September 30, 2025 • 15 mins
Mercy doesn’t bend the rules—it reveals their point. We walk through Matthew 12 and watch Jesus confront legalism, reclaim the Sabbath as a gift, and invite us into a family defined not by bloodlines but by doing the will of God. From plucking grain to healing on a holy day, He shows why the Lord of the Sabbath has authority to say what truly honors God: doing good, giving rest, and lifting burdens. That lens challenges modern church culture, where preferences can masquerade as commands and control can eclipse compassion.
We also face the sober warning about spiritual emptiness. Moral cleanup without the presence of Jesus can leave a life tidy, proud, and dangerously vacant. The story of the returning unclean spirit isn’t an ancient oddity; it’s a mirror for self-help spirituality that fixes habits but ignores the heart. Real freedom is not just vice removal; it’s a house filled with Christ—His Spirit making holiness warm, humble, and alive.
The conversation turns tender as we wrestle with belonging. When Jesus names His disciples as mother and brothers, He doesn’t dismiss family—He widens it. For listeners in communal cultures counting the cost of faith, this is both challenge and comfort: the path may be costly, but you are not alone. For individualists drifting through church as an event, it’s an invitation to a household where rest is practiced, mercy is normal, and love has weight. Join us as we explore Sabbath rest, the danger of religious pride, the unseen spiritual battle, and the hope of a family that will not cast you out. If this encouraged you or made you think, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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Episode Transcript
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Pastor Plek (00:11):
And welcome back to a chapter a day.
Keeps the devil away.
I'm your host, Pastor Pleck,alongside Holland Gregg, and we
are so excited about bringingyou Matthew chapter 12 today.
A little quick outline first,uh, in the first eight verses,
Jesus established that he isLord of the Sabbath.
Uh, verses 9 through 14, heheals on the Sabbath and people
(00:33):
freak out and oppose him.
Then Jesus fulfills someprophecy, kind of determining,
hey, he is the servant of God.
He is of God from the past.
That's why he can do thesethings in the present.
Then 22 through 37, Jesus isaccused of casting out demons by
Satan in spite of thefulfillment of prophecy.
And then 38 through 45, you seethe sign of Jonah and the
(00:55):
unclean spirit.
He said he's rebuking them andsaying, like, listen, there's a
lot of people who are going tostand up and go, hey, that's the
Son of God, and you guys aregoing to be judged.
And finally, verse 46 through50, Jesus redefines family
around doing God's will.
Holland, what were someobservations that stuck out to
(01:16):
you?
Pastor Holland (01:16):
First thing that stuck out to me was the
legalism of the Pharisees.
And so when he's going throughthe grain fields with his
disciples and they pluck headsof grain to eat, and the
Pharisees say they're doingsomething unlawful.
So legalism can either meantrying to justify yourself by
(01:37):
obedience to the law, like earnsalvation by um obedience to the
law, or it can be trying tobind someone's conscience to
extra biblical rules andcommandments or traditions of
men.
So what the Pharisees are doingis um it was it was not against
God's law to pluck grain heads.
Harvesting was against the lawon the Sabbath, but to walk by a
(01:59):
field and pluck a grain head.
Um Deuteronomy actuallyaddresses this.
Deuteronomy 23, 25.
It says if you go in yourneighbor's standing grain, you
may pluck the ears with yourhand, but you shall not put a
sickle to your neighbor'sstanding grain.
So you can't harvest from yourneighbor, you can't harvest on
the Sabbath, but you can plucksome grain.
Um you're allowed to eat.
(02:20):
You're allowed to eat.
And that's a good thing, Jesusis saying, to do on the Sabbath.
Um, and so what they had doneis they took a um an
extra-biblical kind of uhapproach to um the Sabbath laws
by merit making it more narrowand trying to bind others'
consciences to it.
And so uh this is a big part ofwhat Jesus calls out in the
(02:41):
Pharisees, their legalism.
Yeah.
How do we see that happeningtoday just legalistically?
Um, taking man-made rules,traditions, commandments, um,
trying to bind someone'sconscience by you can see this
in uh maybe uh churches havingcertain rules about um how
often, you know, how many thingsyou come to per week at the
church.
Okay, yeah, what you wear inthe church, things that are
(03:03):
matters of prudence and wisdom,but when you make them into a
command, then to disobey thecommand is now a sin.
Now that's legalism.
Okay.
Pastor Plek (03:11):
That's really good.
All right.
One of the things that I justreally appreciated is that Jesus
is Lord even over the Sabbath.
And I think that that kind ofmesses with some people.
It's like, how could how whydoesn't he just or how does he
able to say that?
Like, doesn't God make theserules, but he's Lord over it?
He's one that made the rulesand then gives the proof text,
(03:32):
in a sense, of the prophecieswho he's fulfilled through his
actions, uh, that he's the onewho's able to say that he is
Lord even over the Sabbath.
Any thoughts on that?
Pastor Holland (03:42):
Yeah, so his teaching about the Sabbath is
authoritative teaching, it's notjust his opinion or something.
He's saying, Let me, you seemto have missed the purpose of
the Sabbath.
Right.
Sabbath was made for man,eating on the Sabbath, healing
on the Sabbath.
You know, he says, it islawful, verse 12, to do good on
the Sabbath.
Pastor Plek (04:00):
The Sabbath was about a day of rest and worship.
Even in day one of creation,right?
Or sorry, first week ofcreation, day six, God makes
human beings.
Okay.
They like, and then their firstday is a day of rest.
And I always say uh this wework from rest, not for rest.
And so I think that might besomething for us to lean into.
(04:23):
And this gets into I think theChristian life.
If you are striving, if you arelike kind of if if your day is
like, I just need to get thisthing over with, as opposed to I
get to do all these things tothe glory of the Lord from rest
as opposed to for rest, itreally changes your whole
mindset uh uh about life.
(04:46):
Yeah, that's good.
Okay.
What about um how about there'sa thought about the nature of
people we as people resist whatwe can't control?
If the Pharisees plotted tokill Jesus, not because he was
wrong, but because he threatenedtheir system of power.
Is that true?
Do you think?
(05:06):
Yeah, we resist what we can't.
Pastor Holland (05:08):
I I think the desire to control things um can
come from a good heart.
If you're, you know, if you'rewanting, let's say you have a
toddler, uh, you're you wantingyou want to control, you know,
where they can go for theirsafety.
You don't want them to gooutside of these boundaries or
touch things they're notsupposed to touch.
There, there's a righteousdesire to control certain
(05:29):
environments um for the safetyor health or good of others.
Um, but there's also um a wayof trying to control others that
really is self-serving.
You're trying to control otherpeople because um it protects
you, your income, yourreputation.
And so that's what I see in thePharisees is a self-serving
control um that Jesusthreatened.
(05:50):
And so they had to get rid ofhim.
Pastor Plek (05:51):
Another one I saw was people can change, like
clean up their life, but stillbe empty, and then their later
state is worse than the first.
And so this is where Jesustells a description of like, you
know, someone casts out a demonand then gets their house in
order, and the demon, I alwayslike how it goes to waterless
(06:13):
places.
So I guess the desert's not aplace to hang out because the
demons will get you, but uh andhe and but then he goes back,
I'll go back to that same house,and he takes seven demons with
him.
And maybe that person becameultra moral through the power of
the demonic, but he then was aworse of a wreck.
Like, although his life was inorder, the demonic influence on
(06:36):
him was great.
And I thought that wasinteresting that Jesus goes
straight to demons here, whichthen must tell us something
about this, you know, there's acouple things there.
There's there is more than thematerial world than we can see.
There's a spiritual battlealways going on, but morally,
you could be like you don't haveto be a drug addict.
In fact, you could be a reallyrighteous looking person and be
(06:56):
worse off uh than the personwith one demon that's a drug
addict or whatever the situationis.
That's not I got from that.
Any thoughts on that?
Pastor Holland (07:04):
Yeah, um, when it says the last state of the
person is worse than the first,um, and then he says, so also
will it be with this evilgeneration.
You know, he's it's interestingthat Jesus um, you know, he he
makes a remark about an entiregeneration.
Obviously, there'd beexceptions here and there, you
know, his um people who arefollowing him, his disciples and
(07:25):
stuff.
He um, you know, are sh haveshown themselves to be people
who are wanting to trust Jesus.
But overall, he looks at thegeneration and says, Man, this
generation looks moral andrighteous in a lot of ways, but
um has really opened up theirlives to demonic influence and
to end up in a place that, youknow, is worse than where they
(07:47):
started.
People who, you know, um, uh,if if Jesus were to cast these
demons out of people and theywere not and and they didn't
trust in Jesus, you know, thenum they could become, you know,
yeah, clean, cleansed, free in asense, but actually lacking
what is real freedom and realcleansing, lacking a real
relationship with Jesus.
(08:08):
And so everywhere Jesus went,there were people who were
rejecting him.
And he's making a remark aboutthis generation, um, saying,
man, it's not gonna, it's notgonna go well for all these
people.
Right.
Pastor Plek (08:19):
Yeah.
Speak leaning into that, Iguess the sin to avoid is
religious pride andhard-heartedness.
We need to avoid uh the spiritof the Pharisees, uh, knowing
the law, like knowing rules, butmissing the heart of God and
then adding on more rules tomake sure nobody can get to the
heart of God.
Uh I think there's a tendencyin us to do that.
(08:40):
And so I think really doing aheart check of what is in your
life that comes out of aspiritual pride.
And it might be a spiritualjudgment or the way you treat
other people who are less thanyou, like you don't want to help
out the poor because you knowhow they're gonna use that
money.
Uh, you know, I I love thething that Jesus said, you will
always have the poor among you.
And I know uh I think one ofthe things that we say often is
(09:01):
that it was a different kind ofpoor back then, and you know,
they weren't drug addicts, butthere are probably a lot of poor
people that were just lazy backthen as well.
Probably.
And they ended up on thestreets begging, and people gave
them money, and I don't thinkthere was any loss um in the
(09:22):
reward from heaven because oftheir poor discernment.
I'm not again, this isn't me,you know, just go give all your
money to the to the drug addicton the side of the street.
But what I what I am saying isthat I think sometimes we can
get so protective of like ourour integrity and of our
religious righteousness that wecan miss out on opportunities to
(09:43):
serve and bless because we'renot open to what God might want
to do with a situation.
Yeah.
How about you?
Anything to apply?
Pastor Holland (09:50):
Yeah, I mean, there's so much.
You know, wanting wanting toserve and bless others, wanting
to show mercy to others, wantingto give rest to others, the
heart of the Sabbath, you know,to heal and to help and to give
rest to others.
Um and, you know, I thinkapplication-wise, um, receiving
the Sabbath as a gift.
Yeah.
Um, not something tolegalistically um, you know,
(10:12):
feel pressure from, um, butunderstanding God has set apart
one day in seven for rest andfor um worship.
And so to receive that andembrace that and and let God
minister to you through the restthat the Sabbath gives.
Pastor Plek (10:26):
What I also like in this story, and it's not as
clear here as it is in Mark, butuh his mom comes up to try to
speak to Jesus, clearly to belike, Hey, you know, slow your
roll on all this stuff, and hey,your mom's trying to speak to
you, and he's like, Who was mymom and my brothers?
And stretching out his handtowards disciples, he said, Here
are my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does the will of myfather in heaven is my brother
(10:48):
and sister and mother.
What do you why go thatdirection?
My my initial thought was theywere gonna rebuke him or try to
kind of talk him off the ledge,and he doesn't want to see him
or talk to him about thatbecause he's more interested in
those who want to do the will ofhis father.
That seems like a hard thing.
Obviously, we know he loved hismom.
Obviously, we know his mom wasa big supporter of who Jesus
(11:10):
was, is all that.
Um but here even Jesus' familydoesn't get on board.
What do you think?
Anything that you can gleanfrom that?
Pastor Holland (11:23):
Yeah, I think it was important for Jesus to
establish, you know what, um notto um destroy the idea of the
value of the natural family umin any way, but to teach a
spiritual lesson that um uhthose who do the will of God are
(11:44):
uh belong to the family ofJesus, belong to the family of
God.
And therefore, you know, Jesuswas was saying, like, you know,
here's here's what it reallymeans to be a part of God's
family here.
Um and so uh his desire was forhis mother and his brothers to
uh really have their faith inhim, right?
And we know that uh that thatdid happen.
(12:06):
Um we know that there was someconfusion.
Um we we know Mary received,you know, um a visit from an
angel, and so right off the bat,she had information about the
identity of Jesus.
And yet you have times likethis where it seems like She's
confused.
Yeah, she's confused.
But then we know, you know, youkeep reading um through the
(12:27):
crucifixion and resurrection andall you you learn James and
Jude become his brothers becomepastors, his mom obviously um,
you know, is full of faith andbelieves in him and honors him
as the son of God.
So faith does come, but this isone of those moments where
Jesus wanted to teach aspiritual lesson.
Pastor Plek (12:44):
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
And I think that that's it's adifficult one, like especially
you know, in Austin, where wehave a lot of different
influences uh from around theworld.
Uh here there's a very umindividualistic attitude of like
it doesn't matter what myparents think, I'm gonna choose
my own road, and everyone's sortof okay with that.
But more of any Easterninfluences, uh whether it's
(13:05):
Indian or whether it's um Asian,uh Vietnamese, whatever, uh
Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu.
All all of all of that spreadfrom a from the east side of the
globe has more of a communityidentity.
And so to really choose Jesushere, that this is a big thing
(13:26):
that you are saying no to yourfamily because you're not
aligned on doing the will ofGod, and that's a big it's not
like everyone's cool atChristmas, and we, you know,
it's not like we're Republicansand Democrats, but we can go out
and uh water ski together orsomething, uh, is more like I
can't be in the same room withyou.
I have to disown you, you arenot my child, and so that's a
(13:48):
huge vacuous hole.
And in uh Jewish circles toleave the Jewish faith, and at
this point, that was a bigshift, yeah, rift.
And so he's really saying,like, what you're seeking in a
local family or or in your bloodfamily, you can have in the
family of Christ.
Pastor Holland (14:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Uh ministering to um a Muslimrecently who, you know, said
that he's like, Oh yeah, Jesusis great.
We were talking about Jesus,you know, and I was asking him
some questions, and I was like,So I was like, Would you ever
become a Christian and followJesus?
Like uh shared the gospel withhim.
(14:27):
And his answer was, oh, I couldnever do that.
He said, My whole family isMuslim, my dad's an imam, it
they would disown me.
The community, it would bringshame upon my father and the
community.
Like, I could never do that tomy family.
And so it's not, you know, itwasn't even an option for me.
I pray for him that the Lordwould reveal himself to him.
But uh, you know, there aresome who would say yes and who
(14:49):
have lost all their familybecause of that.
Uh we've we've seen that evenon mission trips that we've been
on together, been, you know,disowned by their family.
But there's this beautifultruth Jesus is saying here you
you are welcomed into the familyof Jesus.
And he will never cast you out.
Right.
Pastor Plek (15:05):
Well, hey, thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you tomorrow on achapter a day.
And welcome back to a chapter a day.
Keeps the devil away.
I'm your host, Pastor Pleck,alongside Holland Gregg, and we
are so excited about bringingyou Matthew chapter 12 today.
A little quick outline first,uh, in the first eight verses,
Jesus established that he isLord of the Sabbath.
Uh, verses 9 through 14, heheals on the Sabbath and people
(00:33):
freak out and oppose him.
Then Jesus fulfills someprophecy, kind of determining,
hey, he is the servant of God.
He is of God from the past.
That's why he can do thesethings in the present.
Then 22 through 37, Jesus isaccused of casting out demons by
Satan in spite of thefulfillment of prophecy.
And then 38 through 45, you seethe sign of Jonah and the
(00:55):
unclean spirit.
He said he's rebuking them andsaying, like, listen, there's a
lot of people who are going tostand up and go, hey, that's the
Son of God, and you guys aregoing to be judged.
And finally, verse 46 through50, Jesus redefines family
around doing God's will.
Holland, what were someobservations that stuck out to
(01:16):
you?
Pastor Holland (01:16):
First thing that stuck out to me was the
legalism of the Pharisees.
And so when he's going throughthe grain fields with his
disciples and they pluck headsof grain to eat, and the
Pharisees say they're doingsomething unlawful.
So legalism can either meantrying to justify yourself by
(01:37):
obedience to the law, like earnsalvation by um obedience to the
law, or it can be trying tobind someone's conscience to
extra biblical rules andcommandments or traditions of
men.
So what the Pharisees are doingis um it was it was not against
God's law to pluck grain heads.
Harvesting was against the lawon the Sabbath, but to walk by a
(01:59):
field and pluck a grain head.
Um Deuteronomy actuallyaddresses this.
Deuteronomy 23, 25.
It says if you go in yourneighbor's standing grain, you
may pluck the ears with yourhand, but you shall not put a
sickle to your neighbor'sstanding grain.
So you can't harvest from yourneighbor, you can't harvest on
the Sabbath, but you can plucksome grain.
Um you're allowed to eat.
(02:20):
You're allowed to eat.
And that's a good thing, Jesusis saying, to do on the Sabbath.
Um, and so what they had doneis they took a um an
extra-biblical kind of uhapproach to um the Sabbath laws
by merit making it more narrowand trying to bind others'
consciences to it.
And so uh this is a big part ofwhat Jesus calls out in the
(02:41):
Pharisees, their legalism.
Yeah.
How do we see that happeningtoday just legalistically?
Um, taking man-made rules,traditions, commandments, um,
trying to bind someone'sconscience by you can see this
in uh maybe uh churches havingcertain rules about um how
often, you know, how many thingsyou come to per week at the
church.
Okay, yeah, what you wear inthe church, things that are
(03:03):
matters of prudence and wisdom,but when you make them into a
command, then to disobey thecommand is now a sin.
Now that's legalism.
Okay.
Pastor Plek (03:11):
That's really good.
All right.
One of the things that I justreally appreciated is that Jesus
is Lord even over the Sabbath.
And I think that that kind ofmesses with some people.
It's like, how could how whydoesn't he just or how does he
able to say that?
Like, doesn't God make theserules, but he's Lord over it?
He's one that made the rulesand then gives the proof text,
(03:32):
in a sense, of the prophecieswho he's fulfilled through his
actions, uh, that he's the onewho's able to say that he is
Lord even over the Sabbath.
Any thoughts on that?
Pastor Holland (03:42):
Yeah, so his teaching about the Sabbath is
authoritative teaching, it's notjust his opinion or something.
He's saying, Let me, you seemto have missed the purpose of
the Sabbath.
Right.
Sabbath was made for man,eating on the Sabbath, healing
on the Sabbath.
You know, he says, it islawful, verse 12, to do good on
the Sabbath.
Pastor Plek (04:00):
The Sabbath was about a day of rest and worship.
Even in day one of creation,right?
Or sorry, first week ofcreation, day six, God makes
human beings.
Okay.
They like, and then their firstday is a day of rest.
And I always say uh this wework from rest, not for rest.
And so I think that might besomething for us to lean into.
(04:23):
And this gets into I think theChristian life.
If you are striving, if you arelike kind of if if your day is
like, I just need to get thisthing over with, as opposed to I
get to do all these things tothe glory of the Lord from rest
as opposed to for rest, itreally changes your whole
mindset uh uh about life.
(04:46):
Yeah, that's good.
Okay.
What about um how about there'sa thought about the nature of
people we as people resist whatwe can't control?
If the Pharisees plotted tokill Jesus, not because he was
wrong, but because he threatenedtheir system of power.
Is that true?
Do you think?
(05:06):
Yeah, we resist what we can't.
Pastor Holland (05:08):
I I think the desire to control things um can
come from a good heart.
If you're, you know, if you'rewanting, let's say you have a
toddler, uh, you're you wantingyou want to control, you know,
where they can go for theirsafety.
You don't want them to gooutside of these boundaries or
touch things they're notsupposed to touch.
There, there's a righteousdesire to control certain
(05:29):
environments um for the safetyor health or good of others.
Um, but there's also um a wayof trying to control others that
really is self-serving.
You're trying to control otherpeople because um it protects
you, your income, yourreputation.
And so that's what I see in thePharisees is a self-serving
control um that Jesusthreatened.
(05:50):
And so they had to get rid ofhim.
Pastor Plek (05:51):
Another one I saw was people can change, like
clean up their life, but stillbe empty, and then their later
state is worse than the first.
And so this is where Jesustells a description of like, you
know, someone casts out a demonand then gets their house in
order, and the demon, I alwayslike how it goes to waterless
(06:13):
places.
So I guess the desert's not aplace to hang out because the
demons will get you, but uh andhe and but then he goes back,
I'll go back to that same house,and he takes seven demons with
him.
And maybe that person becameultra moral through the power of
the demonic, but he then was aworse of a wreck.
Like, although his life was inorder, the demonic influence on
(06:36):
him was great.
And I thought that wasinteresting that Jesus goes
straight to demons here, whichthen must tell us something
about this, you know, there's acouple things there.
There's there is more than thematerial world than we can see.
There's a spiritual battlealways going on, but morally,
you could be like you don't haveto be a drug addict.
In fact, you could be a reallyrighteous looking person and be
(06:56):
worse off uh than the personwith one demon that's a drug
addict or whatever the situationis.
That's not I got from that.
Any thoughts on that?
Pastor Holland (07:04):
Yeah, um, when it says the last state of the
person is worse than the first,um, and then he says, so also
will it be with this evilgeneration.
You know, he's it's interestingthat Jesus um, you know, he he
makes a remark about an entiregeneration.
Obviously, there'd beexceptions here and there, you
know, his um people who arefollowing him, his disciples and
(07:25):
stuff.
He um, you know, are sh haveshown themselves to be people
who are wanting to trust Jesus.
But overall, he looks at thegeneration and says, Man, this
generation looks moral andrighteous in a lot of ways, but
um has really opened up theirlives to demonic influence and
to end up in a place that, youknow, is worse than where they
(07:47):
started.
People who, you know, um, uh,if if Jesus were to cast these
demons out of people and theywere not and and they didn't
trust in Jesus, you know, thenum they could become, you know,
yeah, clean, cleansed, free in asense, but actually lacking
what is real freedom and realcleansing, lacking a real
relationship with Jesus.
(08:08):
And so everywhere Jesus went,there were people who were
rejecting him.
And he's making a remark aboutthis generation, um, saying,
man, it's not gonna, it's notgonna go well for all these
people.
Right.
Pastor Plek (08:19):
Yeah.
Speak leaning into that, Iguess the sin to avoid is
religious pride andhard-heartedness.
We need to avoid uh the spiritof the Pharisees, uh, knowing
the law, like knowing rules, butmissing the heart of God and
then adding on more rules tomake sure nobody can get to the
heart of God.
Uh I think there's a tendencyin us to do that.
(08:40):
And so I think really doing aheart check of what is in your
life that comes out of aspiritual pride.
And it might be a spiritualjudgment or the way you treat
other people who are less thanyou, like you don't want to help
out the poor because you knowhow they're gonna use that
money.
Uh, you know, I I love thething that Jesus said, you will
always have the poor among you.
And I know uh I think one ofthe things that we say often is
(09:01):
that it was a different kind ofpoor back then, and you know,
they weren't drug addicts, butthere are probably a lot of poor
people that were just lazy backthen as well.
Probably.
And they ended up on thestreets begging, and people gave
them money, and I don't thinkthere was any loss um in the
(09:22):
reward from heaven because oftheir poor discernment.
I'm not again, this isn't me,you know, just go give all your
money to the to the drug addicton the side of the street.
But what I what I am saying isthat I think sometimes we can
get so protective of like ourour integrity and of our
religious righteousness that wecan miss out on opportunities to
(09:43):
serve and bless because we'renot open to what God might want
to do with a situation.
Yeah.
How about you?
Anything to apply?
Pastor Holland (09:50):
Yeah, I mean, there's so much.
You know, wanting wanting toserve and bless others, wanting
to show mercy to others, wantingto give rest to others, the
heart of the Sabbath, you know,to heal and to help and to give
rest to others.
Um and, you know, I thinkapplication-wise, um, receiving
the Sabbath as a gift.
Yeah.
Um, not something tolegalistically um, you know,
(10:12):
feel pressure from, um, butunderstanding God has set apart
one day in seven for rest andfor um worship.
And so to receive that andembrace that and and let God
minister to you through the restthat the Sabbath gives.
Pastor Plek (10:26):
What I also like in this story, and it's not as
clear here as it is in Mark, butuh his mom comes up to try to
speak to Jesus, clearly to belike, Hey, you know, slow your
roll on all this stuff, and hey,your mom's trying to speak to
you, and he's like, Who was mymom and my brothers?
And stretching out his handtowards disciples, he said, Here
are my mother and my brothers.
Whoever does the will of myfather in heaven is my brother
(10:48):
and sister and mother.
What do you why go thatdirection?
My my initial thought was theywere gonna rebuke him or try to
kind of talk him off the ledge,and he doesn't want to see him
or talk to him about thatbecause he's more interested in
those who want to do the will ofhis father.
That seems like a hard thing.
Obviously, we know he loved hismom.
Obviously, we know his mom wasa big supporter of who Jesus
(11:10):
was, is all that.
Um but here even Jesus' familydoesn't get on board.
What do you think?
Anything that you can gleanfrom that?
Pastor Holland (11:23):
Yeah, I think it was important for Jesus to
establish, you know what, um notto um destroy the idea of the
value of the natural family umin any way, but to teach a
spiritual lesson that um uhthose who do the will of God are
(11:44):
uh belong to the family ofJesus, belong to the family of
God.
And therefore, you know, Jesuswas was saying, like, you know,
here's here's what it reallymeans to be a part of God's
family here.
Um and so uh his desire was forhis mother and his brothers to
uh really have their faith inhim, right?
And we know that uh that thatdid happen.
(12:06):
Um we know that there was someconfusion.
Um we we know Mary received,you know, um a visit from an
angel, and so right off the bat,she had information about the
identity of Jesus.
And yet you have times likethis where it seems like She's
confused.
Yeah, she's confused.
But then we know, you know, youkeep reading um through the
(12:27):
crucifixion and resurrection andall you you learn James and
Jude become his brothers becomepastors, his mom obviously um,
you know, is full of faith andbelieves in him and honors him
as the son of God.
So faith does come, but this isone of those moments where
Jesus wanted to teach aspiritual lesson.
Pastor Plek (12:44):
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
And I think that that's it's adifficult one, like especially
you know, in Austin, where wehave a lot of different
influences uh from around theworld.
Uh here there's a very umindividualistic attitude of like
it doesn't matter what myparents think, I'm gonna choose
my own road, and everyone's sortof okay with that.
But more of any Easterninfluences, uh whether it's
(13:05):
Indian or whether it's um Asian,uh Vietnamese, whatever, uh
Chinese, Buddhist, Hindu.
All all of all of that spreadfrom a from the east side of the
globe has more of a communityidentity.
And so to really choose Jesushere, that this is a big thing
(13:26):
that you are saying no to yourfamily because you're not
aligned on doing the will ofGod, and that's a big it's not
like everyone's cool atChristmas, and we, you know,
it's not like we're Republicansand Democrats, but we can go out
and uh water ski together orsomething, uh, is more like I
can't be in the same room withyou.
I have to disown you, you arenot my child, and so that's a
(13:48):
huge vacuous hole.
And in uh Jewish circles toleave the Jewish faith, and at
this point, that was a bigshift, yeah, rift.
And so he's really saying,like, what you're seeking in a
local family or or in your bloodfamily, you can have in the
family of Christ.
Pastor Holland (14:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Uh ministering to um a Muslimrecently who, you know, said
that he's like, Oh yeah, Jesusis great.
We were talking about Jesus,you know, and I was asking him
some questions, and I was like,So I was like, Would you ever
become a Christian and followJesus?
Like uh shared the gospel withhim.
(14:27):
And his answer was, oh, I couldnever do that.
He said, My whole family isMuslim, my dad's an imam, it
they would disown me.
The community, it would bringshame upon my father and the
community.
Like, I could never do that tomy family.
And so it's not, you know, itwasn't even an option for me.
I pray for him that the Lordwould reveal himself to him.
But uh, you know, there aresome who would say yes and who
(14:49):
have lost all their familybecause of that.
Uh we've we've seen that evenon mission trips that we've been
on together, been, you know,disowned by their family.
But there's this beautifultruth Jesus is saying here you
you are welcomed into the familyof Jesus.
And he will never cast you out.
Right.
Pastor Plek (15:05):
Well, hey, thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you tomorrow on achapter a day.
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