6-9-2024
“CELEBRATE GOD’S FAMILY”
Text: Mark 3:20-35
Sunday June 9, 2024 – Pentecost 3
Trinity Lutheran Church – Creston/Mount Ayr.
Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Our text for the Third Sunday in Pentecost is the Gospel lesson from Mark 3 that was just proclaimed.
Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, you send your Holy Spirit to remind us that from eternity you designed and created family according to your will and image to be a witness to your divine order and saving truth. Amen.
Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:
Before God created the world, there was from eternity the concept of family. From eternity, there was already the Father and the Son.
When God created Adam, he breathed the Spirit into him, and another son was created, a son with a beginning, a son in this world, yet a son who, unlike the animals, had the gift of immortality.
But then God created something totally novel; he created woman. It is, I believe, no coincidence that God keeps moving in his creative process toward that which is greater and greater. His grand finale, the crown of his creation, is a daughter!
She is not just a daughter, but she is a being who, with the man, has the potential for procreation, for creating additional family members right along with God. Though the animals were given a similar gift, only humans would generate additional children of God; only humans would procreate immortal individuals—and all this is possible because of God’s invention of motherhood.
God thus also instituted only for humans the foundational family framework: marriage. From this foundational framework come children. It is clear that children are carried, born, and nursed with a built-in link to their mothers.
They will have to live a while to be bonded to their fathers. In the end, clearly, God’s goal was to create family, and not just beings who would live as members within independent love-centered groups consisting of a father, a mother, and children.
God’s Goal Is That We, Individually and Collectively, Live as Immortal Members of His Family.
I. In his creation, God’s goal was to have family.
A. God’s creatures were lovingly commanded to be fruitful and multiply—have families.
1. Humans were unique, created in God’s image—a family reference (Gen 1:26).
a. “Image” includes the understanding of being one’s child.
b. For example, Adam’s son Seth is described as being in Adam’s image (Gen 5:1–3).
c. We still use the term in our phrase “spitting image.” (More about “image” later.)
2. Thus Adam and Eve were sons and daughters of God by creation (Lk 3:38).
3. Unlike any other creature, God wanted man to be family.
4. So God instituted marriage—a foundational family concept—for humans (Gen 2:18–25).
B. Moreover, God created us to want to have families.
1. Families are most commonly established by birth—blood relatives.
a. Children naturally want to be in a family, to have parents.
b. Parents (usually) want children.
2. But foster children, stepchildren, and biological children are all equally loved as family. Adopted children are of the same status as children of a blood relationship.
3. Then families are also established in marriage, a union as strong as blood relations.
C. All these family concepts are used by God to describe his relationship with humanity.
1. In Jesus, God ultimately became our blood relative, our Brother.
a. From eternity, Jesus had a Father, but no mother. As God’s Son, he is without beginning; a mother implies a beginning.
b. In time, the man Jesus has a mother, but no earthly father.
c. In our text (Mk 3:21, 31), we get a glimpse of Jesus’ earthly family—mother, brothers, sisters, but still no human father (Mk 6:2–3).
d. Thus, as a man, Jesus is our Brother.
2. But as God, Jesus is also betrothed to his people.
a. Marriage is also a family relationship God uses to describe his relationship to his people.
b. Christ desired to take us as his Bride.
II. God’s goal is still to have humanity as his family.
A. In disobedience, man lost the image of God; man broke God’s desired family.
1. Man ceased to be children in God’s family.
2. Of course, Satan had a hand in this (Gen 3:1).
3. Therefore, humans now have the devil as their father (Jn 8:41, 44).
a. Man is born in Satan’s domain (Eph 2:1–3).
b. Jesus was accused of involvement with Satan’s family (Mk 3:22–27).
4. Now marriage and bearing children are under a curse (Gen 3:16).
5. Now many, many sins are related to broken families. Betrayal, like Adam blaming Eve (Gen 3:12), adultery, fornication, divorce, unloved and unloving children, disobedience in families.
B. But God desires that we be adopted back into his family (Gal 4:5–7).
1. The Son of God becomes the seed of a woman (Gen 3:15).
a. As the Son of God, Christ is of God’s family.
b. And he becomes the new Adam to bring man back into God’s family.
2. As predicted, Jesus must crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3:15).
a. Our text describes this as “[binding] the strong man” (Mk 3:27).
b. Jesus must plunder Satan’s goods, taking his “children” away from him.
c. Thus exorcisms are spoken at Baptisms; the sponsors confess that a child does “renounce the devil” and all his works and all his ways.
3. Likewise, to restore the image of God in man, Jesus must destroy sin and death.
a. Death belongs to Satan; Jesus takes it upon himself (Heb 2:14).
b. Sin is the root of death. (Eating the forbidden fruit caused death; the wages of sin continue to be death.)
c. Therefore to restore God’s human family, Jesus had to destroy sin (1 Pet 3:18).
C. In Jesus, God’s goal is reached; his family in this creation is restored.
1. Jesus did destroy sin and death and crush the power of Satan by dying and rising.
2. Jesus now has eternal brothers, sisters, and mother (Mk 3:33–35).
3. Collectively, God’s people are now also Christ’s Bride (Eph 5:32).
4. In Christ, we now again possess the image of God (2 Cor 3:18; 4:4).
a. Therefore, God’s family does God’s will.
b. We believe in Jesus, who did God’s will (Jn 6:29).
c. We are now empowered to behave as family, as God’s children (Eph 5:1, 2).
Our restoration as God’s children is beyond the grasp of the world. Thus the apostle John writes:
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:1–2).
As we live out our lives in this fallen world, we struggle; we have pain. But we know that as God’s children, we have eternal life. We shall indeed “be like him.” We are waiting for our glorious immortal bodies, bodies like what was intended for God’s children.
Thus, in conclusion, hear how St. Paul explains our immortal family, speaking of each of us as sons:
The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom 8:19–23)
We wait in the peace and confidence of God’s design and plan which points to His eternal love and care for each of us.
Amen.
Now may the peace of God which far surpasses our human understanding guide and keep us in the one true faith until life everlasting…Amen