For whoever does the will of God is My brother and sister and mother.”For whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and mother.”For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
5 sermons cite this verse
… What's the will of God? Okay, now, is my mind attuned to the will of God? Is my will attuned to the will of God? Are my passions and emotions in service of a mind and will that are attuned to the will of God? Are my friendships in line with the will of God? Is the way I seek entertainment in accord with the will of God? Is my private life in accord with the will of God? Is the way I lead my public life in my work? You see, you may discern the will of God and then turn your life in accordance with that will. You become a living sacrifice. Okay, just a quick word about the gospel, which sheds great light on this. So Jesus now says to his disciples, whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. Now, for us, the cross has become a religious symbol. We put it up on walls, and it probably gives a sense of peace, you know, if anything. …
… and said, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother. Now, Mark intentionally brings us back to the family. They're standing outside. They've come to lay hold of him, take him home. The disciples are sitting inside. Now, I want to point out, Jesus isn't rejecting his family. Jesus isn't, this doesn't mean Jesus doesn't love his family. We see Jesus loves his family. Later on, we see James and Jude, two of Jesus's brothers. They become great apostles and ambassadors for Christ. They follow him. We see mother Mary standing at the cross at the crucifixion with Jesus dying. And we see Jesus tell John, behold your mother, mother, behold your son. Jesus loves her. He has a relationship with her. This isn't Jesus rejecting his family. He's redefining family. Because following Jesus creates a new family. Not based on blood, not based on heritage, not based on religion, based on a faith that obeys. …
… here. whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother. Huh, wait a minute. You just said everything that happens is God's will in one sense. I said, yes. Well, that doesn't work here. Because everybody is not his brother and sister and mother. He meant keep the commandments. God's will is don't kill, don't steal, don't lie. Obey your parents. That's God's will. His will of, what should we call it? Command. or this is the will of God, your sanctification. Or, verse 18, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you, to give thanks. Give thanks, that's God's will for you. So which is it in Paul's case in Ephesians 1? Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. He commanded me to be an apostle or he set me apart to be an apostle. Here's Galatians 1.15. He who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace. …
… This is an amazing statement. Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister. Whoever does the will of my Father, This is why it was the perfect question. What should we do? And John says, I want you to do in your world what God is about to do for the world. And if you do, you'll recognize God when he does it. John knew that if the people listening to him would do compassion and do generosity and do others first and do for one, they would recognize God's work in the world. They would recognize the selfless other first lamb of God that was about to step onto the pages of history. Believers didn't change the world. Doers changed the world. Followers changed the world. The men and women, the men and women whose lives advertise the kingdom of God, the men and women whose lives advertise thy kingdom come, thy will be done right here, right now in my world. …
… Verse 34, looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, Behold, My mother and My brothers, for whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother." The Lord seized the moment to speak of salvation truth. He was not concerned about the human relationships, that they were not the relationships that mattered. There was no particular privilege for Mary that set her apart from the need for a Savior. She said that in Luke 1, God my Savior. She was not sinless. She needed a Savior. She was His mother in the earthly sense, but not in the kingdom sense until she had trusted in Him as Savior, which surely by now she had done. They knew Jesus, but they couldn't make the step to the reality that He was actually the Son of God. And Jesus here is pushing them past their temporal limitation. I'm not concerned about physical relationships. I'm concerned about spiritual ones. And spiritual ones are defined by doing the will of God. …