Are You Crazy?
Mark 3:20 – 35
February 2, 2025
Pastor Mark Fuller
Sermon in a Sentence: If following Jesus is insane, then make me crazier each day!
Mark 3:20-21
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Mark 3:22
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”
Mark 3:23-25
So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
“A house divided against itself, cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1858
Mark 3:26
And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come.
Mark 3:27
In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.
Exodus 3:20-22
So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go. “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.”
Exodus 12:36
The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.
Mark 3:28-30
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”
1 John 1:9
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
“Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” = rejecting Jesus to the end.
Mark 3:31-35
Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
TAKING THIS HOME:
If the God we worship is not deeply disrupting and uncomfortably confronting some part of our lives, then the God we worship is likely one of our own creation, not the Creator of the universe.
The kingdom of God, the work of the Spirit, when on the move, will always disrupt and disturb a “sane” world.
What if the church today embraced her craziness?
Are we crazy enough?
IF FOLLOWING JESUS IS INSANE, THEN MAKE ME CRAZIER EACH DAY!