Ep 74 The Real Story Behind Jesus' Family Dynamics - Navigating Family Ties, Trials, and Faith - Real Bible Stories - A Bible Study Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Imran (00:00):
How long do we have?
Ten minutes.

Pastor David (00:02):
All right, he has played.

Imran (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Real Bible Stories.
Join us as we deep dive intothe historic, religious,
cultural, political andemotional context surrounding
the real lives of real people inthe Bible and the stories we've
all grown to love.
Hello and welcome back to RealBible Stories.
I'm your host, imran Ward, andwe're joined by my wife Selina,
hello, and Pastor David SquiresHello, how are you doing today?

(00:34):
Great, I'm so happy to be back.
Yeah, it's been a.
I think we had to take lastweek off for something.
You were fixing the truck andbreaking it and fixing the truck
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last week I spent four days on afour hour walk as you do, but
the lift is on the truck and itworked well.

(00:54):
We were in Yosemite lastweekend and had no issues.
But you know, no time elapseson a podcast we just lined them
up one after the other.
Exactly, they don't know that,like I, spent last week
suffering yeah, there's timetravel I was like oh man, I have
to have this done by Friday orI'll miss my lineman appointment
, then we can't drive the truckto Yosemite and then it's going
to be all downhill for themthere.
So but we got it done, the tripwent, the trip went well, and

(01:18):
so now we're back, continuingthrough the story behind the
story, we have something reallygood.
Yeah, this week we're goinginto the family of Jesus.
And so if you haven't alreadystarted so.
This is not the same kind ofseries like we did in Galatians,
where we were going throughevery single verse, through the

(01:39):
entire letter to the Galatianchurch that Paul wrote.
This is more its own, eachindividual kind of diving into a
character out of the Bible andgoing into Well, who were they?
Not just what were they doingin their specific chapter, but
like can we, what can we seeabout their life over the course
of scripture?
We're doing big pictures.
What are you like?

stuff that we string together.
You got to go here and here andhere and pull those things
together and you see the storybehind the story but you do it
by piecing it togetherAbsolutely.
So this is real, deeptheological discussion.

Imran (02:12):
We're going to be jumping around a lot.
So if you've got your Bible,just be prepared to you know,
pause and jump to thosedifferent scriptures.
And also the notes are on theupon Baptist Church website as
well, so you can jump in thereand look at the story behind the
story.
The family of Jesus, that's thename of these notes.
This is a great, a greatepisode for those of you that
you have family.

That man, some of you would say my family is so
stressful.
I think anybody that's got afamily say my family stressful.
Some of you go my family.
They're hard to please, right?
Some of you say my family isreally high pressure, or some of
you, the reason that yourfamily is difficult is they're
unbelievers.
You don't even share faith withthem.

Imran (02:52):
Yeah, that's an unfortunate reality too, because
you know that it's the mostimportant thing, right, and so
what we're going to find is hey,even Jesus dealt with some
family difficulties.

Yeah, I think that that's awesome.
So the family of Jesus is whatwe're going to do today.

Imran (03:04):
How much of a family is there?
What are you going?

Selena (03:07):
to do today.

Imran (03:08):
How much of the family we're talking like.
You mean a familyGenerationally.
How far back we go?
We're going to stay with his.

We're not going to go further than his brothers.
So what happened to Jesusbrothers?
Ok is what we're going to raise, that and I guess his brother's
grandchildren will go, will gothat far down.

Imran (03:23):
All right, awesome All right.
How are we starting this out?
Pastor?

Let me tell you a story about a Marine.

Imran (03:28):
Oh OK.

I've got a friend.
He says this is just to showyou how messed up family is.
He says I pick up my brother atthe airport.
He gets in the car and he saysyou know, I'm a United States
Marine Marine.
I had been enlisted combatMarine.
I was enlisted.
Then I'm an officer.
I pick up my brother at theairport.
He gets in the car andimmediately punches me.
He goes bam, hits me right inthe arm as hard as he could.

(03:52):
He says I look at what.
And he goes I just want you toknow, just because you're a
Marine, you're still my brotherand I can beat you up.

Selena (03:59):
Oh my gosh.

I said what did you do?
He said I just I drove him tothe family gathering.
Did he apologize?
He goes, no, he actually wantedme to know that, just because
I'm a Marine he can beat me up.

Imran (04:09):
I'm going to tell you the reverse of that story.
Yeah, because my brother cameand stayed with us.
This may be a year and a halfago now.
He came and stayed with us.
It was in this house.
It was in this house.
Yeah, it was in this house.

Selena (04:21):
It wasn't San Clemente, but I think he was still in the
Navy.

Imran (04:25):
And, yeah, he was still in the Navy.
So my brother went Navy, I wentMarine Corps.
So sibling rivalry ended ofitself on multiple layers, so he
came.
There's some kids football gamesthere, so I, and so I'm the guy
that worked out all the time,but my brother got the height,
so he's like three or fourinches taller than me and but
I'm the older one and I'm the,you know, the warrior of the

(04:45):
warrior that went to the MarineCorps side, not the Navy side,
and all that.
But he was talking some kind oftrash as we, as we do, and it
ended up turning into.
I was like all right, let'swrestle it out, because he
thought he could take me.
He's like you know, you never,I never was able to beat you
when we were kids.

Selena (05:02):
But that's what we were kids because he's like he's like
six years younger than me.

Imran (05:06):
So basically I left for college and he was in middle
school and then we didn't reallyhave a lot of time together
until he joined the Navy.
So now he's, you know, 19 yearsold, I'm 25, 26, whatever, and
he's like I think I can take younow.

Selena (05:22):
Now he's taller than me, now he thinks he's big and all
that.

Imran (05:26):
I was like, all right, let's go.

So where were you at?
We were downstairs.
So so, selena, you've got thesetwo, these two guys.

Selena (05:33):
I just want to happen in your living room.
Yeah, you just for drinkingcoffee Watcher?
Yeah, I make sure they're goingto bump into.
I think I made some space.

Imran (05:41):
This is a marine wife right here.

Selena (05:42):
Yeah.

Imran (05:43):
She was like all right, it's going to happen.
And so we took, we took ourshirts off and we tapped hands
and then we went at it and Ithink we did like two or three
rounds and he was, he was done.

Selena (05:54):
Yeah, he ended up.

Imran (05:55):
you know, I don't know if I think I face down on the
ground Not moving for a littlebit.
There you, it was pretty pretty.
Oh man but it was it was a goodtime, it was a good tussle, but
what I told him is that, likethe Marine Corps put this in me,
I want it more.
That's all they bred in me forthe last couple of years is that
you just got to want it morethan the enemy and I was getting

(06:15):
after it.
But so kind of it, kind ofreverse, that story Siblings
right.
So we would say, all of you outthere.

You don't have to be embarrassed to families
Difficult for you.
It's not that your family isunholy, it's not that they don't
love Jesus.
You can love Jesus, bereligious, still have difficult
family.
Want to do this?
Let's introduce the family ofJesus.
Let me give you an idea.
To some of you it's like Jesusjust appears on the scene.
Oh, and you kind of know whohis mom is, because she's she's
pretty famous.
Yeah, she's well known,probably the most famous mother

(06:45):
ever.

Imran (06:47):
But what Eve is a mother of my kind.

We know that Jesus was of the tribe of Judah, so
family of David.
Yeah, rightfully, joseph, hisfather, should have been the
king of Israel by the birthheritage, but of course
politically he's not.

Imran (07:04):
So, which is absolutely wild in its own right, right
yeah we know that they were poor.

By the way, the reason, one of the ways we know
that they're poor when they wentto offer sacrifices for Jesus
birth.

Imran (07:14):
Hold on.
I want to, even before we gettoo far, because some people are
just checking in.
And so you're saying that thefather of Jesus, who was a
carpenter as well?
By birth heritage would be theking of Israel.
How does that even happen?
How do you end up with a wholeother tribe being in charge then

(07:34):
?

Because Herod was put in power by the Romans and
he's not even really in Israel.
He's an Edomite, and so theydid not follow the kingly
heritage.
So the kings of Israel, thetrue kings, are now the poppers.
They have nothing.
That's wild, and that's how youcan trace Jesus from King David

(07:55):
and you trace it out, jesus isthe rightful king of Israel.
Well, that would make hisfather before him the rightful
king.

Imran (08:02):
Yeah.

And so Joseph should have been the king of
Israel, but instead.

Imran (08:07):
And that's by birth right .
But at the same time, Josephwasn't Jesus's physical father,
that's true.
He was his parental figure.

It's the reason why Luke takes time to trace out
Mary's genealogy.
Matthew traces Joseph'sgenealogy to show from both
sides they come from David andas a Mary's line also comes from
David as well, yeah.

Imran (08:29):
OK.

So this family is deep, deep into the lion and
lineage of David.
They are of the tribe of Judah.
That matters when we get toRevelation.
He's the lion of the tribe ofJudah.
We know that Mary had a sisternamed Salome.

Imran (08:47):
What.

Salome, that was her sister's name, sal OME, so
she had a sister.
Her husband's name is Zebedee,and they have two kids named
James and John the.

Imran (08:59):
James and John.
Where in the text are thesedifferent names and stuff?

We can trace them out like you go to Luke, chapter
two.

Selena (09:07):
You'll encounter.

You'll encounter Zebedee.
You encounter Salome.

Imran (09:12):
OK.

The sons James and John, who also later these are,
so these would have beenJesus's cousins.
They also become disciples ofJesus.

Selena (09:20):
OK.

That's Mary's sister.
Mary has a cousin namedElizabeth.
Elizabeth has a husband namedZachariah.

Imran (09:28):
That's an old name.
I actually didn't knowElizabeth was in the Bible.
I only think British when Ihear that name.

You.
You encounter Zechariah also inLuke when he's told that the
child is going to be born, isgoing to be John the Baptist.
John the Baptist also wouldhave been a cousin of Jesus.

Imran (09:46):
Yeah, that's wild.

Right.
Joseph appears to have abrother named Cleopas and,
unbelievably, a wife named Mary,and it's how we get so many
Mary's in the Bible.
So Jesus mom is Mary, his auntis Mary.
Mary, michael, everybody yeahbecause it comes from the Hebrew
named Miriam.
Moses sister becomes the Greekform Mary.

Imran (10:11):
Oh, it's a really famous name because it's Moses sister.

In fact I wanted to name a child Mary and realize
it was so popular, I went theother direction and named her
Miriam.
Yeah which is really, which isgreat.

Imran (10:21):
Mm, hmm.

I think, a great place to kind of put all it.
I like your question.
Where do we get this stuff?
Mark, chapter six, jesus visitshis hometown and we get some
name dropping going on rightthere in the text.
It's kind of fun.

Imran (10:34):
Yeah.

So we'll just lean into the text.
It says Jesus came to hishometown His hometown would have
been Nazareth and the disciplesfollowed him.
On the Sabbath he began toteach in the synagogue and many
who heard him were astonished.
And look what they asked.
They go where did he learnthese things?
Where did he get this wisdom?
How does he do these miracles?
And look at this.
Now they go is this not thecarpenter?

(10:57):
They're stunned, they're likewell wait.
So the world knows him as ateacher, they know him as a
healer, they know the worldknows him as the Messiah, the
king.
They're like to us he's justthe carpenter.
He like where did he get thisstuff?
He just builds our furnitureand he's our repairman.

Imran (11:15):
How is he really that great?
It's like if Bob the Builderjust showed up and just started
preaching Christ.
And he's like wait a minutethough.
You're Bob the Builder, whatare you doing?

They're like, okay , yeah, he can build a good
furniture set, but, son of God,that's a bit of a reach.

Imran (11:27):
How old was he when around he would have been around
30 when he started his ministry.
Okay.

About 33 when he died.

Imran (11:34):
So already by chapter six he's 30.
So this isn't his first timepreaching in the synagogue, Okay
.

It says he's the son of Mary.
Notice that Jesus in hishometown is called Son of Mary,
not Son of Joseph.
That's kind of a hint thatbecause Joseph isn't referenced
that Joseph has died.
Oh, it's, interesting yeahotherwise in that culture they
would have referenced the father, not the mother.

Selena (11:56):
Interesting.

Oh, okay, and now we're getting.

Imran (11:59):
Already, by that point Joseph had died.

Yeah, it appears that Mary's a widow.

Imran (12:03):
And we don't know at all, because I've heard this before
that Joseph probably died beforethe ministry started.
Is there anywhere where we knowhow?
Not that I know of.
No, that's wild, it's justsilent.

One of those silent things, yeah, but Joseph
was probably considerably olderthan Mary.
Mary may have been as young as14, and Joseph could have been
well into his 20s or 30s whenthe birth narrative happened.

Imran (12:27):
Yeah, and also the.
So even the life expectancythen, which I don't think was
over A little lower yeah.
I don't think it was over 50 orsomething like that.

But you still get some pretty old people.
That's true, yeah, now noticeit lists out his brothers for us
, and this is where it getsreally helpful.
It says that he's got a brothernamed James.
His Hebrew name would have beenJacob Joseph, would also be
Joseph Judas or also would havebeen named Judah.
Notice, jesus has a brothernamed Judas, not same Judas as

(12:58):
the disciple.

Selena (12:59):
And.

Simon, or you would have called him Simeon.
So his brothers are James,joseph, judas, simon, or in
Hebrew we would say Jacob,joseph, judah and Simeon.
So there are four brothers plusJesus.
That's five.
And now we get another littlelook into his family.
They say and are not hissisters here with us?

(13:21):
Sisters implies at least twogirls.

Imran (13:24):
Yeah.

So if you've got five boys, two girls, that's a
family with seven children.

Imran (13:30):
Yeah, that's it.
I don't know that's loud.

That's pretty big family.

Imran (13:33):
Absolutely.
How many siblings do you have,Jesus being the first?
Oh, I've got three, so fourincluding me.
So I've got two sisters, and mybrother and my two sisters are
in the middle how big is yourfamily, Selena?

Selena (13:43):
Same four.

Wow.

Selena (13:44):
Yeah, we have our parents.
Both have big family, sothey're nine children.

Imran (13:49):
Yeah, I think.
Yeah, on my dad's side, I thinkit's 10.
And my mom's side is eithernine or 10, as well.
And both my parents are theyoungest, so the oldest are like
10 to 15 years older than them.

So Jesus family is described as a family with
seven children.

Imran (14:04):
Yeah.

That's a lot of kids.

Imran (14:07):
Someone's got to tell this one.

There's some truth to that.
I think back then socialsecurity was kind of like
children.
Yeah, the children are going totake care of you in your old
age.

Imran (14:15):
Yeah, we talked about it was one of the more recent
episodes that it was a reallybig deal when the baby made it
to the point where they didn'thave to be teased anymore and
that was like a secondarycelebration that you did.
That's right.
You know that's right Becauseit was so hard to get a baby to
that point back then it saysthis that they go.

Who is this carpenter, who's this guy?
And it says they took offenseat him.
Notice what Jesus says.
This is Mark, chapter 6, verse4.
Jesus said to them a prophet iswithout honor is not without
honor except in his hometown,among his relatives and his own
household.
Jesus is going.
You're about to miss what God'sabout to do Because you're

(15:00):
stuck with the familiar.
Because I grew up here, youthink nothing great can happen.
So the very place that shouldbe the happiest, the Messiah
comes out of Nazareth.
You're about to miss it becauseI grew up here, yeah.
So the very people that shouldbe having the party oh, the
Messiah is here.
They're like oh, we know you,you're nothing.

Imran (15:20):
I mean, I could see that, because it's the same kind of
doubt we have for people that wegrew up with.
It's like, if I don't see theprogress, like oh.
I'll give you an example.
One of the reasons I joined theMarine Corps is because my
buddy, he joined the MarineCorps band and basically we left
for.

(15:40):
So he was kind of a chubby dude.
We were a big guy and we leftfor a summer and came back and
he was like super fit.
He was like a lot more cut up,a lot more fit.
And I was like what in theworld happened to you?
You're just a saxophone player,why are you looking all cut up
and fit and all that?
And he told me he's like oh, Idecided to join the Marine Corps
and so I started training withthem and he was training with

(16:00):
them through the summer and hehad such a dramatic change at
that point that I literally waslike take me to where you are
going.
And he took me to therecruiting station as I started
to get and that's how I ended upkind of joining the Marine
Corps.
But it was like such a dramaticshift in that period that I
could not believe.
Like isn't this just a saxplayer?
How has he so changed Think?

about this family of Jesus.
We've count out seven kids.
We know that he's a carpenter.
His father was a carpenter.
You would think if any familyshould have it together, if you
will, it should be Jesus' family.

Imran (16:37):
If any family should have it together, if anybody should
kind of have their act togetherthey're not having fights.

They're singing kumbaya.
It should be the family ofJesus.
I mean, you think about it?
People today make statues ofhis mom.
Right, that's pretty like evenyou Protestants.
You have Joseph and Mary onyour mantle every Christmas.
This is the family that thereshould be no problems in this
family.
We put you on our mantle.

(17:02):
We have statues of your mom.
Here's what's wonderful.
Jesus was sinless, but he wasnot born into a sinless family,
and so we're gonna get a littlemicrocosm and this is very
exciting because you get towatch how a sinless man deals
with a sinful family Is whatwe're gonna see.
Max Locato wrote this.

(17:23):
He said if your family doesn'tappreciate, you take heart.
Jesus faced the same thing inhis family.

Imran (17:29):
What does the phrase take heart mean?
Be comforted, be encouraged.

It's like if your family doesn't appreciate you
and love you A it's okay.
Jesus went through the samething, yeah yeah, One of the
things I noticed as a pastor isthe amount of prayer cards that
I used to get.
For what was?
Pray for me because I'm sick,pray for my mom because she's
sick?
I got a lot of we're sick.

(17:56):
What I noticed?

Imran (17:59):
just a few years ago.
Was that during COVID time?

No, all of ministry.
People were really prayingabout we're sick.
I just noticed and people stillturn in hey, I'm sick, pray for
that.
But I noticed a great increasein the number of people saying
would you pray for the familystress I'm under.

Imran (18:13):
Would you pray?
I don't feel wrong with my mom.

One person actually wrote on their prayer
card dear pastor, I need a newfamily.

Imran (18:19):
It's what they wrote.
Pray for me to get a new family.
Just put me up to late termadoption.

So can I get adopted at 21?
.
Let me show you some maybefrustrations that Jesus might
have had with his family.
So you go hey, here's a greatfamily you all would have been
glad to be born of.
Joseph and Mary.
Right, like, hey, that's agreat family to be born into.
I think Jesus probably had afew frustrations.
And this is my list.
This isn't you know, this isjust me reading the Bible.

(18:48):
But I noticed his family.
They could be pretty highpressure.
His mother, remember, they'reat a wedding.
His mother comes in and goes,hey, they're out of wine and
this was even before he reallystarted his ministry.
It is you of his disciples, yeahhe's out of wedding with his
disciples and she's like they'reout and she's kind of putting
some pressure on him.

Imran (19:07):
Yeah.

You just noticed that she's you know, when she
leaves the room she sayswhatever he tells you to do, do
it, which is beautiful, butthere's still some some pressure
there, absolutely.
One time his aunt Salome sothis would have been Mary's
sister, his aunt's the mother ofJames and John comes, she
kneels down in front of him andyou're like, wow, what's his

(19:29):
aunt gonna want?
Mm-hmm, she says, please, letone of these sons sit on my
right and one on your left inthe kingdom of heaven.
What that's high.
Please, let, please, let mysons be the greatest of your
apostles.
I you know that's some highpressure when your aunt comes to
you and starts.
And so Jesus starts talking tothe boys.
He ignores his aunt and he saysto them Can you suffer what I'm

(19:50):
about to suffer?
He uses the word cup.
Can you drink from the cup I'mabout to drink from?
And they was funny.
Is they're supposed to go?
No, because he's thinking ofthe cross.
Yeah, and they say, oh, yeah.
He's like, okay, well, you aregonna suffer, but to give away
the place on my right or my leftis not for me, it's for my
father.

Imran (20:08):
Yeah, that's kind of high pressure.
Absolutely, cuz.
That also breeds likeacknowledgment, like they know
who he is.
Yeah, and they're still likeI'm gonna ask God if he can give
this to my, my sons, and it'slike alright.

What one more example of them just being high
pressure.
We could probably think of more.
But one time they came to Jesusand they said, hey, anybody who
wants to run the ministry andbe known everywhere Doesn't do
the ministry the way you'redoing it.
You should go, you should talkto the crowds, you said, and
they kind of give him someadvice on how to behave on a
holy day.
And it's kind of interestingbecause you realize, hmm,

(20:43):
they've had a family meetingabout him, they've gotten
together like man, jesus hasbeen running the ministry wrong
Jesus is and his family isTalking behind his back about
how he should be running hisministry.

Imran (20:54):
Man ain't that familiar.

Hey, you're doing it right.
Can you imagine telling Jesusyou're running your ministry
wrong?

Imran (21:02):
I can imagine a lot of people doing that.

Another thing about Jesus family.

Imran (21:07):
I just do that now in their prayers.

I think Jesus family was kind of hard to
please, so they they were highpressure.
They're hard to please just oneexample in.
Mark chapter 3 the house iscrowded.
In fact it says it was socrowded that the disciples
couldn't eat.
I think that's funny, thatPeter's like you know what I

(21:30):
remember about that day wecouldn't even get to the fridge.
It says this this is mark 321.

Selena (21:43):
Are you like?

ember and has a Bible open and the pages are
flying.
You got it.

Imran (21:46):
I do have mark mark 3, 321.

Yeah, and.

Imran (21:51):
When his family heard it they went out to seize him, for
they were saying he is out ofhis mind.

That's hard to please, what?
So first they come to me, theygo.

Imran (22:00):
Well, the verse before then.
Then he went home in, the crowdgathered again so that they
could not even eat.
Okay, that's verse 20, see it.
And then that's funny.

So first they're like hey, you're too private,
you need to get out there.
Then talk about hard to pleasethat the house is so crowded.
You're like, oh, he's toopopular, he's out of his mind.
Yeah, come on one minute.
You're telling me get out inthe crowd.
Now I've run such a crowd thatyou're saying I'm out of my mind
.
Some of you have families thatare like that.
You know that you just couldn'tplease them.
You got sees.
They were like you're nottrying hard enough.

(22:30):
You got bees.
They're like you need to studymore.
You got a's and they were likehey, the teachers these days
they're so easy.
Like man.
I just can't win with you guys.
I love that.
Another thing so high pressure,hard to please.
I think probably what reallybroke Jesus heart is His
brothers were unbelievers.
They did not accept him as theMessiah, and so An unbeliever in

(22:56):
the family just connectsdifferent then then You're
believing family members do no,that's who he does.
They don't they just don'tunderstand you.
They've got different values,different dreams.
John 7 5 says this.
It says his own brothers didnot believe that's gotta hurt,
don't you think like?

Imran (23:18):
for not even his brothers believed in him.

Yeah, you know I.
He came to see can, to save thelost.
He came the furthest distanceTo reach mankind.
He said I will go after a lostsheep.
I'll go any distance.
Then, right there in his ownhome.
There's unbelievers and so hewill go any distance to reach
people Two feet away.

Imran (23:39):
That's incredible.
His cousin is John the Baptistas well.
Yeah cousin immediatelyrecognized.

Oh, that's good.

Imran (23:47):
That's right, but his own brothers were like Again,
familiarity you know yeah it'stough.

It's tough when you've wrestled with somebody
and you've you've talked smackand you know You've, they've
just, they've just downplayedhim.
Yeah yeah, sometimes we can,you can kind of Not recognized
family members for the some ofthe stature they do deserve
Because they're family the otherpart is that is even.
But Mary believed and Mary knewwell, yeah, but if anybody was

(24:15):
gonna know if he was a fraud orreal, it would be Mary.

Imran (24:17):
Oh, yeah, she had the.
Yeah, she had, she had the.
Oh, they call the birth, the,the virgin birth, virgin birth.

So she knew she hadn't had sex.

Imran (24:24):
Yeah, she's like okay.

I know, and she talked to an angel.
That also helps.

Imran (24:28):
Yeah, you know, that increases your faith.
Mm-hmm, you know Joseph.
Oh, joseph was also An angel.

Selena (24:36):
Approach him as well, after Mary told the mother, the
father believed the mother.

Imran (24:40):
That's.
That must be painful for themas well, because I could see if
With my parents, if none of usbelieved, that would be
heartbreaking for them.

See how they, the brothers, probably always feel
downplayed by it, like Jesus hasthe special status in the
family, like no, he was, I was avirgin and I was.
And they're like, oh, theyalways treat him different.
He's always the special child.
He's yeah, and so it lead to alittle bit of I just I don't
believe it.
You know, that's don't say thattoo loud around, mom, but I
don't believe it.
I have an uncle who's a doctorand a His son.

(25:15):
My cousin got hurt and so he'smy, my uncle's looking at it, my
uncle's the doctor, he'slooking at the, at the hurt, and
his daughter says, hey, don'tyou think we should take him to
take?
Take my.
His name is Branton, shouldn'twe take Branton to a doctor?
And my aunt says, well, yourdad is a doctor.
And she pauses and she goesWell, yeah, but I mean like, I

(25:40):
think that's kind of Jesusfamily, like okay.
Could we get a real Messiaharound here?
Because, we know this guy, youknow so it's like this guy.

Imran (25:50):
This guy, you know, trips over the troops going up the
stairs.
You can't be a doctor.

Wouldn't you say.
Probably one of the biggestHardix in the family is when a
family member doesn't believeyeah.
Billy Sunday was a preacher.
Yesteryear, like before BillyGraham, there was Billy.

Selena (26:05):
Sunday, he had been a baseball player.

Phenomenal baseball player got saved.
Led tent revivals.
Huh wow, one doubt.
They say he won a millionpeople.
The Lord and he was crazy He'dcome out, do somersaults.

Selena (26:18):
Jump up and down preached against booze.

He was just hardcore Jesus.

Imran (26:23):
Yeah.

But he said the greatest heartache of my life,
the greatest failure, is that myown sons don't believe.
Wow.

Selena (26:30):
So I can win million people the.

Lord, yeah, but his sons Rejected the faith that
he went out and preached.
Oh, it broke his heart, youknow.
He said I stole a million soulsfrom the devil, but my own sons
yeah don't believe.
So that hits different right.
I I'll bet you guys would justagree with this and everybody
out there would agree with this.

(26:52):
I can go down a list.
We can even make the listlonger.
High pressure, hard to pleaseunbelievers, but all of us would
agree.
Just living in a family iscomplex.

Selena (27:01):
Right, if you're the Messiah.

It's complex if you're you living in
relationships are complex.

Imran (27:06):
Yeah, people are their own individual souls, own
individual purpose and we don'teven fully understand our own
minds.
So it's like someone may Selenamay say something to me and I
react, and I didn't even knowthat I would react that way.
It's like I didn't know, I feltthat way about that topic.
You know where that come fromright and you have to deal with
that within yourself, and thenyou have to deal with it
relationally as well.
So it's like people are complex.

Selena (27:28):
Sorry, I feel like family tends to ask for more
favors as well.
You had said it's high pressure.

But I was like oh, that's.

Selena (27:35):
I feel like that's asking for like Murray's, like
cake.
Hey, can you turn this water towhy?
Or what was the other examplethat you gave yeah to me?
That just was like okay, canyou do this?
It's like, ah, I guess, oh,yeah.

Imran (27:50):
Selena says yes to her family immediately.
Yeah, without, without anyhesitation.
I was like love please mydaughter.
We have to, we're supposed totalk about this.

I I said to my daughter I wrote a list of
things I like about you.
Immediately my other daughter,her sister, goes.
I've got a list of things Idon't like about you.

Imran (28:10):
Isn't that true?

can you imagine Mary says to judge to Jesus I've
got a list of things I likeabout you.
Right away, James goes.
I've got a list of things Idon't like about you, man, oh
man.

Imran (28:21):
Well, this was you and this was Mary.
Which one of the sisters was it?
That is, yeah, right, you havethree others.
Oh man.

I have a friend who was a drill instructor and
so she's a DI.
And I said to her her.

Selena (28:39):
Her name is DJ.

Yeah, I said, dj, which was harder being a marine
drill instructor or being a mom?
She stopped and she just lookedright at me.
She goes oh, pastor, I couldget 60 Female Marines through
the showers in eight minutes.

Selena (28:55):
Yeah if not quicker.

She said I can't get two little girls out of the
bathtub in 45 minutes like, yeah, she goes.
It is just a different world totry to parent these, these kids
.
Mm-hmm, so all that which iskind of a long path to take,
except it was kind of exciting.
It's with Jesus of all.
Families are difficult right.
All your family can bedifficult, my.
It's not that family is brokenfamilies, just personalities

(29:18):
that are difficult.

Imran (29:20):
Even Jesus own family was no, and I that's that's huge in
of itself just kind of goingthrough some of that.
I did not know that Jesus'sbrothers didn't believe that's
rough.
Yeah, and it does.
It ever bring up his sistersagain, do you?

know?
No, it doesn't.
It doesn't mean somebodydoesn't have hasn't created some
tradition around them, butbiblically we don't know
anything about him.
That's really.

Imran (29:41):
Yeah, it's really unfortunate in its own right,
but like to know that the, thatone I didn't know he has some
brothers and sisters and thenthe complexity around Mary
having to raise them all withJoseph possible with Joseph
possibly dead by that point andand then dealing with I think
she was traveling with Jesusmost of the time as well and all

(30:02):
that complexity with the family.
Like that's just, that's just.
I never really thought about it.
I really can see why I don'tknow that she traveled with him
that much.

But she was that she, she came you know, he came
back to his hometown.
Quite a bit, that's fair.
Just some observations.
And so if we just spend thekind of the second half of our
time, yeah looking at okay, ifhis family was broken.
What's exciting is we have wehave the son of God living in a
family.
How did he deal with animperfect family?
Because you all have imperfectfamilies.
No, but nobody has a perfectdad.

(30:31):
My kids come pretty close, butnobody has you.
But you need a plan.
You need a plan to deal withyour family.

Imran (30:39):
I spent five minutes in your house watching you interact
with your daughters and I waslike this is in, sir you were
blessed.
Those girls, the way theyinteract us, and then you're
just like oh, my I was like ohman, this guy's exhausted.

You have a plan for fire?
Safety quietly with the cup,with the coffee.
If you've got kids, you've gota homework plan.
You've got a savings plan,you've got a retirement plan.
What you need also is a planfor your family.
Otherwise, if you just reactemotionally, you're gonna react
wrong.
I think Jesus had a plan.
So just four words we're gonnahold on to you to build a plan
for family.
The word first, the word connect, the word practical and the

(31:19):
word spiritual.
Okay, so to dive into those,the word first what I noticed,
my look at Jesus and dealingwith his Family, even though
they were high pressure, and allof that he always put, he
always put God first.
Yeah, everything flowed out ofhis relationship with the father
.
So, if you remember, in Luke,chapter 2, Mm-hmm they went to

(31:39):
the temple.
What happened at the temple?
He's a little boy.
Well, he's 12 years old.
He just starts preaching.

Imran (31:43):
No, well, I guess he was yeah, yeah they found him to.

They lost him.
Yeah, they lost him.
And they found him in the city,right and he was, he was
teaching.
His mother says to him son, youknow why?
Why did you treat us like this?
And and he said said you know,we've been searching, we've been
searching everywhere.
Jesus said didn't you know?
I had to be about my father'swork, I had to be in my father's
house.

(32:06):
Yeah it's like he says to themlook, you have to understand
right up front, I'm on missionand I'm not on mission to do my
family's will.
I'm on mission to do God's will.

Imran (32:16):
Yeah.

I think one of the most important things that we
learn is we are not here toplease family, we're here to
please God, and so you do nothave to live up to your family's
expectations.
You go oh good, I can lower myexpectations.
No, you've got a higherexpectation.
The higher expectation is God'sexpectation of you, and so it's
not for you to do what yourparents want you respect them

(32:38):
and you honor them but it's foryou to do what God wants you to
do.
That's what Jesus demonstratedto us.

Imran (32:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
And I guess two quick points.
One, it's the.
We just kind of went through thefruit of the spirit,
culminating our Galatians series, and one of the things that we
talked about with the fruit ofthe spirit is that all of those
things are relational Peace,love, all the things we talked
about there.
It's relational.
So if you're putting God first,if you're putting the fruit of
the spirit first, then yourrelationships will benefit from

(33:06):
that, because you're living alife that encompasses all of
those points of love that thefruit of the spirit talks about.
And then also when you put Godfirst in your relationships,
particularly in your personalones, because work is a little
bit more complicated because youhave different faith
backgrounds and all that stuffand whatever beliefs may be out
there in your workplace.

(33:26):
But when you have God first inyour personal relationships, it
makes it a lot easier when youhave to do those constant
negotiations that you have to dowith your spouse or with your
kids or with your friends,because you've got a direction
you're going, not yourselfExactly, you've got a moral
authority you're both arelooking towards.
So when someone says, well, Iwant to do this this way, and
the other person says like well,you shouldn't do it that way,

(33:48):
and they say why?
And it's like well, I can pointto scripture, or my wife will
point to scripture, or I canpoint to scripture with my
friends that may say something,it's like no, no, no, we know
you shouldn't do that, or weknow you should make this
decision because God said it andJesus said it.

It gives weight and helps us kind of look at the
situation.
It's like having a roadmapwhere you can be arguing and
then you go.
Well, wait, wait, this is thedirection we're going, and so,
both of you agreeing we followGod's word, that that's the
authority.
It tells you what directionyour marriage is going to go,
your future is going to go, yourdecisions are going to go.

Imran (34:22):
Yeah, so.

Selena (34:23):
I was going to say we very much experienced that in
Yosemite when we were goingoff-roading.

Imran (34:27):
It's like this looks like the direction we should go but
we look at the map and it's likeno, it says over here, it's
like all these paths look verysimilar, but only one of them
was the right way.
It was counterintuitive yeahexactly it looked like and it
was the easier path too.
And then we went back and welooked at the path we're
supposed to go down and it wasdark and tight and difficult

(34:49):
terrain and we were like, oh,that's the path.
And we went and crawled throughthat and it seemed like the
path was going to be the easy,obvious one, which is
interesting.

Obviously.
I've seen so many people givetheir life not just to Jesus but
to ministry, and had a friendthat was a Marine.
Often the response of parentsis disappointment when a kid
goes into ministry His friend,that's a Marine.
He's all fired up for Jesus andhe tells his dad him going into
ministry.
I'm going to be a pastor andinstead of celebrating like man
that's great, I'm so proud ofyou, son.

(35:21):
His dad said, okay, well, maybeyou need a backup plan, like to
be a banker or like if thatfails what, where are you going
to?
because, because you might burnout, or something like that.
And he actually when he starteda church that's still out here.
It's called 180 ministries.
His dad became part of thatchurch and was so glad that his
son gave his life to ministry.

(35:42):
But can you imagine if thefirst thing he'd listen to was
his dad's kind of downing on theministry?

Imran (35:49):
Yeah.

Instead, he became a pastor and all of eternity is
different because he put Godfirst.

Imran (35:54):
I can see that fear, because creativity is complex.
You know, being a speaker, anorator, an artist, all that
stuff, it makes your financialsituation a lot less stable, and
so I could see why parentswould be very concerned.
It's like, you know.
It's like, well, you want to bea pastor, but like, how are you

(36:17):
going to?

Selena (36:17):
you know, pay the bills.

Imran (36:18):
How are you going to support your family?
How are you going to?
It's like cause that money issuch a pressure in our society.

Selena (36:25):
Being able to sustain yourself is a lot.

Imran (36:27):
there's a lot of pressure there.
It's like I'm getting ready totransition out of the Marine
Corps in the next, you know,eight months to a year.
And something that I've beenslowly fighting through is do I
go through what I know that I'mgood at and can make me money
but I don't love, or do I pursuewhat I'm talented at, what I

(36:47):
know that I love to do, but it'sa lot more risky?

Yeah there's risk in it.

Imran (36:51):
Yeah, there's a lot more risk associated to it cause we
don't have kids yet but so Ihave to take care of my wife.
We've got stuff that have tomove with us wherever we end up
going, but that's like just thatpressure of money I could see,
you know, being that thing thatconcerns parents a lot.

The next word we want to hold on to is not just
that Jesus put his family first,the word first, but just the
word connected.
And I noticed that Jesusmaintained relationships with
his family even though they weredifficult.
And sometimes we're tempted togo I'm done with my family, my
family's so high pressure myfamily's, so put it out there.
Whatever it is my family's so.
So give you a great example butjust a little bit of story

(37:31):
behind the story.
here In Luke, chapter four, it'sthe beginning of what we call
the Galilean ministry.
He goes, he visits Nazareth.
While he's in Nazareth, theytried to kill him.
They start pushing him becausethey didn't like what he
preached.
They start pushing him andthey're pushing him to a place
that's called the brow.
The brow is this cliff thatstretches out and they're going

(37:55):
to push him over the cliff.
So this is his hometown and hejust starts walking through them
.
It doesn't say how, but at somepoint they lost track of where
he was and he just kind of likecause, it's a miracle, excuse me
, excuse me, and he just walkedthrough the crowd.
I think that's the point whereyou'd go.
I'm never going back to myhometown.
Your hometown tries to kill youlike not one or two people, not

(38:15):
a couple bad actors.

Imran (38:17):
They try and take you and throw you off a cliff.

It's amazing to me that when we go to Mark chapter
six, which is what we just readthey go back there and they're
offended by him.
That's actually not his firstvisit there, nor his first
confrontation with him, thatthey're offended by him.
He's going back to his homecountry after his hometown,
after they had been difficult.
So let me just bring that intous.

(38:40):
You may have had a fight lastChristmas with your mom and it
may have been a big blowout.
You may have had some tensionwith a brother or a
brother-in-law.
Don't let those relationshipsstay broken forever.
If they could almost push Jesusoff a cliff and he go back to
that town, you can go back forThanksgiving.

Imran (38:57):
You can go back for Christmas, because, ultimately,
god creates relationships.
God creates a relationship withus.
He wants us to have goodrelationships with our family,
with our loved one, with ourcoworkers, because that's like
what we already talked about,that's the fruit.
I think that's how you displayGod's work.

The greatest relational advice is in 1
Corinthians, chapter 13, thatfamous love chapter, verse eight
, says love never fails.
And so whatever's happening,it's not going to fail to love
them.

Imran (39:24):
You tell me that's not a Hallmark movie.

I would know, because I don't watch them.
I haven't even read the titlesof them.

Imran (39:32):
If it's not, it's going to be one.

but Do you watch a lot of Hallmark movies?

Imran (39:36):
My mom does, so when I go home, you have the 30 Days of
Christmas on.

Selena (39:39):
Hallmark and that's just going.
Yeah, their TV is alwaysplaying.

Imran (39:42):
Yeah, this is playing Hallmark.
December 1st to December 25thIs it 25 Days of Christmas?
That's what it's called.
That is a little bit abusive.

Oh, it's fine man.

Selena (39:51):
I never knew there was so much Christmas movies Exactly
I did not know?

They're all the same, aren't they?

Imran (39:57):
The Hallmark movies are all very similar.
I don't know what the new onesare looking like, but growing up
ABC Family.
Rest in Peace.
That channel's gone now it'snow at something else, is it
really?
Yeah, it's called somethingelse.
Now ABC Family's gone and theHallmark and ABC Family were the
two that were on all the time.

All right, let's get off of Hallmark Christmas
movies.
I can't take that.
The word first notice.
Jesus put God first.
Jesus stayed connected with hisfamily.
And then I just gave the wordpractical.
I noticed, when I look at Jesusdealing with his family, he
honored in particular hismother's practical needs.
His dad had died and he tookcare of his mom.

(40:38):
When Jesus died.
On the cross there's only sevenlast words.
For instance, he says Father,forgive them, they know not what
they do.
He says Eloy, eloy, lamaSabaccini.
He says so.
There's only seven laststatements.
One of the last things Jesussaid from the cross.
It says, looking down andseeing the disciple that he
loved, john.

(40:59):
He said woman, behold your sonand son, behold your mother and
what he means is John, you'renow gonna take Mary and you're
gonna look after her, and itsuggests that all along Jesus
had been seen to his mother'sneeds.
Now that he's not gonna be onearth, he gives her to the
apostle John.
It's significant because Jesushas brothers.

Selena (41:21):
Yeah, it was very yeah.

Why not give Mary to James?
Why not give her to Simon?
Why not give her to Judah?
I've never considered orthought about that.
My opinion is that it's becausehis brothers were not believers
.

Selena (41:35):
At that time, though.
Then they became believers whenhe was rose again.

He would not give his mother, he would not entrust
his mother to the care of anunbeliever.
So he says to a person hetrusts most Well, you take care
of my mom.
I wanted to say this.
Some of you just need to hearthis today you have an
obligation to your parents totake care of their physical
needs, and that includes money.

(42:01):
So you care about themphysically because, look, when
you were little and helpless,they took care of you.

Imran (42:08):
As they get older and helpless.
It's almost a 20 year sacrificeNow we call the healthcare
stuff.
It might be a 23, 24 yearsacrifice, but tens of thousands
, if not hundreds of thousands,definitely hundreds to millions
of dollars over the 20 years ofsacrifice that they have poured
into you.

Don't easily discredit that there's a I know
you're looking at it, selenathere's a verse that was on our
hearts.
So, when we talk about this,what do we owe our parents?
Paul said something ratherstrong in 1 Timothy, chapter
five.

Selena (42:38):
Yeah, chapter five, verse eight If anyone does not
provide for his relatives, andespecially for members of his
household, he has denied thefaith and is worse than a
believer, is it yeah?

Imran (42:52):
Worse than an unbeliever.

Selena (42:53):
Yeah.

So the apostle Paul says taking care of your
family, even financially, thatis not just good human, that's
not just being a good human,which it is it's essential to
our faith.

Imran (43:05):
It's the expectation.

It is the expectation of God on us.

Imran (43:09):
Yeah.
So one last thing that I justit kind of really goes towards
that other phrase of like loveyour enemies.
You know Cause, if you'rereally epitomizing, when Paul
talks about love your enemies,when he talks about the fruit of
the spirit, when he talks aboutall these things, what love is,
I think in 1 Corinthians, thenit should be obvious that you're
expected to take care of yourfamily.

(43:31):
Those are the closestrelationships.
That's where you should bepracticing at the most.
And if you let thoserelationships be broken, but
you're managing your friendshipsover here, you're managing your
work relationships over here,but you're allowing your
household to be broken or yourfamiliar relationships to be
broken, then you're missing thepoint.

Yeah, that's why the Bible is so loud about
marriage.
Like you are not really thatawesome in the workplace if you
can't take care of your wife.
You're not that awesomeanywhere In your life.

Imran (43:56):
Yeah, you're not that If your most intimate, most
intricate, most involvedrelationship is broken.

Yeah, you are not that great a Christian if you
cannot forgive your husband, ifyou cannot love your wife, if
you can't serve this otherperson, you can't serve anyone.
Everything else is fake if youcan't take care of your
immediate family.

Imran (44:12):
Yeah, it doesn't matter how much you submit at work or
how much you serve at work ifyou can't submit and serve in
the household.
It's really true.

One last thing.
So I noticed that Jesus andthen we'll look at the outcomes
Jesus put God first.
Jesus stayed connected to hisfamily.
Jesus just took care of theirpractical needs.
He cared about them.
Last thing is I noticed hecared about them spiritually.
He went to great lengths to winhis family to the.
Lord.
And so we go.
What happened to his family?

(44:40):
Especially his brothers, likeyou, were so shocked.
They didn't believe.
Yeah, and yet two of them wrotebooks of the New Testament.
So what happened?
How did James become a believer?
We know James becomes reallyimportant to the church.
How's he become a believer?
Check this out, selene, I knowyou're looking at it.
1 Corinthians, chapter 15,verse three, describes a list of

(45:03):
people that Jesus visited afterhe rose from the dead.
So let's just kinda check outthat list.

Selena (45:09):
Yeah, so can I read from like verse three to eight.

That way we can get like the whole passage For
what I received.

Selena (45:17):
I pass on to you as of first importance, that Christ
died for our sins according tothe scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised onthe third day, according to the
scriptures, and that he appearedto Cephas and then to the
twelve After that.
He appeared to more than fivehundred of the brothers and

(45:38):
sisters at the same time, mostof them who are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, thento all the apostles and, last
of all, he appeared to me alsoas to one abnormally born.

So in that list he listed, just look back at the
names.
He lists Peter, he lists theapostles and then one person
stands out in particular Paulsays he appeared to me like one
abnormally born because Jesus'appearance to Paul was not part
of the 40-day resurrectionappearances.
It was years later, but then helisted James the James.

(46:17):
There would be his brotherJames.
Isn't that exciting?
So it's an appearance to anunbeliever.
Hey, you didn't believe fivedays ago that I'm the Messiah,
but now Jesus comes walking in,raised from the dead.
Wouldn't you have loved to havebeen there for that
conversation when James realizesoh, my brother is the son of

(46:38):
God Because he rose from thedead.
Yeah, that's intense, one of thegreatest evidences of the
Christian faith is that Jesus'own brothers believed in him
because it would be natural notto believe your brother.
No, that's not real that hisbrothers would believe in him.
Something extraordinaryhappened.

Selena (46:54):
I do have a question.
When I was reading this first,after that at the same time,
wait after that the same timemost of whom are still living,
though some have fallen asleep.
I don't understand that, so.

Paul is saying the people that he's writing about,
they're still alive to givetestimony that they did see
Jesus raised from the dead.
And so Paul is saying go askthese people, they're alive.

Selena (47:22):
Then, when he says some of them he goes, okay.

Well, a few of them have already died.
We've done a few but he'swriting in an era where you can
still go interview people, go,did you see Jesus raised from
the dead?
And they're like, oh yeah, wewere at the lake.
Oh yeah, they can tell you theplaces.
And so he says these people I'mabout to list, they're still
alive.
Then he pauses and kind of goes.
Okay, a few have fallen asleep.

Selena (47:45):
Yeah, okay, I was like huh.

So it's a watermark of authenticity in
your Bible.
How do I know the Bible's real?
The Bible, like to the firstgeneration of people, is saying
go ask.
These are real, living people.
These aren't made up documents.

Selena (47:58):
Yeah, it's good.
I love that.

Exciting, huh.
Well, let's do this.
Let's ask what happened toJesus family?
How did it turn out?
Because we go okay, we're goingto follow a plan and our plan
is we're going to put God first,we're going to stay connected,
we're going to take care oftheir practical needs, we're
going to care about themspiritually, share the gospel.
If you have an unbelievingfamily, you should be sharing

(48:22):
the gospel with them.
How did it turn out?
Did Jesus plan work?
I think it did.
Let me kind of just three ofthem.
What happened to Mary, whathappened to James and what
happened to Jude?
With Mary, we know that shecontinued with great humility.
In fact, in Acts, chapter one,verse 14, when the church is

(48:44):
gathering, she's with them topray.
We also know that Marycontributed to the gospel of
Luke.
You ever know.
So the way Luke built hisgospel is he went and he did
interviews because he was notthe first eye, so he's talking
to the first hand.

Imran (48:59):
Yeah, he does it like a reporter.

One of the things interesting is the number of
details in Luke about the birthof Jesus.
Where would he have gottenthose details?
How did he know about the nightJesus was born?
True, how did he know the songMary sang?
How did he know about only Luke?
Concludes the visit of theangel to Mary.
I think all of that is Mary'sfirsthand testimony to Luke.
She was telling Luke I talkedto this angel.

(49:22):
I think the Christmas story istold from Mary's point of view.
Mary told all of this to Lukeand he just he's just writing
this stuff down.
So when you're reading theChristmas story Luke, chapter
one and two, you're reading, Ithink, Mary's memories.
In fact from Mary.
Twice it says in the book ofLuke and Mary treasured these

(49:43):
things in her heart.

Selena (49:44):
Yeah, when.

Luke sat down and Mary started talking.
It was like she was opening atreasure chest and she starts
sharing her memories of Jesus.
Let me tell you about the timean angel appeared.
Let me tell you about the night.
There was no room, there wasnowhere for us to go, and Luke
is writing all of this down.
I can, I almost picture he'srolling up the scrolls he's done
, they're done talking and she'skind of flippantly, goes oh

(50:07):
yeah.
And then there was that time wealmost lost him at the temple.
Outcomes the scroll.
Outcomes the pins.
Wait, what happened?
Oh yeah, we had left the templeand we were like where's Jesus?
Like you lost him?
Yeah, no.
I don't know if that's how ithappened, but we know that with
Mary, she, she was very faithfulto the end to her, to her faith

(50:27):
.

Imran (50:27):
No, yeah, I think that's awesome.

Jesus brother.
Jude is probably the least toknow, so let's talk a little bit
about what we do know aboutJude.
Jude is interesting because hebecomes a heretic fighter.
He stands up to the heretics inthe early church.
We know that Jude wrote anepistle, a letter taking a stand
against false teachers in thechurch probably the greatest

(50:52):
part.
So Jude says I wanted to writeto you about our great and
glorious salvation.
Instead, I need to take a standagainst heretics.
I think the greatest portion ofthe book of Jude this little
tiny letter is how he ends and Iknow you're, I know I see you
with it, selena.

Selena (51:08):
Yeah, okay, so that book of Jude was Jesus brother.

Jesus, brother and watch what he?
Says about Jesus.

Selena (51:16):
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling.

So that would be Jesus.

Selena (51:20):
Jesus can keep you from falling and to present you
blameless before the presence ofhis glory, with great joy to
the only God, our Savior,through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Look, look back at the words he said to our only
now he calls his brother, not my, not my big brother.

Selena (51:36):
Hmm.

He calls Jesus our God, our Savior, the Messiah,
Jesus Christ the Lord.
Those are strong titles.
Anybody who says Jesus wasn'tGod, Jesus own brother, would
say oh, no, no no, he was God.

Selena (51:49):
Hmm.
Be glory majesty, dominion andauthority before all time and
now and forever Amen.

Isn't that exciting.
He just he gives great glory toJesus Christ.
Here's what is said to havehappened James, obvious, or Jude
obviously, is a follower ofJesus after the resurrection.
Hmm, we know from Eusebius thathe had a grandson and that

(52:19):
grandson, a couple of grandsons.
Those grandsons were actuallykind of nominal in the faith,
not not deeply, deeply committed, but they were farmers.
The Christian church was underpersecution by Emperor Domitian
and, um, they were accused ofuprising among the Jews, things
like that.
These two, these two grandsonsof Jude, were brought in and

(52:41):
they were accused of of beingpart of rebellion against Rome.
And the emperor asked to see.
They said, hey, we're not.
We're not uprising against Rome, we're just simple farmers.
And the emperor said, well, letme see your bank accounts.

Selena (52:54):
Pretty much that we don't have any money and he goes
.

let me see your hands and they held up their
hands to the emperor and he sawthey were just broken farmers
hands.
They were not these run and heordered that the Christian
persecution be stopped at thatpoint that there was no threat
from these farmers.

Imran (53:10):
Here's what happened.

It said that Jude's grandsons went back and
while they may have been kind ofnominal in the faith, they were
part of the church, but they'refarmers, they're second
generation Christians, you know.
It says that these guys becamereally serious about their faith
after having stood up toemperor Domitian and taken a
stand for their faith and thatthey were part of the reason
some of the persecution wascalled off in that era was

(53:32):
because of their testimonybefore the emperor Nice what
happens with James is the mostinteresting.
So we'll wrap up with James, thebrother of Jesus.
We know that James became aleader in the church.
He's important to me and you,Selena, me and you, Emron,
because he taught the church towelcome Gentiles.

(53:54):
And what you have to know aboutJames is he's what we would
call Mr Jew.
He is a hardcore Jew.

Selena (54:03):
Mm, hmm.

They sometimes called him James the just or
James the righteous.
They also called him old camelknees because he prayed so much
on his knees oh my gosh.
But he is a keeper of the law.
So if anybody's going to say,no, the Gentiles have to keep
the law, you would expect Mr Jewto tell them that the James
would be the one that holds theGentiles out like no, you guys

(54:25):
can't come in until you becomeJews.
He wrote.
We're studying this right now.
On Sunday mornings he wrote anepistle to the, to the church,
to stand firm under suffering.
But I want everybody out thereto know this If you're a Gentile
, you're not a Jew and you're aChristian, you have been blessed
by the brother of Jesus, james,because the fight in the early

(54:49):
church we saw fights today inthe church.

Imran (54:51):
Yeah.

The fight in the early church was who could be
saved and, in particular, theyhad never considered Can can a
Gentile be saved?

Imran (54:59):
Yeah, and there was an argument in the family.

Yeah and if a Gentile can be saved, do they
get saved by keeping the law ordo they get saved by grace?
Yeah Well, by acts 15,.
Peers had a vision aboutanimals coming down.
He goes, he wins some Gentilesto the Lord.
The whole matter just causesthe church to explode.
It erupts in anger.
The Jews are saying no, theGentiles coming in.

(55:22):
Hey, if Emron and Selena getsaved, they need to keep the law
, they need to become lawabiding.
That's how they get saved is byobeying the law.
If David Squires is going toget saved, he does it through
the law.
There's another group PaulBarnabas, there's Peter who are
saying no, no, no, we cannotmake the Gentiles just be
conformed to the law.
That was for those of us thatare Jews, but the law is going

(55:44):
to save no one.
There's this massive fight andthey bring it in and they give
testimony.
It's called the JerusalemCouncil.
The person who presides at theJerusalem Council, as the head
of the council, is Jesus,brother James.
And so picture him at the headand there's this family fighting
.
There's this massive gatheringof the church.
The missionaries are there.

(56:04):
Paul and Barnabas givetestimony.
They say, hey, we've been outon the islands, we've been out
sharing Jesus.
We're seeing Gentiles get saved.

Imran (56:11):
Does that mean that James was like a pretty prominent in
the Jewish faith at the time,like he was like a synagogue
leader type of thing?

I don't think he was a, so he was known as just
as Godly just back then.
It's the same word used forJoseph, the father of Jesus
righteous, but it means that hewould have been very devout in
his Jewish faith.
Wow.
Okay, it's the way that theywould have brought up that Mary
and Joseph would have brought uptheir sons to be very devout
Jews.
Now this man sits as the familyis fighting.

(56:40):
Imagine missionaries like Pauland Barnabas getting up and
going.
We're seeing people get savedand other people just screaming
in the church, going.
You cannot forsake thescriptures.
You have to make these peopleobey the scriptures.
And then James, just in fact.
You can just imagine this.
This fight acts 1510.
Peter says you know, theirhearts have been cleansed by

(57:02):
faith.
All we're doing, we're justtesting God.
We're so we're just testing Godbecause we're all saved by grace
.
The verdict is ultimately givenby James.
Who's going to decide?
The verdict is given by Jamesin the acts 1519.
You see it, selena, it saysthis James gives the verdict.

Selena (57:22):
It is my judgment that we should not make it difficult
for the Gentiles who are turningto God.
Don't put a bunch of stumblingblocks.
Don't make them try to obey thewhole law.

He says let's hold them to three things.
He says you're saved by faith.
Look, let's.
Let's just ask them not to notto engage in idols that Jesus is
their true God not to engage inidols.
To refrain from sexualimmorality and to not not be
eating blood or partaking inblood, because that would be
part of paganism.
So give up pagan practices,Don't worship idols.

(57:56):
These are pretty obvious thingsif you follow Jesus and just
just give yourself holy to tothe Lord.
Can I read this?
Don't be a fault, yeah.

Imran (58:06):
So 19 through 21.
Therefore, my judgment is thatwe should not trouble those of
the Gentiles who turn to God,but should write to them to
abstain from the things pollutedby idols and from sexual
immorality, from and from whathas been strangled and from
blood, for from ancientgenerations, moses has had in

(58:28):
every city those who proclaimhim, for he is read every
Sabbath in the synagogues.
Let me explain that a littlebit.

What James said is they will be saved and brought
in if they'll give up idols.
They'll give up the wickedpractices.
Repent of your sins, we wouldsay repent and turn to.
Jesus, Then he does notthroughout the law altogether.
He says Moses is taught everyweek in the synagogues.
His point is this the Biblesays that the Lord is taught
every week in the synagogues.
They're gonna go and they'regonna learn more about what it

(59:00):
means to follow the Lord overtime, but you cannot expect them
to immediately be maturedisciples.
They're gonna be disciples, sodon't put the burdens of
discipleship on them.
First.
Let's bring them into thefamily, then we'll teach them
under grace first but he doesn'tthrow Moses out.
He says Moses has taught everyweek in the synagogue Mm-hmm,
that.
So it is not for us to take theOld Testament and just throw it

(59:22):
away.
We're supposed to go learn thescriptures, all of them, genesis
to Revelation.

Imran (59:26):
And then you start running into the complexities
that are brought up and Part ofacts and then galatians of like
well, some wanted them kick.
Well, rome wanted them to benot under the exception and
didn't want them to be pulledinto the, into the synagogues,
and wanted them to continue toworship the Roman gods, and that
was a whole thing in of itself.
So go listen to the decoding,go to series, because we dive
into that in a huge everybodywas confused.

What do we do with the Gentiles that are turning
to the Lord?
Rome didn't know, the earlychurch didn't know.
Thank God for James who stoodup and said we're gonna let the
Gentile we're in fact is exactwords where let's not make it
hard.
Yeah, I love that what happenedto James?
We find out from a historianwho's very famous named Josephus
.
Josephus actually was employedby the Roman Empire to to write

(01:00:11):
history for them, to teach themwho are these Jews that we, that
we have captive.

Imran (01:00:15):
Oh it's interesting.

Pastor David (01:00:16):
But Josephus tells us a little bit about what
happened to James.
James was brought before thehigh priest, and the Sadducees
were furious with him, furiouswith Christians, and they were
just looking for a chance tokill them.
You see the quote there.

Selena (01:00:33):
Ananas was of this disposition.
He thought he had now a properopportunity.
So he assembled the Sanhedrinof judges and brought before
them the brother of Jesus, whowas called Christ, whose name
was James, and some others, orsome of his companions, and when

(01:00:53):
he had formed an Accusationagainst them as breakers of the
law, he delivered them to bestoned.

He took James and they ordered that James be
stoned.
What is believed to havehappened to James is he was
taken to the temple and theyshoved him off of the high point
.
There's a point that's like acliff at the temple.
It's believed that Satan toactually taken Jesus there also
and told him to throw himselfdown.
That they threw James off ofthere and then stoned him.

(01:01:24):
Oh, my or chased him off bystoning him.
But anyway the two go together,that he is thrown and stoned.

Selena (01:01:30):
Well, and this is a temple.

Yeah, that's that, he was that so this is a man
the very seriously kept the law.
He's a, he's a.
He's a heavy hitter in theearly truth.
And then he welcomes theGentiles in and we know that he
ultimately would give his lifefor Jesus Christ.
Yeah and so imagine again thisone of the great Emphasis of the
Christian faith.

(01:01:53):
How do we know it's true?
Because Jesus own brother waswilling to die people that
physically saw yeah, themiracles.

Imran (01:02:01):
Yeah our we're mostly all killed.

Selena (01:02:04):
Can you imagine?

Imran (01:02:06):
if all they had to do is denounce it, and they did it if
Jesus was a fake, there wouldhave been some Family.

Yaya, that would have been at some point.
Maybe Mary would have whisperedhey, I just got to tell you I
wasn't a virgin.
Yeah, it's like you know youshouldn't die for this.
Yeah right, there would be an.
The fact that she didn't try tosave them, the fact that she
believed that her brothersbelieve.
There's no background of familydoubt.

(01:02:31):
Suggest that Jesus is real.
In in a family where Somebody'smaking crazy claims, you've got
some family members going.
He's crazy Jesus.
Early on they doubted him asyou would expect.
After he rose from the dead,they believed yeah, that.
All of that gives evidence thefact that this is for real.

Imran (01:02:49):
Yeah, and it's a in a lot of ways, that's how it is for
us to.
If we, if Jesus, didn't die andcome back from the dead,
christianity would not havegrown like it did.
Yeah, it's because he, it'sbecause he came back from the
dead, proved who he was, shownwho he was, that that
Christianity grew.
So the testimony of those thatsaw him, the testimony of those
that lived among him, with him,is what?

(01:03:12):
That?
That's the truth of it.
Like truth spreads lies.
Don't spread like like truth,because truth Truth is solid.

Yeah, it can endure the test of time.
Exactly.
I just want to give someencouragement.
If I can pull this togetherthis way, I hope that you guys
out there that you're prayingregularly for family members
salvation Instead of being madat your unbelieving family.
Jesus brothers may have lookedhopeless to him for a moment,
but he never gave up on them.

Selena (01:03:38):
Yeah.

I also just want to encourage you stay connected
to your family.
Don't don't there's some prettysevere situations when I know
you have to cut somebody off,but I think we're a little quick
to that sometimes.
Don't cut your family off soquickly.
Go ahead, go to that awkwardThanksgiving, go to that awkward
Christmas.
So stay connected.
But also, I just hope you havesome rock solid love In your

(01:04:01):
heart for your family.
Maybe you're getting tired andit's getting hard to just keep
showing love.
Keep doing it, keep doing it,keep doing it.
Some of you need to be remindedthat you have an obligation to
the practical needs of yourfamily.
Yeah your mom, your dad.
Maybe they're getting older.
You've got to pay for someextra care.
You've got it.
You've got to Take some extrasteps now to take care of them.
I hope, I hope you do thebiggest thing it's actually

(01:04:23):
where we started is I hope thatyou're putting God first, that
above your parents you honoryour parents.
You honor your father andmother, but you obey God.

Imran (01:04:32):
Yeah, because it gives you the appropriate lens to look
at the world through that'sright, that's right yeah.
Thank you so much, pastor.
Before we close out here, Ijust wanted to kind of give you
these two cents.
So We've been doing this everpodcast for about a year and a
half now, so we've got about 7475 episodes out by the time this

(01:04:52):
one comes out.
The awesome thing is that wewent through a lot of really
advanced concepts really quickly, but we actually dove into a
lot of these concepts already.
So if you want to go to andlearn about, well, what happened
on the on the day that Jesusdied and rose Sorry, the day
that he died and then when herose again, what actually
happened on that day, we did thedoubting disciples,

(01:05:14):
particularly talking aboutdoubting Thomas.
That's actually episode 14.
And then right now, ryan, sorry, pastor David talked briefly
about the wedding where Maryasked Jesus to do something
about the fact that they had runout of wine.
We talked about that at greatlength in episode 38 how to ask
God for help.
And if you want to Learn moreabout, well, what was Mary's

(01:05:37):
testimony to Luke About thebirth of Jesus, well, we went
into that in our episode 2, inepisode 3, where we deep dive
the Christmas story, and soplease go and take a look at
that episode.
And then I brought up the Fruitof the Spirit a bunch of times
and that's episode 70 where wego into well, what is the fruit
of the spirit?
Because we're not under the law, we're not under Torah.

(01:06:00):
So if we're not under Torah,what are we guided by in our
faith?
Well, you learn about that whenyou understand the fruit of the
Spirit.
So go into episode 70 and anddeep dive that material.
So I say all that to say thatthere's a lot of good, deep
Bible study here.
And if you felt like, oh man,this went really quickly through
a lot of stuff.
I don't know what they weretalking about there, I don't

(01:06:21):
know what they're talking abouthere, x, y and Z, I hope you
wrote it down and I hope you goand dive into some of those
other episodes and Learn alittle bit more about that
history, the cultural contextand all that, and then also do
your own study to your ownResearch, and learn more about
your faith, learn more about theGod that we serve how do people
communicate with us?

Tell them how they can.
Is there an email?
Is there a?

Imran (01:06:42):
so we do have a Facebook page, so you can like our
Facebook page and communicate itwith us on there.
Leave us a message real Biblestories.
Yeah, the real Bible storiesFacebook page.
You'll see a lot of our ads onthere for prior episodes.
Just go ahead and comment onthere or write us a message.
We really appreciate themessages that we've gotten over
the last couple months of in theencouragement, and so, um, it's

(01:07:03):
been really awesome to be apart of this journey with you
all, and so, um, I hope that youlearn something.
I hope that that you'reencouraged by this discussion
about the family of Jesus,especially during this holiday
season where we're gonna see alot of family, and I hope that,
as you go through that, that youfeel like, well, all the
feelings that you're feelingright now, jesus felt them too,

(01:07:24):
but he was playing the long game, and so you should be playing
the long game, because God'splaying the long game.
All right, and with that, Ihope you enjoy the rest Of your
week.
I hope you enjoy your holidayseason and we'll see you next
week on real Bible stories.

Selena (01:07:38):
Thank you for tuning in to real Bible stories.
If you enjoyed this podcast, besure to leave a review, share
and subscribe to be notifiedeach week when we upload new
episodes.
Real Bible stories is producedin partnership with Palm Church
in 29 Palms, california.
If you would like moreinformation or want to check out
archive sermons and Biblestudies, please check out the

(01:08:01):
church website at palms Baptistchurch comm or check them out on
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Real Bible stories can be foundwherever Podcasts are found.
Thank you again and we will seeyou next week.

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Ep 74 The Real Story Behind Jesus' Family Dynamics - Navigating Family Ties, Trials, and Faith

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 74 The Real Story Behind Jesus' Family Dynamics - Navigating Family Ties, Trials, and Faith