If you have a Bible, you can turn to Luke chapter 12, where
in the second-half of Luke chapter 12 in just to kind of
set the stage week by week. As we look at the Gospel of
Luke, we have started this journey with Jesus starting in
Luke Chapter 9, where he sets his face towards the cross and
begins to journey towards Jerusalem with his disciples.
And we've specifically looked for ways that we can study the
Gospels, not by drawing out from them the highlight reel that
you're often know the the famous teachings of Jesus, but by
looking at some of the hardest passages or the hardest
teachings of the teachings of Jesus.
So if you're new to Jesus or church, please know this, that
when you study the Gospels, you are going to find that Jesus has
some very difficult things to say.
And today we will come to another very difficult saying of
Jesus. And before we look at it, I will
present you with the question that this teaching is going to
answer. It's a question that is
fundamental to your faith in Jesus and ultimately fundamental
for your life. And it is a simple question.
Why did Jesus enter into the world?
Why did Jesus come into the story of humanity?
What was his mission? And the the hope is that we
would understand his mission more clearly, so we would
understand why he matters more fully before, you know, we come
to what the Bible says about his mission and why he came.
This is a great opportunity to present to you with why a series
like this is so important. We live in a culture that is
more and more post Christian, which means we live in a world
that has reference points to Jesus, has maybe heard of
stories of Jesus, but less and less has concrete understanding
of what he's really about. So I want you to imagine you're
watching one of those ever growing in popularity man on the
street interviews where a guy with a microphone and a camera
just goes to Main Street America and asks someone a basic
question and to show the survey of answers that represent our
culture. And and so the man on the street
asks the basic question, why did Jesus come into the world?
Let me share with you some hypothetical questions that I
think are all too common in our day.
One person might say Jesus is one of many spiritual teachers
who came to point people towards God.
And so different cultures and different religions have
different messengers, and he was one of them.
Maybe that would be one of your answers.
Another person might say that Jesus came to help people and
make them feel better. He's there when life gets hard.
If you ever need him, you've got Jesus, the therapist.
And maybe some of you have felt that way.
Some might say I, I think Jesus came to show us a higher way,
awaken people to love and inner peace, but not rules or
religion. This is the culture that you
live in. And I'm mindful of these
answers. They represent very well an
answer that I got from someone that I was recently talking to,
not a churchgoer, not someone who would call themselves a
Christian, but someone who respects Jesus.
And this person said to me, I have no interest in church.
I don't like the Bible, but I love the teachings of Jesus
because they're all about love and they're all about
acceptance. And she's not wrong, she just
doesn't have the full picture. But I think she's doing
something very important. If you really want to get to
know someone, you should listen to them.
And so before we get to our text this morning, let me give you
some answers right out of the red letter version of your
Bible, the words of Jesus. Why did he come?
Jesus says I have come that you might have life and life more
abundant. Jesus says I came not to be
served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.
I came to bring witness to the truth, and all who are of the
truth hear my word. These are great answers and
they're probably answers you may have thought of, but once again,
they are not the full picture. So many of us, even in the
culture of Christianity that presents Jesus with red letters
as someone who is all love, all accepting, unconditional miss
the full picture. And so today we we want to know
Jesus for who he says he is in ways that are often forgotten.
To understand why he matters in your life, you have you have to
understand his mission and missing from everything that I
referenced today as possible answers and good answers is the
hardest answer. So you've already turned to Luke
chapter 12. Today we want to understand his
mission more fully and we'll start in verse 49.
Jesus says I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it
were already kindled, but I have a baptism to be baptized with,
and how distressed I am till it is accomplished.
Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth?
I tell you not at all, but rather division.
From now on, five in one household will be divided 3
against two and two against three.
Father will be divided against son and son against father,
mother against daughter and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Welcome to church. As I walked in, I, I saw the,
the sanctuary filling up and I was as a pastor, I'm thinking, I
hope everyone found a good place to park.
And then I thought, well, this week's sermon might help parking
next week. So I hope you come back.
But Jesus says he came to send fire on earth once again.
To understand why he matters in your life, you must understand
his mission. And one of the things that Jesus
says of his own reason for entering into the world was to
come with fire. This dispels A cultural handling
of Jesus that keeps him at an arm's length as a a therapist or
a moralist or some guide to your life that you get to do whatever
you whatever you want with. This presents us with a Jesus
that is coming to do things in our world and in your life that
are hard, that are difficult, that are in fact, seemingly
confusing. So we'll take it one at a time,
beginning with what does he mean when he says I came to bring
fire? Well, let me just point out that
he does not say this bashfully. He doesn't say, you know, I, I,
I feel so bad that I have to tell you this, but one of the
reasons I came is to bring fire and I don't even want to talk
about it. It's, it's something I didn't,
I, I wish I didn't have to do. He actually says I came to bring
fire and I wish it was already kindled.
He's got a vision for what he came to do and he can't wait to
get to it. This is not something that he
feels ashamed as part of his message.
So what is he talking about? Well, let us understand the full
picture of the gospel, which is incredible news in light of
alarming news. If you ever hear a gospel that
is just presented as come as you are, stay as you are, Jesus
loves you the way that you are. He just wants you to know that
you're cared for. Move on with your life.
You have not found a reason to give Him your life.
Here's how one commentary helps us understand the imagery of
fire that Jesus is talking about.
When Jesus says he longs for the fire to be kindled, he is
invoking the long standing biblical image of God's
purifying and judging fire. He's speaking in the language of
the Old Testament prophets. This is judgment and
purification that Jesus came to bring.
The commentary says that he's speaking a language that we
would find in reading the Old Testament the the Old Testament
that many people who admire Jesus want to divorce themselves
from. And yet Jesus is referencing the
prophets of old. Let me share with you some of
the prophecies that help us understand this imagery.
Nahum chapter one, verse 6. Who can stand before his
indignation? Meaning the Lord Yahweh, His
anger. And who can endure the
fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like
fire, and the rocks are thrown down by Him.
His his anger towards sin. Who could endure and to
understand it, the the prophet says it's it's like fire.
Malachi Chapter 4 For behold, the day is coming, burning like
an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be
stubble. And the day which is coming
shall be shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts that will
leave them neither root nor branch.
Jesus is coming to bring the judgment of God's purifying
fire. And all who are proud will burn
up like stubble, leaving neither root nor branch.
I've I've lived in Idaho long enough to to rightfully wear the
T-shirt that says I remember when that was a field.
You've seen those T-shirts. You, probably some of you
remember when all this was a field.
I remember when much of the land I grew up in, out in Eagle was
fields. And those fields were connected
from the river to canals to ditches.
And I have memory of my father clearing the field of all of the
the the weeds and the growth and the branches and the stubble
that would prevent the water from flowing.
He would go out with the torch and he would burn it ablaze and
he would set anything that was going to prevent the flow of the
water that brings life ablaze. This is imagery that these
people would understand about what the prophets are trying to
say about the judgement of God. There is this earth has been
grown up with the weeds of unrighteousness, the thorns of
sin and the prophets say there's coming a day when God's anger
against sin will be judged like a person clearing the field with
fire. Yes, God hates evil and you were
made in the image of God, which help which helps you understand
why you hate evil. This is a, a message that needs
to be in some ways unpacked against our reluctance for the
word judgement. I mean, how many of you have
seen a car with the, the, the, the sticker on the back window
that says God Bless America? You just say, yes, Lord, just
bless our country. And yet when you see the one
that says God judge America, you're like, there goes a wacko.
What's this guy? A religious fanatic wanting God
to judge our country. If God has the power to bless a
nation for his glory, then the same just and holy God has the
power to judge a nation for his glory.
And as much as your human heart longs for the blessing of God,
in your human heart you long for the judgment of God.
Every person in the sanctuary or out is made as a reflection of
the just and holy God that hates evil.
And This is why you don't have to come to church to hear people
look out and give judgments against evil.
One of the things our culture is reflecting the nature of God is
that we hate evil. That when you hear the news
report of sex trafficking and child abuse, when you hear that
someone has taken life in as murder, your image of God comes
out and you say I hate that. And what you want more than
anything, the way that justice is going to be satisfied.
The only way we can make sense of the evil of our world is to
say it must be punished. There are so many examples of
this and I'm sure you have all probably heard some report of
some heinous crime, some murder that was committed and left
survivors of the victim. And without fail, it gives a
great opportunity for the, the 2 coins of the gospel because
without fail, you'll hear stories of the survivors of
victims saying, I can finally be at peace and exhale because
justice has been served. It's it, it brings healing to
the tragedy. And you'll also get a preview of
the gospel when the victims, survivors say, and I want to
offer forgiveness. We are people that cannot escape
the reality that evil must be punished.
And one of the reasons that Jesus came into the world, we
celebrate it at Christmas, is to save people from sin.
There will be no salvation from sin until sin is judged.
And the reason that we so often hear the message of God's
judgement and want to find some way to just an image of God or a
messenger of God that only gives us love and peace is because
deep down we all know that we've fallen short of the glory of
God. And if we really believe in
judgement, we put ourselves under the judgement.
Jesus says I came to bring the fire of judgement and I wish it
was already kindled. To understand why Jesus matters,
you have to understand the mission that Jesus was on to
purify the world from unrighteousness and sin.
And this is now where the story turns into good news.
Because Jesus says I came to bring this fire and I wish it
was kindled. And then he immediately says,
unlike the prophets of old, verse 50, I have a baptism to be
baptized with and how distressed I am till it is accomplished.
Jesus comes to bring fire and Jesus comes to pay the price of
judgment. When Jesus says I have a
baptized to be baptized with, of course he is not talking about
the beginning of his earthly ministry where he went into the
Jordan River to be water baptized.
He's talking about the baptism of his death and his suffering
on the cross. We know this because as he's
approaching the cross, he gets closer and closer and disciples
have this misunderstanding of the mission that Jesus was on.
Two of his disciples said to him, Lord, when the Kingdom
comes, when you've ushered in your mission, let us sit one to
your right and one to your left. And Jesus answered and said to
them, you do not know what you ask.
Are you able to drink the cup that I'm about to drink and be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
He was moments from the cross. They didn't understand the
mission and they didn't know what they were after because of
it. And yet so often cultural
Christianity. Why did Jesus come into the
world to set me up on his right and his left?
Jesus comes into the world so that I can finally understand
the good life and I can get the the whatever time I have left on
earth will just be prosperity and bless.
God bless me. You don't know what you ask.
Jesus says that he came into this world for the cross.
John, the Gospel of John, he says, my, my soul is now
troubled, and what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour?
But for this purpose I came to this hour, I came for the cross.
John the Baptist, the one who would prepare the way for
Christ, understood the mission. As he saw Jesus approaching, he
said, Behold the Lamb of God sent into the world to take away
our sin. This is a picture of the
Passover lamb whose blood was shed so that the people could
find shelter from the wrath of God.
Jesus says, and now I am so distressed until it is
accomplished. Jesus knew that his mission was
not to get a crowd. His mission was not to receive
praise from people and to set up a cabinet of earthly politics.
He said, I'm a distressed until it's accomplished.
Hebrew says for the joy set before him, he endured the
cross. Of course, we have the Garden of
Gethsemane before he is ultimately crucified on the
cross. And he said, if there's any
other way, take this cup from me.
This is all pointing to the cross and how distressed he was
until it was accomplished. But the good news that we stand
on today as we hear all of this, Jesus approaching the cross.
So we now exist on the other side of the cross because on the
cross it was accomplished. He said it's finished.
And that's why we live under the banner of His grace.
And the idea of God pouring out His wrath is something that we
can't even fathom because it was finished, says in Romans chapter
5, God demonstrates His love towards us.
And while we were still sinners, Christ died.
And much more than having now been justified by His blood, we
shall be saved from His wrath. The anger and the fierceness of
His indignation towards our sin is dealt with on the cross of
Christ. And that is why on April 3rd of
this year we'll celebrate it again.
We are going to come in the Friday before Easter and we're
going to remember that our sin is paid in full and the wrath of
God is no longer over our heads and we are saved through His
blood. And what are we going to call
that service? Good Friday, He came to bring
fire, and he came to pay the price of the judgement of God.
And this is where the message now becomes personal.
Once you understand the cross, you can actually understand the
call. If you if you have a picture of
Jesus that is removed from the cross and removed from the
judgement of God, removed from suffering and death, then you
cannot understand that the call of being a disciple that Jesus
is calling you to commit to. We actually go back to the
conversation that he was having on the road to his cross, the
cross with his disciples when he says, are you able to drink the
cup? I'm about to drink and be
baptized with the baptize I'm about to be baptized with.
What do they say? And they said to him, we're
able, we can do it. To which you would think Jesus
would say, no, you don't understand.
I'm going to go hang on a Roman cross for the sins of the world.
But what does he say? He says you will indeed drink my
cup and you will indeed be baptized with my baptism.
We cannot hear this message and thank, thank God that Jesus took
care of suffering and death so we would never have to follow in
his footsteps. He says I came to bring fire.
I came to be baptized by the cup of God's wrath.
And then he says to everyone, now pick up your cross.
Now understand the life that you now live is to model a life that
trusts God through suffering and ultimately death for the reward
beyond this life. This is why Christianity so
often is failing our culture because it is presented as a
ticket to the modern day best life now and the seemingly the
entire church service is set up to meet everyone in their
desired outcome from the music to the sermons to the go forth
and conquer. Modern day Christianity has
presented Jesus as someone who will give you what you want if
you have enough faith. But in reality, as we look at
the hard sayings of Jesus, Jesus will give you life eternal
forever and an earthly cross. As the Gospel of John is
Speaking of the baptism of Christ, John the Baptist in Luke
chapter 3 says I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier
than I is coming whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to lose.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
And this is where we must be people if we actually want to
know why Jesus matters. We must receive the mission that
he puts us on. And it is twofold according to
John the Baptist. According to Jesus himself, it
is Holy Spirit and it is fire. And this is the two extremes
that the the culture will take you in.
Isn't it beautiful that Jesus says you must be born again?
It's as easy as a child at an adoption agency getting adopted
by the Father. There's nothing you can do as an
orphan to get adopted other than present yourself in need,
receive the Holy Spirit just as you are, be adopted to born
again life, no work, all grace. And so we have one extreme of
that saying, come as you are, stay as you are.
God loves you unconditional, you're good, but it's baptism by
the Holy Spirit and fire because He gives you newness of life so
that He can purify your life so they can set you apart as
someone who is marked by Him. You become more and more and
more like Jesus by becoming less and less and less like the
world. This is a beautiful picture of
the refinement of gold. You are precious gold in the
sight of God, but you just imagine the journey that gold's
on. Gold goes on to become jewelry.
When gold is found in the mountain, it is taken just as it
is. You just take it, you just look
at it, you say that is worth anything I got to do to get it.
You take the gold and you take it to a jeweler and he sees and
he has a value on it and he's happy to get it from you just as
it is. But there's no jewelry that came
out of the earth that way. It has to be refined.
It has to have the dross removed.
It has to go through the refiner's fire, and this is your
life in Christ. You must understand the mission
of Christ is to give you life and to refine it.
This is what Peter was describing to those who believed
in his letter. He says you greatly rejoice,
though now for a little while, if need be, you have been
grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith,
being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is
tested by fire, may be found to the praise and honor and glory
at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Believer. If you are a believer in Jesus,
you are called to be a disciple, and if you're called to be a
disciple, you are called to view suffering in this world, Trials
of the faith, the difficulties that press us but never crush
us. As the refiners fire to purify
us like gold, may we not be confused at the various trials.
May we be people who receive the Spirit and the fire.
Whoever does not bear his cross and come after me can not be my
disciple. To understand the call, you have
to understand the cross. And when you understand the
call, what God is after in your world.
This is the fundamental question now for you, not why did Jesus
come into the world 2000 years ago?
Why did Jesus come into your world right now?
It is to give you life and to refine you like gold.
And this is a process that Jesus is going to be very upfront
about. This is a process where nothing
is left off the table of His refinement.
And this is now how we understand the cost better know
the cost of following Jesus. And here's one way that Jesus
will understand or help us understand the cross in verse
51. Now do you suppose that I came
to give peace on earth? Well, we we kind of do suppose
that we just got done singing that he gave peace on earth,
peace on earth and mercy mild. But what's the next lyric?
God and Sinner reconciled. Jesus has given you peace with
your Maker. Jesus has given you peace
against the anger of God against your sin.
But that peace will come at a cost to all of the attachments
you have to this world. And namely, he tells you all of
the relationships. He says, I tell you not at all,
but rather division. For from now on five in one
house will be divided 3 against two.
And he goes on to go right down to the relationships.
That would be the first we'd cling to if we had a choice, if
we could just offer Jesus every part of our life.
But Lord, just let me keep my family.
I love my family. Lord, you can have, you can have
most of my life, but there are some people that matter so much
to me, I'm not sure I could give them up for your namesake.
And Jesus says I came that you would follow me at the cost of
everything. In Matthew's Gospel, he says in
the same teaching, he says I came to bring a sword.
He came to cut all of the parts of our life and the
relationships that our life at the root that are not solely
devoted to him. And I know this sounds harsh.
This is why we're studying it, because this does not jump off
the page to make a Christian magnet, but it's obviously true.
This is true of anything you devote your life to.
As soon as you say yes in your devotion, you are saying no in
your devotion. And anyone who has truly gone
through the fire of the salvation in the power of the
blood of Christ, you no doubt know this to be true.
There is not one story 1 testimony of salvation.
Does that that not have as part of it a relationship that
clearly was going to be deeply affected by your devotion to
Christ? I think of some of you who have
left the religion of your families.
I know that in this sanctuary right now, knowing the salvation
stories that exist in our sanctuary, there are people who
once grew up Muslim or Mormon or they were deeply devoted to a
secular home and following Jesus meant that they were going to
have to break the religious tradition of their household at
a heartbreaking cost. And yet you knew this to be
true, that the, the, the, the salvation that Jesus was
offering you was worth any religious tradition that you had
to leave behind, even at the cost of a a father or a mother
or a brother or sister saying, I cannot believe that you decided
to follow Jesus. Some of you came to Jesus in the
midst of a messy worldly relationship and you had to have
that hard conversation. We are not going to have sex
anymore. I now want to live pure and I'm
saving myself for marriage. And that came at a strange and
abrupt cost to that relationship.
Some of you know from the way that you used to spend your
weekends partying that when Jesus got ahold of your life and
you wanted to go to church on Sunday morning and then you had
to go to bed early on Saturday night and your friends thought
you were crazy. What are you thinking?
Some of you had Christ come into your life and radically change
the way that you view the world. You now view the world with a
hope that seems odd to those who don't believe.
You now view life from womb to the tomb in ways that will put
you at odds with the cultural politics.
And you said, Jesus, I'm giving you my life and I'm trusting you
that there's nothing that I could lose that would be worth
holding on to if I lost you. He comes with a sword and it
goes right through your household.
And he comes to a sword that goes right through your own
heart. Later, as we journey through the
gospel of Luke, you'll see a young person who comes to Jesus
and says, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?
And Jesus in a sense hands him a sword.
He says, I want you to separate yourself from your riches and
give them away. And I want you to separate
yourself from your Kingdom and come follow me.
He was asking the man to cut off his life, to find newness of
life in Christ. And famously the man walked away
with much sorrow because he couldn't take the sword to the
things of this world. But it gives us a very important
follow up question. As the man walks away, our
favorite question asker, Peter stands up and says, Lord, we've
left all to follow you. And he said to them, I surely I
say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or
brothers or wife or children for the sake of the Kingdom, who
shall not receive many times more in this present time and in
the age to come. Once again, as you really
understand the love and the power and the teachings of
Jesus, none of these passages of Scripture should be something
that we try to get around. We should receive them with hope
that in Jesus bringing fire, he brings salvation to our souls.
In Jesus bringing division, He brings the blessings of the life
that we now have in Christ. And he replaces anything you
could ever lose for his name saying tenfold now and for
eternity. This is the gospel, but to fully
embrace it you have to know the full message.
So to be clear, this is not a message to go out and wield the
sword of division on behalf of Jesus.
This is Jesus sword that he divides by taking you and
setting you apart. This is not a license for you to
be rude or disruptive. This is a message for you to be
loving and to count the cost that to follow Jesus is greater
than anything that it will cost you.
And this is a message that should also define what you're
living for. Remember this, this message
matters because when you really understand what you're living
for, you can understand what discipleship is for.
And it is not just a message that separates you from family
members and old lifestyle. This is a message that separates
all of humanity. Jesus gives a preview of the end
in Matthew chapter 25. He says when the Son of Man
comes in his glory and all of his angels with him, then he
will sit on the throne of his glory, and the nations will be
gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another.
As a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats and the sheep on
the right and the goats on the left.
Humanity is now divided in two classes, those who belong to the
sheepfold of Christ and those who do not.
I hope that for any of you who call Jesus your Lord and Savior,
you will continue to allow Him to refine your life and separate
you as a sheep in His sheepfold. I hope that any of you who are
hearing this message and you have made Jesus the person you
want him to be, You've curated the message of Christ to make it
land perfectly in your life as it is, unchanged.
The question for you is, has Jesus truly, radically
transformed your world? Has he entered into your world?
Are you part of the future separation, Righteous and
unrighteous? You have to be with Jesus.
There are only two people, those who are with him and those who
are not. And if you're not with him, this
is a message of God's grace. Receive the cross.
Stand under the banner of his perfect sacrifice.
Make peace with God. And if you are with Jesus, may
you view your time that you have not as a way to be blessed, but
as a way to be a blessing, as a way to bring people into the
sheepfold of God. Thanks for joining us today.
If you would like to watch the full service, check out the link
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more, visit calvaryboise.com.