Sermon Tone Analysis

*Bound by Cords of Love*

/Mark 3.19b-35/

Pastor Oesterwind        

 

*Introduction:*  Read text.

From the time Jesus began His earthly ministry with the words /Repent and believe in the Gospel/ (1.15) to the day He cried out /It is finished/ (John 19.30),

He experienced opposition.

What is truly amazing is the love He demonstrated and continues to demonstrate even while being opposed from all sides!

Our reading this morning indicates that Jesus faced opposition from the Jewish national leadership and His own family.

It begins with His family seeking to lay hold of Him, to restrain Him from ministry (19b – 21).

But before His family can get to Him, the Jewish leadership accuses Him of collusion with Satan (22 – 30).

The family of Jesus reenters the story at the end (31 – 35).

This leads to an important key teaching in the life of Christ.

That is, only those rightly related to God through His love demonstrated in His Son belong to the true family of God.

They are doing the will of God; they are bound by the cords of Jesus’ love because they are willing to receive Him.

This is the first sandwich approach section in Mark’s Gospel.

This is the literary device which further clarifies a main principle for the readers of the Gospel (see PNTC, Edwards).

The story in the middle of the sandwich (/The Binding of the Strong Man/) signifies a relationship between the two stories beginning and ending the section (family seeking to restrain Jesus; family still seeking Jesus at the end).

The beginning and end of the passage has Jesus in a house surrounded by a crowd (20, 32).

Both beginning and end indicate that the family is seeking to restrain Him or call to Him in order to gain control over Him.

So, Jesus’ family is attempting to bind Him.

The central story has Jesus doing the binding of Satan.

The authority of Jesus binds even the prince of demons, but the family of Jesus or those around Him (v.21) must not and cannot bind Him.

As the binder of the strong man, He Himself is unbound.

As the binder of the true family of God, He binds us with the strong cords of His sacrificial, servant-oriented love.

*/Jesus binds but remains unbound!  /*

 

*/Transition:  So, our first two observations will explore how people seek to bind the love God through Christ.

The last observation this morning will explore the great sacrificial love of Christ in binding us together as the family of God!  We learn first, that we are…/*

 

*Bound Not by Blood:  Family will often misunderstand the tie we have to Christ and seek to break it (19b – 21).*

 

*Explanation:*  Jesus and His apostles return from the mountain upon which He had called them to Himself.

They enter a house that is no doubt the house in Capernaum, Peter’s house.

A multitude gathers again as they did before when Jesus healed the paralytic (2.2).

They were spending so much time ministering to this multitude that they could not even take the time to eat (20).

Returning from the long trip from the mountain combined with the people that had thronged them from all over Israel, one would expect rest and nourishment.

Mark will mention another time when Jesus and His disciples needed rest and didn’t have time to eat (6.31).

It is a detail that highlights Mark’s theme:  Jesus as the Suffering Servant, the One who is ceaseless and actively working to serve not be served.

“But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him” (21).

That is, His own people or literally /those of Him/.

While this may be speaking of friends or disciples, in the narrowest sense and within the context, it seems to be speaking of family.

His family heard that Jesus had given Himself over to His ministry, and they were determined to restrain Him from doing so, to bind Him.

They may be motivated by the best of intentions for Him.

Perhaps they thought He would be destroying His health if He kept on without food or rest.

Maybe they thought that He had gone off the deep end in His zeal for God.

They determined that He was “out of His mind” (21) and that He had to be restrained.

It’s one thing to face opposition from those who do not know you, even from the religious establishment that should recognize truth; however, it is quite another to suffer opposition from family who seeks to prevent you from doing the will of God.

Jesus will eventually teach His family that even a blood relationship with Him doesn’t bind them to Him or He to them.

*/Jesus binds but remains unbound!/*  Allegiance is by grace through faith not a heritage or familial right.

Jesus’ earthly family found this very difficult to accept.

John records that even at the end of His ministry, Jesus’ brothers did not believe in Him (John 7.5).

*/Jesus binds but remains unbound!/*

 

*Application:*  Families often have the best of intentions for us, but they lack true understanding as to the purpose of our lives – God working in and through us.

Often, we fail to verbalize this purpose because we lack a full understanding of it ourselves.

Families misunderstand our zeal and intention to serve Christ.

They try to talk us out of new associations that we are forming with Bible believing people and churches, our true family.

They say things like those said to Jesus, “You’re out of your mind.

You’ve been brain-washed.”

Can you relate to this?

 

Every now and again, we are told that we labor too much for the cause of Christ.

People become concerned for our well-being.

Notice that the text states that when Jesus’ own heard about the fact that He didn’t have time to eat or rest, they acted to restrain Him.  “He’s out of His mind.

We’ve got to stop Him from killing Himself.

These people are going to overwhelm Him with their needs.”

Can you relate to this?

People are often quick to point out when we’re overworked (which may be necessary), but they infrequently stir us up to work harder for Christ …to see the waves of humanity without Christ …to stir us to diligently seek and reach the lost!  “You’re too zealous!”

they say.

But is it not worth health and life to serve Christ?

If not, what did Jesus come to do?  */Jesus binds but remains unbound!/*

 

*/Transition:  So, we cannot be bound by blood, by family ties on this earth.

Second, we are…/*

 

*Bound Not by the Will of Religious Man:  Religious people will often misunderstand the tie we have to Christ and seek to break it (22 – 30).*

 

*Explanation:*  The scribes come down from Jerusalem.

Jesus is attracting the big guns in the Jewish religious world.

These men are coming to accomplish one thing:  to slander Jesus and neutralize the tie He has to the multitudes.

They will continually seek to do this until they murder Him. 

 

/            Two Slanderous Accusations/

 

The scribes repeatedly level two accusations against Jesus.

The imperfect tense of the word /said/ communicates that the scribes were saying these things over and over again.

First, they accused Him of having Beelzebub (22).

That is, they were saying that the devil Himself was constantly abiding in Jesus, thereby, giving Him the power to do what He did.

They cannot deny His authority; they just point out that it is not His at all but Satan’s!

Second, they continually claim that Jesus casts out demons “by the ruler of the demons” (22).

So, for them Jesus is an instrument through which the source of satanic power flows.

For these scribes, Jesus’ power comes directly from Satan not God! 

 

/            Parables Picturing Reality/

 

The scribes do all of this behind the back of Jesus.

So, Jesus “called them to Himself” (23).

He used parables to show them how foolish they actually were being in spreading such deceit.

First, he explains how unrealistic their claims are and then he explains the reality of the situation to them.

If Jesus acted under the power of Satan, then “how can Satan cast out Satan” (23)?

Kingdoms and houses divided destroy themselves with in-fighting.

If Jesus was operating for and by the power of Satan, then that would mean Satan had risen up against himself and is divided (26).

Satan cannot head the kingdom of evil and be divided against himself.

If any faction exists, he loses his authority over the whole of his kingdom.

No, the reality of the situation is that Satan is a strong man who has accumulated his goods in his house.

His house is the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of evil.

It stands in conflict with God’s kingdom.

His goods are the hapless souls of men born in sin.

Jesus is the One stronger than the strong man.

Jesus alone can bind Him and remain unbound!  */Jesus binds but remains unbound!/*

 

Jesus binds the strong man and stands in opposition to Satan’s kingdom not in cooperation with it.

Then, He plunders Satan’s goods.