Sermon Transcript
October 18, 2026
So, I’d like to begin by telling you guys about Michael Bruner. Everything changed for Michael Bruner when he took a DNA test. I’m sure not many of you would expect that to happen to you, but Michael Bruner’s life was turned upside down simply by spitting into a vial and mailing it off to a laboratory. Why is that?
Michael Bruner was adopted into a nice family as a child. It was average; it was normal. There was nothing extravagant, but it was peaceful. But Bruner wasn’t satisfied. He wanted to know more. He had to know who his biological family was. He had everything he needed in his adopted family, but for him, it wasn’t enough. So, he dug deeper. He took a DNA test, and it revealed who his biological father was: none other than the notorious killer, Charles Manson. According to his own words, from that point on, he tried to keep that part of himself hidden in the closet. No matter how good his life was in his adopted family, he let the news of his biological parents forever cloud how he viewed his own upbringing and his adopted life. He could no longer see clearly the pure love his adopted family had given him because his view of his biological genetics clouded his own self-perception.
Perhaps this describes you as a Christian. Perhaps your former life or your cognizance—your awareness of what you have done in the past—makes it very difficult for you to believe that God loves you, that God has accepted you and adopted you into His family. Or perhaps you relate with the story for the opposite reason: You prefer to stay in your past, which is very dark, and you do not want to give the adoption a chance that God offers you in Jesus. Well, today’s message is for both of you. It is for people who struggle to believe they are in God’s family. Today, I hope that you will be encouraged. And for those who are not in God’s family covered in the blood of Jesus, I hope that you will be driven to repent of that and to accept the adoption He offers.
Therefore, the main point of today’s sermon is: We must study our hearts and our actions to see if Jesus is our brother, and then rejoice if He is, but repent if He is not.
So rise with me as we read. We’re going to read from Matthew 12:46–50. I’m going to read from the ESV, and then I’m going to read verse 47, which is not up here on the screen. I’ll read verse 47 from the CSB, and then we’ll talk about verse 47 and why it’s not in the ESV.
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. [Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” (v. 47, CSB)] But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46–50, ESV)
This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Father, I come to You right now in the name of Jesus, and I ask that You do a great and a mighty work in this place. You are my God. You are my Savior. And I am delighted that You call me son and brother. I ask that You would please be in this service today and fall down on everyone in the power of the Holy Spirit so that they too can feel the gravity, the true immensity, and the wonder of belonging to the family of God. And for those who are outside of that fold today, Lord, I ask that You would do a great and a mighty work in their hearts and fill them with the gifts of faith and repentance.
Lord, I ask these same blessings for those who are at home watching online. Wherever they are—I know even people from China watch these—will You please be with them? Will You comfort them? Will You comfort those who have been rejected as children to know that Jesus wraps His loving arms around them today? I pray that You would please speak through me and get past my words, because my words won’t do the good that needs to be done in order for us to truly grasp the magnitude that You call us your own. Be with us today and protect us from that wretched devil. I pray that You would cast out any dark forces, principalities, and evil that might be trying to attack anybody who is listening today, and I pray that You would expel them from this place and their proximity. May we all feel light; may we all feel the presence of God. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
If you’re a guest today, I’m so glad that you’re here. I want to encourage you to go ahead and open up the bulletin. Inside that bulletin is a sermon leaflet with blanks. I put this in your sermon bulletin primarily for me because it makes sure that I hit all the points that I plan to hit, but also it helps you to keep track and to follow me, and it encourages you to write your own notes. Everybody should be going home with these notes and meditating on them, because it’s only in your private meditation that you are affording the Spirit the opportunity to speak to your own heart and transform you. We’re not here on a Sunday morning simply to absorb like some American consumers; we are here to be transformed, renewed, and galvanized into action after we leave here today. Amen. All right.
Setting the Stage
So, let’s set the stage. Following Jesus has very strong implications on what it means regarding our own biological family. Some of you come from broken backgrounds. Actually, I would probably say a lot of you come from broken backgrounds. You might have had parents that didn’t love you. You might have had a dad that was cold towards you, a dad that never told you he loved you and wrapped his arms around you. Perhaps you had an abusive parent. Perhaps you had a parent or a loved one that raised you who was into the bottle, who abused drugs, alcohol, or maybe abused your mother. And all of this can taint your perception on whether God really wants you, whether He really loves you. And it’s a shame that sinners can taint the way we see God’s affection towards us.
I know that I struggled with some of these things myself. In fact, I probably related a lot with Michael Bruner because I had a wonderful upbringing from my mom and dad, but I had a biological father that I didn’t get to see much of. That tainted how I viewed God for a long time, and I struggled with feeling inadequate or unloved despite the magnitude of the love of my mom and dad. Perhaps that’s you today. Perhaps you might feel that way.
Or perhaps you have a very good family. Perhaps nothing has ever gone wrong for you, and your mom and dad showed and perfected their love for you. Well, Jesus has set a standard that is very hard for you to swallow as well, because Jesus has made it very clear. We have gone through Luke 9 already in this sermon series—Who is Jesus and what does He want? In Luke 9:59–62, Jesus said, “Follow me” to one man. And this guy responded:
“Lord,” he said, “first let me go and bury my father.”
His father was likely still alive, but Jesus told him:
“Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and spread the news of the kingdom of God.” (v 60)
Jesus is saying, “Your father’s not a believer. He doesn’t follow Me. I want you to follow Me despite where your father is in his spiritual walk, and I want you to love Me more than you love your father who rejects Me.”
And to another person in the same chapter of Luke, he says:
“I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say goodbye to those at my house.” (v 61)
Keep in mind this man is already with Jesus. And Jesus told him:
“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (v 62)
That’s a hard pill to swallow, especially if you have a great family. Jesus is calling us unequivocally; He is not giving you any wiggle room. You must love Him above all else, even your own mother, even your own children.
Following Jesus brings a second implication to biological family: It will bring inevitable division between those who follow Christ and their biological family who do not. We know that because we preached through Matthew 10:34–39. Jesus says:
Don’t assume that I came to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. The one who loves a father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because of me will find it. (Matthew 10:34–39, CSB)
There are some big implications there. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but Jesus is not saying that He is actively creating the division. In the larger scope of the gospels, we see that Jesus is hated naturally because the world belongs to Satan. It says in the Bible, in Ephesians 2:2, that the whole world lives according to the prince of the power of the air, and we used to be along with those sons of disobedience. And according to 1 John 5:19, it says that the whole world lies under the sway of the evil one. The world hates Jesus, and Jesus says, “Therefore, do not be surprised when the world hates you, because it hated Me first” (John 15:18). The sword that Jesus is mentioning between followers of Christ and their biological family members who are not followers of Christ is a sword because they hated Jesus first, and He is now your King.
Those are the two strong implications for biological family and followers of Christ: You must be willing to give up the unbelieving family members in your life—even your mother, your father, and heaven forbid, your children—if those relationships hinder you from carrying out the mission of God. And the second implication is that your biological family members will not care for you and love you like they should because you love Jesus.
Now in chapter 12 of Matthew, Jesus has just taught that those who embrace Jesus embrace Him because of who they are on the inside. We see that in Matthew 12:33:
“Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.” (CSB)
And then verse 35:
“A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil.” (Matthew 12:35, CSB)
The lesson is this: The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the religious elite of Jesus’s day—they hated Jesus and they didn’t follow Jesus because they had evil hearts. In other words, your actions reflect who you are on the inside.
If the followers of Jesus are following Jesus, they are following Him because they have new hearts. Their hearts have been renewed. And this was a promise that God gave to humanity as early as the book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 29:2-4, it says that they did not obey the Lord because God had not given them new hearts yet. In 30:6, it says that He will give them a new heart, and this heart will have God’s law written on it (cf. Jeremiah 31:33), and then they will obey the Lord. We love and obey the Lord because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). He gave us new hearts.
So if you are struggling to follow Jesus, and you are struggling to enjoy Him, and maybe He repulses you—perhaps you’re here today because your spouse dragged you here, but you also recognize that you don’t want the sword to exist between you and your spouse; you don’t want there to be division while your spouse tries to draw near to Jesus and you don’t—I have a very important encouragement for you: Just ask Jesus to give you a heart and eyes to see so that you will see that He is the truth.
So our fruit reveals what family to which we belong. That sets the stage.
Why is v. 47 not in the ESV?
Now, there’s this important thing that we’ve got to address: Why in the world did the ESV translation that we just read not have verse 47 in the main text? The CSB, which is my favorite translation—we read the ESV up there on the screen because I encouraged the church to invest in the ESV when I first got here. The Lord showed me the CSB just after I got here, and as somebody who reads Greek and Hebrew, I am falling in love with the CSB the longer I’m in this Bible. I love the ESV, too. The ESV is a wonderful translation. In fact, if you like the King James Bible, you should love the ESV because it adopts a lot of the cadence and the rhythm and words that the King James Bible has.
But what we must understand is every Bible translation relies on manuscripts. When the King James Bible was made, there were only about 12 copies of the New Testament in the original Greek language that the translators had access to. Well, as they were going through these, they might say, “Oh, well, these two are missing the word a—just the article, very small—but these other 10 over here have the article a. So, it was probably original that it was there.” I’m simplifying a very, very difficult science that we call textual criticism. But through comparing and contrasting these manuscript copies, scholars can discern whether a verse should be there or should not be there.
The issue is that when the King James Bible was published just over 400 years ago (in 1611), translators relied on a very small set of Greek manuscripts. Today, in Greek alone, we have access to over 5,800 manuscript copies of the New Testament! The King James Bible translators relied on Greek editions compiled from fewer than 20 manuscripts. That is a massive difference. The pool of manuscript data available today is not only vastly larger, but also much older. That is a primary reason for modern English translations: scholars can translate from a far more extensive and accurate body of textual evidence.
However, sometimes they have very early and trustworthy manuscripts where some include a verse and others do not. And so you have a committee of translators who study these manuscripts and go, “We need to figure out: Was this verse there in the original text or not?” That’s the case with verse 47. Verse 47 is missing from some of our earliest and most reliable manuscripts, but it’s also included in other early and reliable manuscripts. The truth is, the translation committees were divided on whether it should be included. The ESV translators decided to put it in the footnotes, while the CSB translators decided to leave it out of the main text.
But I will show you why I think the King James Bible got it right in this case: Verse 48 says, “And He answered him.” Well, who is the “him”? If verse 47 is not in the text, verse 48 doesn’t make full sense, right? Secondly, in Mark 3, where this passage is paralleled, we also have someone telling Jesus that His family is outside. So, I do believe that verse 47 is original and should be in the text for you. You just need to know that every modern English translation—the CSB, NIV, NKJV, KJV—they are all reliable so long as you read the footnotes, because the footnotes are always going to tell you whether a verse could have been there, giving you all the data to make informed choices. And when in doubt, just seek somebody you trust and love who has studied this, and they can help you discern these things as well.
So with that, let us look back at our test. The test that we must take today will reveal whether or not our hearts and actions reflect a brotherhood with Jesus.
The first point in your bulletin that I want you to ask yourself is:
1. Do You Participate in God’s Mission to Call People to Repentance and to Follow Jesus as King?
Sports broadcasts love to put athletes on television after they win a game, and Christians love to hear the first thing out of their mouths: “I just want to give thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” We love that! That’s one for our team. “I hate your sports team, but I know you’re on my spiritual team, and I’m really glad to hear that.” Christians rejoice, and that’s a good thing. But we so often easily say “Lord and Savior” without stopping to ask: What in the world does that mean?
When you call Jesus Lord, you are saying He is your King. He is your Master. He sets your agenda. He writes the rules of your life, and you are submissive to Him. Does Jesus set the agenda for your life? Do you follow Him in everything He asks of you? Because Jesus says that if you are in His family, you are one who obeys, submits, and fulfills the will of God His Father.
Let’s look at Jesus’s family here, because all of the points that you see in this sermon today ultimately come straight from the text we are reading. Look at verse 46: It says that while He was still “speaking to the crowds…” What is Jesus doing? He is teaching, and He’s probably speaking to thousands of people at one time. They’re likely in a fenced-in area or courtyard, because it says His family stood outside the crowd. Houses in Palestine commonly had large courtyards. But Jesus is on mission for God His Father, and He is teaching God’s people. He is being a Shepherd and feeding the flock.
You can think of it like this: Imagine I’m teaching here, and then all of a sudden, my mom, my dad, and my sister walk into the room, stand by the door, and motion for me to come out. Because here’s the thing you have to understand: In verse 47, someone has to run and tell Jesus, “Hey Jesus, by the way, your mother and your brothers are standing outside looking for you.” How would anyone know that they were Mary and His blood brothers? Because there was a massive crowd watching Jesus! If they had just walked into the crowd to listen to Him like everyone else, they would have blended right in. The text assumes that they walked up in such a way that they made their presence and identity clearly known, revealing who they were and what they were trying to do. It says very clearly they were standing outside, and the man reports in verse 47, “They want to speak with you.” Folks, His family showed up to interrupt His mission for the Father.
Now, we have a very glorious view of Mary, and His brother James eventually wrote the book of James in the New Testament, so we know he becomes a believer. We also know His brother Jude wrote the book of Jude. So they obviously do not remain unbelievers. And we know Mary embraced Jesus’s identity (Luke 1:38) when the angel announced that she would give birth to the Savior of the world (Luke 1:32–35). But that doesn’t mean she fully grasped it yet during His ministry. In fact, Mark 3:21 makes it very clear that when His family stood outside, they thought He was out of His mind! They stood outside judging Him, thinking that the Son of God had lost His marbles. Even Mary joined in at that moment.
Perhaps that’s you. Maybe you grew up in church. You’ve heard all your life that Jesus is the Savior of the world, but you still don’t buy it.
We must never be surprised when biological family members who are not members of our spiritual family interrupt the activities we are doing for the Lord. They might mock you. Perhaps you want to give money, and you tell your spouse, “I feel like the Spirit of God is telling me that we need to give $500 this week,” but your spouse scoffs, “Spirit of God?!” Or perhaps you are trying to lead a Bible study in your home, and you want to invite people over, but your spouse makes all kinds of complaints: “Oh, now I’ve got to clean the house! You’re bringing people in here, and they’re going to know our business!”
Do not be surprised when people who do not follow Jesus try to interrupt, disrupt, and wreak havoc when you try to follow Him. Your mom, your mother-in-law, your dad, your spouse, your children—you might even have children who mock you because you come to church. Do not be surprised; they did it to Jesus first.
A. Are You Quick to Interrupt or Depart When God Is Moving?
So with that, ask yourself these two questions:
- If you claim to be in the family of God, are you quick to interrupt or depart whenever God starts moving?
- Does it make you cringe when you see somebody praying for another person? Does it make you want to run away?
B. Do You Slow Down and Let God Work?
Or do you slow down and put a pause on your Sunday lunch to give time to God and watch Him work, even if your favorite football team is about to play in an hour?
These are questions you need to seriously ask yourself, because they reveal whether or not you are in God’s family. One who belongs to God rejoices in the movement of God. When you feel the Spirit of God at work, you forget about football. Trust me! When you feel God working, you do not worry about your budget; you know God is going to take care of you. When you see God working, you don’t mind getting on an airplane and going places, no matter how difficult or expensive it is. When God calls you to something, a person who belongs to the family of God will rejoice.
It might even make you very uncomfortable. Moving here made me uncomfortable, but I knew God was calling me to do it. It didn’t make sense humanly, but I knew God was calling me. It doesn’t matter what God is calling you to do; if you are in His family, you will rejoice and move when God calls you to move. And you will not interrupt the Spirit from using your spouse, your children, or your parents when God is doing a work in them.
I want to point out again in verse 47 (Matthew 12:47) where it says His family is standing “outside.”
In Matthew 12:47, it says, “Your family is standing outside.” This Greek word exo can plainly mean that they are physically outside the door or courtyard. But as I read this word by word and meditated on it, I notice this is the exact same word used elsewhere when people are being judged. It could be that Matthew is using a double entendre—one word with two meanings. Yes, they are standing physically outside the house, but in light of the lesson at hand, it may operate as a metaphor for those who are outside the kingdom of God.
Where else is this word exo used in Matthew? It is used frequently in the context of judgment for rejecting God’s will. For those who do not believe in Jesus, they will be thrown into the outer (exoteron) darkness (Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30). In Matthew 5:13, for those who fail to operate as the salt of the earth, they are no longer good for anything, but are thrown out (exo). They are judged and cast away from the people of God. When people judge God’s Son, where do they lead Him? Outside (exo) of Jerusalem (Matthew 21:39). When they lead Him out, they grab Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross outside of the city.
I think Matthew uses this word very carefully. He is saying that while Mary and His brothers were physically outside the crowd, they were also outside the family of God at that point in their lives because they were not bought into the mission and message of Jesus. If you are not bought into the message of Jesus hook, line, and sinker, you are outside.
We know that Jesus’s blood brothers did not believe His claims at first; John 7:5 states that point-blank. Jesus makes it clear throughout the gospels that earthly family is not to be prioritized over Him.
Now, why did Mary and her sons show up? What were they expecting? They were expecting access to Jesus. That’s a normal expectation for a mother—to have access to her son. And access to Jesus is precisely what those in Jesus’s true family receive! When my wife or my children call me, I don’t care who I’m in a meeting with, I will always say, “Hold on, that’s my wife; let me make sure everything is okay,” or “That’s my child; I want them to know Daddy loves them.” I’ll answer: “Hey baby, Daddy’s busy right now, but what can I do for you? Is it an emergency?” They have access. That’s what Mary and her sons expected when they showed up. They expected immediate access because they were family. And they weren’t wrong that family gets access—but they were family by name only.
Even John the Baptist told the religious leaders who showed up at his baptism—people who were just curious or hungry for gossip—when he saw their impure motives:
“Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” (Matthew 3:7)
“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones.” (v 9)
You see, the Jewish people put all their stock in their identity as physical descendants of Abraham. They thought that because they were related to Abraham, they were naturally in the family of God, and that God would always embrace them regardless of how they lived. John the Baptist told them, “God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones!” (Matthew 3:9).
In other words, it doesn’t matter who your family is if you are a family member by name only. You show that you are a true believer in Jesus based on your fruit.
I’m not saying that you obey God in order to earn your way into His family; I’m saying that your obedience and good fruit are the evidence that you already are in the family of God. We all know people who call themselves Christians and go to church, but they gossip behind people’s backs, never give their time or money, never serve, and only care about what the church can do for them rather than what they can do for the Church. Those are Christians by name only. Jesus says:
“If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24)
That is the mark of someone who belongs to the kingdom of heaven.
I love how this passage illustrates our access to God. True Christians who are born again always have access to God. You can close your eyes and talk to Him right now, and He picks up the phone! Does that hit you in the feels? That should move you! The Maker of heaven and earth is always ready for your prayers! That gives me goosebumps. And not only does He grant you access, He is excited to hear from you! If a sinner like me rejoices to hear my child say, “Hey, Daddy,” imagine the One who is perfect and blameless, whose very essence is love—imagine how He feels when you call upon Him! That is amazing.
At the end of verse 46 (Matthew 12:46), it says, “asking to speak with Him.” Their underlying purpose was to interrupt Him. How do we know that? Because in the parallel account in Mark 3:21, it explicitly says they came to restrain Him.
So Christian, you might have an unbelieving family member who makes excuses: “Can we do this later? I have a headache,” or “My knee is flaring up today.” They say one thing, but their heart means something entirely different. Do not be surprised if unbelieving family members have an excuse every time it’s time for God’s work to be done.
And some Christians are tired of feeling like they are on the outside. Some of you Christians are so hungry to feel like you belong with non-Christians in the world that you compromise to join their club. You’ve got it backwards! You’re not the one on the outside—they are! Stop trying to fit into the world just to feel accepted by your drinking or gambling buddies. Hang out with them, yes—because you should be trying to be light and salt to them (Matthew 5:13–14)—but don’t beat yourself up when they treat you differently. When they treat you differently, it’s not because you are on the outside looking in; it’s because you are on the inside, and they are on the outside looking in!
C. If Not, Then Repent and Turn to Him
So, examine yourself: Are you quick to interrupt or depart when God is moving, or do you slow down and let God work? If your answers reveal an unchanged heart, then it is time to repent and turn to Him. If God’s activities make you cringe when He is on the move, repent and say, “Lord, I was wrong.” I can feel the nerves popping up in some of you when I say that. Saying “I was wrong” feels like having open-heart surgery while standing up! But you cannot walk in God’s presence without being willing to say, “God, I was wrong.” You can’t be a good father, mother, spouse, or person if you don’t know how to say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
That leads us to the second part of this test:
2. Do You Rejoice in Carrying Out God’s Mission?
Look at Matthew 12:48. Jesus asks a question that would break every mother’s heart in this room: Jesus looks at the people sitting around Him and asks:
“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” (v 48)
How does that feel, Mom? Can you imagine your child saying that to you? That is a heavy pill to swallow. Jesus would not say this if He did not mean 100% that His true family has nothing to do with physical bloodlines. His true family consists of those who are completely committed to the mission of God and to obeying the heavenly Father. It does not matter who your blood relatives are; if Jesus is not your greatest joy, treasure, and mission, physical blood relations mean nothing in the eternal scope. He said, “Who is My mother?”
And by the way, Jesus was practicing what He preached. He had previously taught, “You must be willing to leave father and mother to follow Me” (Matthew 10:37), and that a sword of division would come (v 34). Jesus left His hometown, and now His mother and brothers showed up at His service, metaphorically sword in hand, to restrain Him!
Listen to me very carefully: Some of you throw pity parties with your little violin because you think nobody understands what you’re going through. I am here to tell you that you have a High Priest standing before God the Father who has experienced everything you could ever experience—including being rejected by His own family for doing the will of God (Hebrews 4:15)! He experienced it right here in this text. He was leading a revival, and His own family showed up to put Him in handcuffs! Have you ever gone through that? You have a High Priest who truly sympathizes with you.
Jesus spoke these words knowing they would temporarily hurt His mother and brothers, but that did not stop Him from teaching His disciples the truth they needed to hear. Jesus was willing to risk hurting His mother’s feelings in order to teach a vital truth to His sheep. Not only did Jesus prioritize the mission, but He co-opted His family’s opposition and turned it into a teaching moment. He took their interruption and used it as a sermon illustration to declare that the true family of God consists of those who obey God.
If you want to know how to handle rejection from your biological family, ask yourself: “How can I use this experience as an opportunity to disciple others?” If you are a parent, you can tell your children, “My family rejects me because I love Jesus, and they reject Jesus. And that’s okay, because they hated Jesus first” (John 15:18).
I love that Jesus prioritizes His sheep. He always picks up the phone, and He always feeds His flock.
My favorite part of this whole passage is verse 49:
And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” (Matthew 12:49)
What did He do with His hand, Church? He pointed to His disciples! After asking that hard question—“Who is My mother?”—He pointed at His disciples and said, “They are Mine!”
Folks, He didn’t just do that back then; you must believe that Jesus is doing that for you today! Jesus is pointing at you and saying, “You are Mine! You are Mine!” If you belong to Jesus, if you are born again, if you have denied yourself, taken up your cross, and surrendered to Him as Master, He looks at you and declares, “You are Mine!”
When the Spirit illuminated that truth to me, I had goosebumps running down my arms. As someone who has personally struggled with biological family rejection, this means everything to me. I hope it penetrates your heart to know that the God who died on the cross for you doesn’t stand at a distance looking at your sin saying, “Ugh, I hope they clean up their act.” In the midst of your dirty, nasty, sinful filth, He points at you and says, “You are Mine!”
He doesn’t wait for you to get it all together first. Look at who He was talking to in that crowd: He was talking to Matthew, a treacherous tax collector—someone despised for extorting his own countrymen. He was talking to Simon the Zealot—a political radical who used violence against Roman sympathizers. He was talking to former prostitutes. And He pointed at them and said, “These people are Mine!” If He can do that for a tax collector, a terrorist, and a prostitute, I guarantee He does that for you if you are His!
So ask yourself these questions:
- Do you carry out the Father’s will?
- Do you live a life of repentance?
- Do the Beatitudes describe you?
If you answer these in the affirmative, then rejoice that God calls you His own!
The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12) are my favorite litmus test for whether someone belongs to the kingdom of God. In Matthew 5:3, Jesus says:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”
And in Matthew 5:10, He says:
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”
In literary terms, this structure is called an inclusio—when a section begins and ends with the exact same phrase (“for the kingdom of heaven is theirs”), it means everything framed in between those two statements describes the exact same group of people! The Beatitudes are a character sketch of those who belong to the kingdom of heaven.
If you are in the kingdom of God, this describes you:
- You are poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3)—you recognize your spiritual poverty without God.
- You mourn over sin, darkness, death, and brokenness in the world and in your own life (v 4).
- You are meek (v 5)—you are humble and don’t view yourself as superior to others.
- You hunger and thirst for righteousness (v 6).
- You are merciful (v 7)—quick to forgive because God forgave you.
- You are pure in heart (v 8)—seeking thoughts that please God.
- You are a peacemaker (v 9)—stepping in to resolve conflict rather than stirring it up.
- You are willing to be persecuted for doing God’s will (v 10)—even when people mock you or falsely accuse you.
This is what the kingdom of God looks like. If these qualities describe you, you are in His kingdom! And if you feel you fall short, do you at least have verse 6 (v 6)? Do you hunger and thirst to be righteous? If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, God promises to satisfy that desire (v 6). He will conform you to be more merciful, pure in heart, humble, and peaceful.
Conclusion
I want to end with this thought for you to ponder: Jesus makes it explicitly clear who belongs to the family of God—those who obey and carry out the will of His Father. That logically means there are people in this world who are not God’s children. You often hear people casually say, “Oh, we’re all God’s children.” No, we are not all God’s children.
If someone does not belong to God, to whom do they belong? According to John 8:44, those who reject God carry out the desires of their true father, the devil. You might think, “Well, I’m not doing anything terrible; I’m not actively trying to harm Christians.” But Jesus said:
“[A]nyone who does not gather with me scatters.” (Matthew 12:30)
Simply by failing to participate in God’s mission, you are actively driving people away from Jesus, and there will be a judgment day for that.
There is no neutral ground with Jesus. He is King over all the earth, and every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11). Whether He is your King today dictates whether you enter into eternal joy or eternal judgment when you bow before Him on that day.
This is not a game to me. I preach this message because I wholly believe that every single person listening to this sermon will spend eternity in one of two places. I am pleading with you to submit to Jesus as King today. Give your life to Him, serve Him, and make your life all about Him rather than yourself. You cannot do this without a new heart, so plead with Jesus to transform you. He loves you, and He will do it.
Let’s go to Him in prayer.
Lord, I pray that You would please be with Your people and move them with new hearts to submit to You. And if they are already in the kingdom of God, I pray that they would rejoice that they belong to the Maker of heaven and earth—that they belong to the Savior who died for them. We love You, Lord, and we praise You for all these things. In Jesus’ name, Amen.