Lunatic, Liar, Lord

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We are continuing our series called Simply Jesus. We're looking at the Gospel of Mark where we find simply Jesus. He is presented by Mark in one of the most simple forms possible of the four Gospels. He's probably the first written and his Gospel is also the simplest in some ways from all of them. But the question is who is simply? Simply who is Jesus? Who is he? How do we know? It's interesting how in our society most people do love Jesus or like Jesus or think he's probably somebody who was just alright with me or cool or whatever you want to say. Boy, did I again age myself with that. If you didn't understand the Doobie Brothers, right? We could sing it next week, Jesus is just alright with me. But what's interesting is a lot of times Jesus becomes a projection of our wish dreams in our society. And it was Feuerbach way back even before Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx talked about religion in the ways that they did. Feuerbach was the first one to write this out and stated that basically our view of God is whatever we project on him that we need. And so it started out way back when, you know, I am finite so God is infinite. I die and God cannot die. And so we project on God all the things that we'd like. I am weak, God is almighty, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Is that what we find when we get to the Gospel of Mark? Is Jesus just the projection of what the people wished and dreamed and what they expected? Actually, it's totally on the contrary. He breaks everybody's expectations. He shocks, he astounds even his own family members in our text today. What we find is Jesus defying expectations. And so we're going to be in Mark chapter 3 this morning. Then he went home and the crowd gathered again so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him for they were saying he is out of his mind. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by Beelzebul. And by the prince of demons, he casts out demons. And he called them to him and said to them in parables, how can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is 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 is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed, he may plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have his has spirit, never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin for they were saying he has an unclean spirit. And his mother and his brothers came in standing outside. They sent to him and called him and a crowd was sitting around him. And they said to him, your mother and your brothers are outside seeking you. And he answered them, who are my mother and my brothers? And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. This is a remarkable passage in the book. Mark's just extraordinary in bringing it up. We discover there are two theories that are raised here of who Jesus is. Both theories are wrong. Then we hear from Jesus' own lips who he says he is. And finally, we get a look at how that impacts us. And those are our three points for our message today. Theories about who Jesus is, Jesus' own self-description, and then the impact that that has. So theories about Jesus. Did you notice verse 21 and 22 right next to each other? It says, and when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying he is out of his mind. That's theory one. He's a lunatic. Any family members you know that you can think of? Your family knows you best. And here his family is saying he's crazy. He's nuts. And then the second theory comes. This is from the religious leaders. And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying he is possessed by Beelzebul. And by the prince of demons, he casts out demons. They're basically saying he's a liar. He's the father of lies, just like the devil. That's theory two. Now, what are these theories, these two theories, trying to explain? You know what theories, theories try to, they look at the data, and they try to make sense of the data. That's good theories for you, right? And so they're trying to figure out through what Jesus is saying, how he is acting, what he is doing. Who is this guy? By the way, by chapter three already, there's a lot of data that says one of these two has to be right. He's either insane, or he is kind of in league with the devil, because he seems to have miraculous powers. And at the same time, he's sa...