.

That's the way he says it'll be with this evil generation, and evil right there. So I I think this is interesting. I try not to mention Greek, grammar, or words unless I think it's really important. So I hit one at least one a week. But panaras is the word here.

Panaras or panara because of the conjugation. But panaras is an adjective which is also used as a noun, a subseptimbly. It's derived from panas, which means pain or laborious trouble. Think about that. Evil is pain ridden.

It's all about pain. It emphasizes the inevitable agonies and misery that always go along with evil. Now, that evil is not just to the one who is evil, which is painful and miserable enough, but it's to everybody else that it affects. The problem of evil is the biggest hurdle that a lot of outsiders, unbelievers have, is they think if God is all powerful, how can he allow evil? If if he's all powerful, he's all good, it doesn't seem like he would allow evil, but free will is that important to him.

Evil is pain ridden, not just for the one who is evil, but for everybody else who will be affected by it. I just thought that that was something I'd throw in. Evil has to do with pain or laborious trouble. So if you go back and see, this is an evil generation. I think we're still amidst an evil generation.

There's a lot of pain and turmoil that is the decision of one person for their own glory can affect a ton of other people. So going forward, this all three of them tell this story, and it's in this place following everything's following right here. While he was still speaking to the crowds, behold, his mother and his brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to him. Someone said to him, Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they're seeking to speak to you. Or Mark's version.

Now think about Mark. Mark is the one who said, and he comes back home and the crowds are gathered such that they can't even eat it, and then his people his people are trying to come take custody of him because they're thinking he's gone a little crazy. Mark 11 verses later, 10 verses later says this, then his mother and his brothers came and while standing outside, they sent word to him calling for him. Now his mother and his brothers came to him and they were unable to get to him because of the crowd, And it was reported to him, your mother and your brothers are standing outside. They're wishing to see you.

And a crowd was sitting around him and they said, behold, your mother and your brothers are outside. They're looking for you. And answering them, he said to them, who who are my mother and my brothers? Now, you might be looking at this and going, maybe he has gone a little crazy. He doesn't know who his mother and brothers are.

But he's saying he's announcing some new spiritual ties. Right? He's saying something that's very profound and important. He's setting it up right here. Answering them, he said, who are my mother and my brothers?

And looking around at those who were sitting around him, gathered the disciples. Now I know that he's had pharisees and scribes, and he knows that they've been rejecting him, but he's also still amongst people who are there to see him. He's about to separate the crowd into sheep and goats by parables. They're gonna see it for themselves. Looking around him at those who are sitting around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers.

Actually, Matthew says it this way, but Jesus replied to the one who was telling him and said, who is my mother and who are my brothers? Extending his hand toward his disciples. Matthew was sitting there. He knows. Extending his hand toward the disciples, he says, behold, my mother and my brothers.

My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. They don't reject it. They go a step beyond just hearing it. They do it. The next gospel, Mark says, For whoever does the will of God this is my brother and my sister and my mother.

Notice he doesn't mention father. Matthew says, For those whoever for whoever does the will of my father who is in heaven, he is my brother and my sister and my mother. He's saying that the new spiritual ties are based on whoever hears and does the will of God. Isn't that great? I remember singing a lot in church as a kid.

I'm so glad to be a part of the family of God. I've been by the spirit. I'm losing some of the words. It is good to be a part of the family of God and Jesus considered it just this closely. Now, if you want to go and get the list of Jesus' half brothers, I think it's in John seven where it says that they were not believing in him.

James who Carl's preaching through the book of James. Now, James at this point did not believe in Jesus. Now, Mary did. Mary understood. Mary, having received the message from Gabriel said, may it be to me just as you have said.

She was open to the will of God. She heard the will of God and then did it. So she, yes, did believe, but is not putting Mary down in any way to elevate everyone who will listen and respond the same way that she did, is it? My mother and my brothers, these are those who hear the word of God and do it. Now, it's at this point where we make that turn from, okay, we've got Sermon on the Mount with the disciples and a crowd around them.

And then they come back down, and he's teaching in different places. He heals a centurion slave. He heals or resurrects a widow's son. He's got so many things that are going on. He's surrounded by people, and he refuses to do a sign like dancing monkey.

Right? Just because they clap and say, do it right now. He's answering the call of faith, but he refuses to answer. The only thing that they will have is the sign of Jonah. And I'm sure that some of them recognize that sign of Jonah later on.

It was certainly possible and open for them to do that. But the next thing that he goes into and the next place we're gonna go when we continue in this series, and I'm hesitant to to say it'll be next week because spring break starts next week, and typically people just go, get out get out of town. So I kinda wanna wait till we're all together to do this, but we will have sermons next two weeks for sure. Just might not be in this series. In that day, Jesus had gone out of the house and was sitting by the sea, and large crowds were gathered to him such that he got into a boat and he sat down and the whole crowd was standing on the beach.

Actually, Mark says, and he began to teach by the sea, and such a large crowd was gathered that he got out into a boat on the sea and sat down, and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land. And Luke says, now when a large crowd was coming together, those from various cities were journeying to him, he spoke by the way of a parable. Now the sower went out to sow. Isn't that great? We've heard the sermon before.

All of us have heard the sermon before. If anybody has ever been in church, chances are they heard some little bit of this sermon, and it's a really good one, but it's just the beginning in a series of a lot of them. I think that what Jesus is saying by saying what comes out of your mouth is what matters. What comes out of your mouth is what's in your heart. That's what matters.

What you do with Jesus matters, and he's gonna give them different parables so that seeing, some of them will still not see and hearing, some of them will still not understand. But the parables give a chance for everybody to to have the word of God planted deep in their heart and for it to grow. He was teaching them many things in parables. This is setting us up for a whole string of them together and was saying to them in his teaching, listen to this, pay close attention. Behold, sower went out to sow.

And he told them many things in parables saying, behold, the sower went out to sow. The seed is God's word, and we'll get to that eventually. This morning, even in this transitional sermon, this seed has been scattered. But I pray that in the next week, two weeks, we will be considering what it is that God wants to do with that word in our individual lives. So I'm praying that y'all will begin the process of cultivating the soil.

Ask God to cultivate the soil. Ask him to break up the rocks. Ask him to scare off the birds. Ask him to tend your garden. I think that's the last slide.

It is. Would you stand with me? Judy, I'm gonna invite you forward. The last song is search me, oh God. It's from Psalm one thirty nine.

It's actually cleanse me is the name of the song. But all four verses of this song, it's a process. It's a process. And first of all is search me, oh God, and know my heart today. See if there is any wicked way in me.

And I guarantee you, there is. Okay? If we're honest with God, there is. He's not reveal we're not perfectly perfect, all of us at this point. We're just not.

There is something in there. But as the you sing this song, may it be a prayer. Search me, oh God. Know my heart today. See if there be any wicked way in me and cleanse me from it.

You're the only one that can do that. Cleanse me from it. If we are agreeing with God about our sin, he is faithful and just to be forgiven that sin, cleansing us from all unrighteousness. The song is called Cleanse Me. If you'll watch the process though, search me and know my heart and cleanse me, and then I praise you is the very next thing.

I praise you for cleansing me from sin. The hardest thing in the Christian life, I think, to get used to is that when we confess, he actually does forgive. Receive God's cleansing. The next verse says, Lord, take my life and let it be holy thine. Fill my poor heart with your great love.

May I not be like Jonah, but more like Jesus, actually caring about people. Take all my will, my passion, myself, and my pride. I'm surrendering it, Lord. And then the last one is, oh, holy ghost, revival comes from thee. What I'm asking for over this next time before we come back with those parable of the soils is that we would be asking God to cleanse us and prepare us and tend to our garden.

Would you sing with me? Cleanse me. May it be our prayer.

I praise you, Lord, for cleansing me from sin. Fulfill revival comes from thee. Stand up, revival. Start the work now, oh Lord, my heart be healed.

Amen. And now for the benediction. Think about this. This short verse, but Mark three thirty five. Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.

It's available. The the Holy Spirit is available to the believer to be able to do the will of God. I think sometimes Satan has us so convinced that we are useless, that it's hard for us to believe that we can know and do the will of God. Whoever it is that does God's will, that's my brother, that's my sister, and that's my mother. May we experience the close family tie that we have to you, Jesus, as we surrender our will to the power of the spirit that is ordained by the father.

In Jesus' name, amen.