Family and Agape Part 2

In Mark chapter 3, Jesus seems to insult his family once again. When he is told that his mother and brothers are amongst him, he says, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” He follows this by, “The person who obeys God's will is my brother and sister and mother.” Isn’t that quite a slam on the family?

Not really, as it turns out, but yes (confused yet?). What Jesus was saying was that his family ranges farther than those who he is related to by blood. He was saying, “Yeah, these guys are my family, but what about the rest of you?”

Are you in God’s family?

Cause if so, you have to act like it.

Jesus loved his family, yes, but he loved his spiritual family too. And he calls us to do the same.

Let’s talk about that person sitting in the pew next to you. Who are they? Oh, okay, you know them? Let’s go down a little further. What about the person halfway across the church, way in back? Who are they?

YOU DON’T KNOW?!?!

Shame on you, then. And shame on me, because neither do I.

Jesus calls us to love our family, our spiritual family, but we can’t really do that unless we know them. In our culture we have this idea that we can love just by saying so, or feeling something. But love is explicitly an action — an action we mean. In order to love the person next to us, we have to do something for them.

We have to (dare I say it?) submit to them. To each other.

Submit to each other out of reverence for Christ Ephesians 5:21

There are some people in my church who are hard of hearing. They literally can’t hear unless there’s a mike on the person speaking, and sometimes not even then. And there are some people in my church who don’t like wearing mikes. But when our sound person makes sure that mikes are working and everyone who needs to uses one, he is submitting himself to the people who can’t hear.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? That’s the idea. We don’t submit to so that we’re fixing everybodys problems or wearing ourselves down. We do it so that the person’s life is made that little bit more better.

May you come to realize that submitting to someone is doing good for them. And my you realize that submission is something small and seemingly insignificant, but it makes their lives that much better.