Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Who's your real family? Find out next on Light on the Hill.

Guest (Female): Family is a confusing word to many people. Simply put, it has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with one very critical issue. Join us for Light on the Hill and find out what that is. There's Pastor James Kaddis in Mark chapter 3.

James Kaddis: All right. We are in Mark chapter 3. Now, before we get into this small section of Mark as we finish it off, I want to repeat something that I have repeated on multiple occasions concerning Christ. I've actually illustrated it in a series of different ways. I've on many levels demonstrated it through telling stories or perhaps giving several illustrations. But let me just outline the premise here of the principle that we're going to go through because it's predicated upon something that I think is oftentimes misunderstood as it relates to who Christ is.

And I think that one of the things that you have to understand when you read concerning the life of Jesus, when you read through the Gospels, when you hear the things that he says, when you understand what the apostles are claiming about him, when you look at the very words that are highlighted in red for lack of a better term, the one thing you need to understand is that Jesus's responses to anything or his initiations of statements are nothing that even comes close to typical.

Now, if you were to categorize Jesus in a section all on his own, then of course it's typical for him. But the reality of it is, Jesus does not communicate nor has he ever communicated in a way that tends to line up with the typical mindset of the average human being. Yes, Christ was 100% God, 100% man, but you have to understand that his method of communication was one that I believe God designed for us to be able to develop in the first place.

But more importantly and perhaps more significantly, his level of communication is one that's been lost among us because we simply have learned to throw away the spiritual while focusing so much on the superficial. And I think that that happens a lot. We tend to look at the bigger issues in our minds, which happen to be the more minute issues in the overall spectrum of truth, and while we spend so much time emphasizing those issues, it tends to take us away from the things that have prominence for the things that actually mean something.

And I think that that's a really big thing. And maybe it's a little too early for me to use a demonstration like this. Maybe I shouldn't use an illustration like this, but perhaps I will only because of how relevant it feels in our minds right now and how current it is. Doing things the way that we do as human beings is very much like walking into a situation where your house is burning down. Now, mind you, you're going to have to give me some leverage here because, again, I want to be careful considering the time that we're in.

But just understand this: doing things the way that we do is like walking into a home right now that is burning down and being deeply concerned about a picture not being on the wall straight. Do you understand what I mean when I say that? Meaning, you're looking at an overall issue that appears to be the most devastating thing that could ever happen to that home, meaning if nothing gets addressed, that home is gone within 30 minutes or 40 minutes.

And you're so busy worrying about the picture that's hanging in the room that isn't burning, and you want to spend all your time, energy, and effort trying to align that picture to make it look good, not realizing for whatever reason that the house is well on its way to being destroyed. And not only will that picture no longer be able to hang, it won't have a wall to be able to hang on. And so what happens for us is when we address one another, when we communicate, when we look at things in this world in the typical fashion that most human beings do, we oftentimes ignore the burning house for the crooked picture.

We oftentimes look at the smaller issues, we don't pay attention to the bigger issues, and by the time we begin to realize that the bigger issue is at hand, it becomes so insurmountable to be able to even understand or discern that we tend to continue down the path of ignoring the bigger issues only because we have developed this mindset or this tool in our head that teaches us to ignore the things that are of greatest importance. And so understanding this, you have to know that Jesus was the opposite of all of this. Jesus did nothing of a sort.

Jesus was the one who recognized that if he could find the root cause, literally the root cause, the king of root cause analysis, by the way, like the major king of that would be Jesus obviously, if you really think about it. Jesus was more focused on the root of every issue that he stepped into because he knew, because obviously he's the creator of the universe, that if you deal with the root, you'll always be able to quench what could be the future fire.

The problem is we don't think that way. The problem is we don't look at things that way, we don't really discern things as such. And the problem with doing that is we allow ourselves to walk down a road where we end up allowing destructive elements to take place all around us while ignoring the very things that are destroying us, only for the sake of dealing with something superficial that never really mattered in the first place. And so if you understand that about Jesus, if you know that Jesus was one who operated in the exact opposite, then you'll also understand the mechanism that he often deployed as it related to the style of communication, and not just the style of communication, but the very words that he actually used.

And that was this: Jesus never spoke to the circumstance that existed in the moment; he always spoke to the heart of the circumstance. Jesus never spoke to the situation while it was at hand; Jesus always spoke to the thing that led into the situation or the thing that was the prominent undercurrent of the situation. Jesus was never one who would go to somebody and would speak to them on a precursor level or, dare I say, a very scratchy, surface-scratch level. He just didn't function that way.

Jesus always dealt with the matter of the heart. Jesus always dealt with the root. Jesus always looked to the cause. Jesus was always the one who would shut the gas down instead of perfuming the gas, for lack of a better term. Jesus was the one who understood that so deeply and so profoundly that the average person would look at the things that Jesus would say and they would be incredibly puzzled by it, especially if they're in a position like me where they're seeking to teach what it was that Jesus was trying to communicate in the moment.

But without the understanding of what it was that he was actually doing, and I learned this very early on when I started teaching the Bible 32 years ago. I recognized that the easiest thing for me, the easiest tool to put under my belt to be able to understand the words of Jesus and to understand the real meaning of what it was that he was saying, was to look past what appeared to be the simple, surfacey, circumstantial issue and to look deeper into the root cause that Jesus is seeking to address. I'll give you one great example of this. This is probably one of my favorite passages where Jesus actually does this.

And by the way, the passage that we're about to read is one where Jesus does this. He does it in virtually every passage where you see his words, okay? But where it becomes strikingly obvious, where it's actually very easy to recognize what's going on, is when you see this woman who comes to Jesus. And if you remember, they make contact with one another, and this woman ends up asking a very controversial question, a question that has actually been argued for years and years and years.

"My fathers say that we worship over here, yet your fathers say that you're supposed to worship over here. Really, tell me, what's up with that?" And what's Jesus's response? "Well, you know, theologically speaking, this is the location because Jerusalem is over here and we really should align our prayers in this direction, and quite frankly, that is the place that all of our forefathers have worshipped." No, Jesus didn't do that. Jesus actually said something very simple and it could be perceived a bit offensive. "Hey, woman, where's your husband?"

I mean, can you imagine? Can you imagine watching a conversation with an average Joe where some lady comes and asks you a simple theological question? Like a lady comes to me and asks me a question, I go, "Hey, I want to talk to your husband," like just out of the blue. It's crazy. It absolutely makes zero sense. And then the lady, and you know, by the way, based on what's going on here, what's beginning to sort of formulate, the lady is definitely on her guard at this point.

She's definitely shaken up a little bit, and she tells him, "Well, you know what? I don't have a husband." "Well, you're right. You don't. As a matter of fact, you don't have one; you have actually had five, and the one that you have currently isn't even your husband." Can you imagine just how? And then, of course, her statement is a brilliant one. Her statement is actually a very observant one. She probably should be a police investigator because her statement then back is, "I perceive you're a prophet." Okay, what an incredible perception, right? You recognize that.

But Jesus wasn't trying to humiliate her. Jesus wasn't trying to embarrass the woman because she was categorized in society as a group of people who were widely regulated as traitors within their culture or their cultural subset. Jesus wasn't trying to say anything that was derogatory or offensive. Jesus understood that the question that came out of her mouth was fundamentally based on an understanding that she was seeking something out that she didn't even know she was seeking, right?

She was looking for something that she didn't even realize she was looking for. Jesus knew it. So Jesus knew that he had to deal with the core of the issues. Now, I'm not somebody who's going to pretend to understand or speak concerning things that the Bible itself doesn't mention, but I suspect that the reason why Jesus asked about her husband had everything to do with not humiliating her over her promiscuous lifestyle but rather dealing with the core issue that she probably perceived would be the thing that would help her the most in finding fulfillment, and that was relationships.

See, I suspect that when Jesus brought up the husband, the reason why Jesus brought up the husband was because this woman in the place in her life in which she was, in the current state that she was in, she felt that the way to fulfill or the way to find fulfillment that she was looking for, the way to find the completion that she was missing, would be through relationships. And, of course, being the fact that her relationships were not being guided by the Holy Spirit or not being driven by what the Bible says, she's finding that those relationships are bringing up emptiness because they're not being regulated by the truth.

So Jesus was bringing up the very tool that she was seeking to grasp onto to bring her the greatest fulfillment, only for her to find out or to realize how empty it was, thus bringing into her attention a new relationship that was necessary in order to fix the overall problem that she could have never fixed because she could never even perceive it about herself. Isn't it funny when you think about this? When you go back to look at the response that the woman gave in going out and telling other people, do you remember the response that she gave?

When she went out and told other people, she basically said, I'm just giving you the modern-day version of what she said, she told people that she did not know that this man, Jesus, knew stuff about her that nobody else could have ever known. In essence is what she said, that she knew or that he knew her in a way that she never could possibly imagine. Why? It's because I promise you that Jesus knew her in a way that she didn't even know. Jesus understood her in a way that she didn't even know.

And when Jesus responded the way that he did, he was dealing with the core issue. And I think that there's something really substantial to learn from this. We need to be people who become operatives at that level. We need to be people who are looking into what is the hidden, what is the spiritual, and dealing with the spiritual issue rather than dealing with the issue that oftentimes is being put in the front, which if you deal with on a regular basis ends up becoming the non-issue, if you know what I mean.

We have to learn how to be people to see through it all, to address it at its core, because the effectiveness that we have in doing that will exponentially increase because we're learning how to follow the cues of our Savior who was able to see things very spiritually, who was able to see things in ways that we couldn't see it. Now, here's the thing that I think you have to understand and that's this: the way the spiritual world works is it's not something that actually just simply happens by you understanding a formula or you developing a set of mechanics that helps you to align in a specific way where the subset of all the information you receive becomes an instant calculated solution as to every problem that you face in every waking moment, in every single waking day.

The reality about the spiritual battles that we face from day to day is this: we as human beings have a unique and distinct inability, not ability, inability to be able to discern the things that are in the invisible. We have this unique inability to be able to understand the spiritual, and that is precisely why the only way we can navigate through the very things that we have a distinct inability to be able to understand is through the mechanism of obedience.

Because when you walk in obedience to the Lord, when you follow his commands and you are mindful of the spiritual within the context of that obedience, God begins to develop within you something that is very different: it's instinct. There's an instinctual reaction that begins to be developed within you as a man or woman of God that begins to guide how you respond to certain things. And that instinct is being fundamentally guided by the Spirit of God who lives inside of you, who is given more and more of a way every day to guide and lead you through the development of that instinct.

And only in doing so will you be able to navigate through the spiritual realm. By the way, this is precisely why the Apostle Paul goes out of his way to tell us not to grieve the Holy Spirit or not to quench the Holy Spirit. By the way, they both mean different things, but the effect of learning how to open up your life to the voice of the Holy Spirit without quenching or grieving is incalculable. You're never going to be able to completely understand it until you begin to see the effect of it in your life.

And the only way that you can walk without suppressing the work of the Spirit in your life is to be given to a lifestyle of obedience. And as you're given to the lifestyle of obedience, your instinctual understanding of matters related to human nature begins to grow exponentially. And by the way, let me make myself very clear. It also extends in other areas and in many other different ways. It can extend into your understanding of geopolitical functions happening all over the world. It can extend into things that are a direct extension of what happens as a result of human behavior.

It can extend in so many other ways because the deeper you become familiar with understanding and knowing how to work through the instinct that you allow the Spirit of God to develop within you, the more victorious and successful you are in the spiritual realm. And that's why passages like this are so absolutely critical because we're going to learn something about what family really means and why it's an important context. Now, here's the thing that I think is really unusual and this is going to be difficult for some people when they read a passage like this.

This passage, believe it or not, has nothing to do with family. Now, some people will look at this where Jesus begins to question his mother, when Jesus begins to question who his siblings are, and people say that it has absolutely everything to do with the familial relationship that God has put in front of us. As a matter of fact, you will see certain people groups place a very heavy and distinct emphasis on the core family structure as a result of this passage, bringing in a spiritual institution, but the reality of it is, this has nothing to do with that.

The reality of it is it has something to do with something much more significant and much more deep. Jesus is actually seeking to demonstrate to all of us that there are certain principles that I think the best way of putting it—and it's very hard for me to actually put it—that transcend the structure of the family, even though the structure of the family is a God-ordained one that can never be broken if followed closely with the Lord. There are actual elements from within the life that we live when we walk with God that transcend the very structure of your family unit.

Now, that's important because a lot of us will look at that and say, well, then it does have something to do with family. Actually, it doesn't. It has something to do with the bond and the relationship that we have developed with our God. It has everything to do with being able to establish the relationship and the communication that God intended for us to be able to establish and to follow through with, and it has everything to do with understanding the priority that God would have you to hold fast to as opposed to the priority that you think you need to hold fast to.

And that's where this becomes interesting. By the way, I do want to just bring this up because this is unique. We are on the tail end of Jesus doing several things that were very controversial in this passage. First of all, he healed a man with the withered hand. That came with controversy. And the reason why that came with controversy is because it was done on the Sabbath. Jesus, of course, exposed the fact that these people did not understand what the purpose of the Sabbath even was. He exposed the fact that they didn't understand even the most basic and foundational of issues, which I think is really important.

And then we begin to see him calling the apostles, which we got into that discussion and why that was such an important thing and what it means to walk according to and follow the calling of God. And yes, there's a very spiritual component to it. As a matter of fact, it is a holy spiritual thing. And so we spent some time talking about that, and then we get into this moment in the passage where you begin to see this back and forth with the scribes and the Pharisees. And that is because of something really significant that's happening, and that is an uptick in the spiritual battle that is raging for the souls of the people that Jesus is contending for.

And it actually gets to the point where these Pharisees accuse Jesus of being demon-possessed. And Jesus makes a statement to them and he says, "Look, a house divided against itself is not going to stand. It just, it's impossible. It just doesn't work. So you're just wrong on one of the most foundational bases. You don't even understand the spiritual activity that you are seeking to attribute to me and attribute to the actions of me and my Father."

Guest (Female): This is Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis, and we're currently going through the Gospel of Mark. Listen to this study and more at LightonTheHillRadio.com. Pastor James's teachings are also available through the Light on the Hill app and at OnePlace.com. You can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts as well. When you have a moment sometime today, send us an email. We'd love it. It's encouraging to hear what the Lord is doing in our listeners' lives, and it's an opportunity to thank the Lord for what he's doing.

There's a place to contact us at our website, LightonTheHillRadio.com. Here's Pastor James once again to share something very exciting with all of you.

James Kaddis: Exciting that is, Jane. I gotta tell you, this is a project that has been three years in the making, and we are excited to bring it to you. It is called The Last Book. Yes, it is my writing on the book of Revelation, and I'm excited to bring this commentary. I'm going to educate you through the Old Testament, all of the passages that are relevant to understanding this powerful New Testament book, and I can tell you this right now: you're going to be blessed. In this book, we go through the first eleven chapters of the book of Revelation, and about six months from now, you will see the other book coming out.

We're already working on it. We've been working on it for years, and I'm thrilled to give it to you because I know, based on what the Bible says, you will be immensely blessed for studying it. It's the only book in the Bible that actually promises you directly to be blessed for studying it and for doing what it says. And so it is my hope and my prayer that God will be honored and you'll be blessed. The Last Book by Pastor James Kaddis is available on Amazon, at LightonTheHillRadio.com, or JamesKaddis.com.

Guest (Female): If God is leading you to support this radio outreach, there's also a place to make a donation at LightonTheHillRadio.com. Throughout the week, you can watch our live shows and short videos, many of which relate to Bible prophecy and help you to see current events with a biblical worldview. Look for these at JamesKaddis.com. Have you ever wondered what is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit and have I committed it? Here's Pastor James to address that common question.

James Kaddis: Then he goes as far as to take it a step further and he begins to talk about the idea of what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. He talks about an unforgivable sin. By the way, I've talked about this. I shared about it the last time we talked about it. A lot of people will look at the unpardonable sin and they will simply explain it off as the unpardonable sin being the rejection of Jesus Christ. Meaning you don't accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, and that's a sin that you are not going to be forgiven for.

Actually, that is not the unpardonable sin. That's not what the Bible says here. What is the unpardonable sin? I don't know. But the one thing that I can tell you is that it is a sin that you can actually commit on this earth that God cannot forgive you for. It is something that you can do that God will never be able to forgive you. Now, before everybody starts panicking, especially my friends online who typically panic really badly about subjects like this, let me just remind you of something.

If you find yourself in a place where you are worried that you have committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, I can promise you you've never committed it. Because the one leading indicator that we find with somebody who has committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is their blatant disregard and hatred for God and the Spirit of God is so significant that they are willing to commit this sin as it propagates from the hardness of their heart without any regard for what God wants.

I would venture to say that it's very likely if there was somebody on this earth that could have committed the unpardonable sin, it would have been the Pharisees. They had no desire to reconcile themselves to Christ, and the ones that did were actually pretty extraordinary people. If there was one person who lived on this earth that committed the unpardonable sin, it would have to be the Pharaoh that we read about in the book of Exodus, one who chose to harden his heart against the Lord, and God continued to allow him to take that position until he himself hardened Pharaoh in that position. But if you're worried that you've committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, I can promise you this: you haven't.

Guest (Female): More from the book of Mark coming up next time on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis. This listener-supported program is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Signal Hill.