1. Mark 3: 13-35

2.  Family is important, near or far!  Jesus is NOT speaking against family!  He IS making a powerful point on Obedience.  Jesus went to the mountain to pray and called His disciples.  This was special – he ‘appointed’ them apostles.  He shared authority: preach/cast out demons.  Disciples need to spend time with the Master.  Jesus made them his family.  Notice even his family not trouble free – Judas.  Whole new kind of family!

3.  Families important, but not more than following Jesus.  Then Jesus mother and brothers ‘follow’ him.  Jesus ‘trouble’ was from scribes from the city.  They outright oppose him, accuse him of being controlled or ‘possessed’ by Satan.  That’s Ridiculous and makes no sense at all!  Jesus defeated Satan - taking back his stuff.  Jesus builds - not splits – families!  What’s this ‘unforgivable sin’?  Saying God’s work is Satan’s!

4.  You can’t ‘accidentally’ do this, it’s intentional!  It’s not God unwilling, sinner unwilling to be forgiven!  Jesus straightens out what Satan distorted.  THEN Jesus mother and brothers show up!  They’re trying to tell Jesus, not listen to him.  Bookends Jesus Family and New Family, resistance from evil between.  Jesus came to defeat Satan and evil, that’s not tame or ‘sane’.  Scribes and human family trying to control him?

5.  Jesus is calling his own – a special family.  We are adopted as heirs into it!  He has freed us from the ‘tyranny of the devil’  God is working, just have to look in right place!  Do you want to be part of Jesus family?  Obey God!  When we do God’s will we are Family – forever!