The Fire Jesus Came to Bring: Understanding Divine Division

Yes, we're back in the Gospel of Luke. We're looking at part two of this passage we looked at last week.

We're in Luke chapter 12, by the way. We're going to pick up today in verse

Luke 12 · chapter mention

49. So we'll be 49 to 59, 10 verses there.

Luke 12, 49. It says, I have come to cast fire upon the earth,

and how I wish it were already kindled. This is Jesus talking, by the way.

But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is finished.

Do you think that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you,

no, but rather division.

For from now on, five members in one household will be divided,

three against two and two against three.

They'll be divided, father against son and son against father,

mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her

daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Verse 54, and he was also saying to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising

in the west, immediately you say a shower is coming.

And so it happens. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say,

it'll be a hot day. And it happens.

Verse 56, you hypocrites, you know how to examine the appearance of the earth and the sky.

But why do you not examine this present time?

Verse 57, and why do you not even judge for yourselves what is right?

For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate on your way,

there make an effort to settle with him so that he may not drag you before the

judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.

I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the last leptons.

Let's pray again. Lord, we thank you again for your word, Lord.

I give you glory today. I pray you just speak to us through your spirit. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, I just got to say to start off, there's some surprising words that we

see to start with here on our first slide.

Surprising words. Because in Luke 12, 51, Jesus asked rhetorically if the disciples

think that he came to earth to bring peace on earth.

He quickly actually dispels any such notion.

And so, yeah, some people may, that's surprising words that he said it like

this. We'll talk about that more in a minute.

But he quickly dispels any such notion, as I said.

But perhaps we can understand why some of his disciples might have gotten the

wrong impression, right?

After all, some of you have already thought of this. the angels had responded

to the birth of Jesus with a declaration of peace on earth back in Luke chapter 2 verse 14, right?

Luke 2:14

And the prophet Isaiah had actually spoken of the one who would come as the prince of.

In Isaiah 9, 6. Jesus himself had said that he was leaving his own unique peace

with his disciples in John chapter 14,

John 14:27

verse 27, and that apostle Peter was able to actually summarize the gospel message in Acts 10, 36,

the good news of peace through Jesus Christ.

But Simeon had already seen that the child Jesus was destined to cause the falling

and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be spoken again so that

the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.

It talks about in Luke 2 that we studied already.

And even the angels that appeared to the shepherds had acknowledged that the

peace that would come with the arrival of Jesus was not one that would be spread

out universally among all people.

It was particularly, get this church, particularly for those in chapter 2,

verse 14 of Luke, on whom God's favor rests.

That assumption, that assumed, I should say,

distinction between the world as a whole and those specific people on whom God's

favor rests there may help us to understand here a little bit about the startling

teaching that he opens with here.

And as we see in this first point, the coming of Jesus will result in a fundamental

separation on earth, it says in verse 51.

And the clear implication is that this separation, y'all, would be based on

whether people received or rejected the message of the person of Jesus.

This division, Eastwood, was so powerful that it would even break apart the

most tightly unified human institution, which is what?

The family. For example, he gives us a family of five would be split with two

of its members now opposed to the other three in verse 52.

And as we see in this next point, because of the arrival of Jesus,

relationships that God created to be intensely intimate, think about it,

fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, et cetera,

now would be characterized by opposition and antagonism he talks about in verse 53.

What accounts for this surprising division, and how can we understand today

that it would not merely be an accident of Jesus' coming, but rather the point of his coming?

There was a point of it there. And he also talks about here,

as we see in this next slide, fire and baptism.

In verse 49, Jesus says that he has come to bring fire on earth.

So we've already got this first part. I mean, division.

We'll talk about that more in a minute. And now we've got fire and baptism.

Like I said, verse 49, Jesus said that he's come to bring fire on the earth.

Well, John the Baptist had used fire as a picture of the way that the one who

was coming would actually bring judgment and purging of evil in John 3, verse 9 and verse 17.

John 3:9

And certainly, y'all, that judgment would come in a full way when?

At the second coming of Christ.

We talked about that in verse 45 and 48. It's most likely,

y'all, this end time fire here that Jesus actually says in this verse that he

longs to kindle since it would establish God's righteous kingdom in a final way, that end time fire.

But we can say that the division that Jesus speaks of in verses 51 through 53,

that split which will naturally occur between those who receive the message

of Jesus with joy and those who reject him.

It accounts to a preliminary experience of that end-time fire, if you will.

When family members, think about it, when family members divide along the lines

of their response to Jesus, it reveals which of them are those on whom the favor of God rests.

The division, as we see in this first point, actually demonstrates who are the

faithful servants and who will be taken away in the fire of end-time judgment. Thank you.

That the new spiritual distinction between people will result even in opposition within families.

In verse 50, Jesus here speaks of a baptism that he has yet to undergo himself.

Making it clear here, I think it's obvious to y'all, but I want to point it

out, he's not referring to his baptism in the Jordan by John.

It's not what he's talking about. The image of being plunged beneath the waters

in baptism can be understood as a symbolic picture of God's judgment of what he's saying right here.

And in fact, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament,

the text of Job chapter 9 verse 31 uses a form of that word bapto to describe

Job 9:31

the way that Job actually believes that God will plunge him into a pit.

In certain places in the Old Testament, God's judgment is pictured as a flood of overwhelming water.

Think Isaiah 8, Jonah 2.

Daryl Brock, he's a theologian. He actually put it this way.

I'm going to quote him a little excerpt here.

He said that, thus the point of the metaphor is that Jesus faces a period of

being uniquely inundated with God's judgment, and allusion to rejection and persecution here.

Because Jesus, remember, he's got his mind fixed on where?

On his mission, right? And on the cross, right? To finish his mission.

When Jesus speaks here of his upcoming baptism in this context,

he's referring to his crucifixion and all of the events that lead up to it because

he is going to bear, as we'll see even more, the flood of God's wrath in your place and my place.

So in Luke 12, verses 49 and 50, Jesus expresses here a strong desire,

Luke 12:49

y'all, for these events to actually take place.

Like, come on already, right? I want to fulfill this.

He wishes that the fire of judgment were already kindled, and he feels that

he's under constraint until his baptism is completed.

In other words, his mission, where he takes our place, right?

And Luke has told us already that Jesus has set his face. Remember from last

week towards Jerusalem, right?

I'll even mention that today rather than our text. He set his face towards Jerusalem

where he'll endure the judgment of God on the cross.

Jesus is constrained by his understanding of that twofold mission,

if you will, on which his father, God the father has sent him a mission,

which corresponds to the division that he brings.

As we see in this next slide, the first point here, on one hand, think of it this way.

For those who reject him, the result of Jesus's coming will be the fires of

divine judgment, right?

But as we see in this next point, on the other hand,

Jesus will himself experience the flood of God's wrath on the cross for those

on the other side of the divide, those who will receive him. in faith.

Aren't you thankful for what Jesus did for you and me?

I hope everyone here has received this message with joy.

I hope you have because Jesus said there's division. There's division.

But that leads us to this next slide. Good division?

Right? Good division? Well, ours is an age, y'all, that actually prizes tolerance and inclusion.

Anybody heard those words lately?

Tolerance and inclusion. And the Bible itself actually commends unity in many places.

Psalm 133, Acts 4, Ephesians 4.

But in that light here, Jesus's passion here for division can be shocking to us.

But there is a sense in which the Bible is all about making a division between people.

From the very beginning, there have been a bright line, if you will,

marking off the people of God from the people who are in rebellion against him.

People were either, think about it for a moment, people were either in the ark

built by Noah or they were outside of it, right?

People were either circumcised members of Abraham's family or they were cut off from God's people.

Just look at Genesis 17, 10 through 14 to see that.

Our next point here, even now, people are either members of God's household

or they're actually a scripture describes foreigners and strangers.

That's in Ephesians 2.19. So in that light, it's easier to understand why Jesus's

arrival can be cast in terms of setting people against each other.

People who reject him and his message place themselves in opposition to who?

To God himself, according to Luke 10 verse 16.

Luke 10:16

And so the division here that Jesus brings is simply, y'all,

an inevitable separation between, if you will, sheep and goats, Matthew 25,

between those who belong to the light and those who actually walk in darkness in 1 Thessalonians 5.

If this makes us uncomfortable, which it might possibly do so as we look at

this text, it's likely because, you know why?

Because our understanding of Jesus is just simply unbalanced.

We have an unbalanced understanding of Jesus.

And, you know, David Teed actually said this.

He said, those who would reduce Jesus to a sentimental Savior of a doting God

have not come to terms with the depth of divine passion, he said,

of the wrath and love of God, which is revealed in Jesus's word,

will and obedience even unto death.

Wow. As we think about that, if he would be faithful to Jesus,

and if we would be faithful to Jesus, we must be willing to embrace the separation that he brings.

Probably thinking about that verse and not come to bring peace, but sword.

In some denominations, it's a fashionable thing to,

it's fashionable to argue in the name of unity that Christians should remain

in churches even after they have abandoned the gospel and embrace theological

positions that contradict the Bible's clear teaching.

Some of you here may have experienced that. And in some denomination,

it's just like, oh, we need to, for the sake of unity, we don't need to leave.

But as we see in this next point, the Bible's clear here.

Jesus seems to know nothing of unity that is not rooted in a genuine faith in him and his truth.

You can't have unity, not real unity, unless you're rooted in Jesus and his truth.

You may think you have one. It's pretend you paint it up, but you don't.

Read John 17. So we don't need to miss how extraordinary Jesus' teaching here really is to us, y'all.

Teachers do not normally claim priority over family relationships, but Jesus does.

There are many places in the world, y'all, where a person's decision to follow

Jesus Christ, do you know what it means?

It means that they will actually be cut off by and from their families because of that decision.

In other places, one person's decision to actually follow Christ may introduce

awkwardness into the life of a family or tension, if you will, into a marriage even.

Those things are very difficult to deal with, but none of them constitute legitimate

grounds for not following Jesus.

We simply ought, we simply cannot hold any loyalty above our loyalty to Christ. Amen?

We can't. He is no ordinary teacher, and his disciples may have to pay a very high price.

That's us too, right? In order to follow him.

Wow. Well, we need to read the signs just like they did, don't we?

Jesus' attention actually moves here from his disciples, where it's been ever

since Luke 12, 22, to the crowd in verse 54, which he does call a little later, what? Starts with an H.

Hippocrates. Yeah. In verse 56, the people here, if you remember,

they were adept at reading signs of the earth and the sky.

You know, think weathermen, right? You know, think about, hey,

or even, I mean, you know, I'm not a weatherman, but hey, we see something rolling in.

You know, we look there and we say, yeah, we're going to have rain.

I bet you we're having rain.

But it pointed to a change in the weather. A cloud in the west,

it says, would bring heavy moisture from the Mediterranean Sea and frequently

result in a rainstorm. So they knew that.

Wind from the south would travel over the desert regions and normally indicate

the arrival of high temperatures in verse 55.

But in light of their aptitude of discerning the significance,

y'all, of certain meteorological indicators, Jesus actually here in this text, he actually wonders.

He wonders at their inability to interpret this present time in verse 56.

You know, that word translated as time there in the text in Greek.

That Chiron has the sense of opportunity that has been presented or a season

that has begun but will only last a certain amount of time.

Jesus had come, Eastwood, bringing the kingdom of God with him and giving clear

evidence of God's work through him.

In this passage, he's talking about it, but most of the people had ignored the signs.

They ignored the signs. How many people do you think today ignore the signs?

So the members of the crowd were not hypocrites in the sense that we normally give to the word.

You know, normally we think hypocrite, somebody who says one thing,

but intentionally does something else, right?

But rather here, because they gave the outward impression of being people who

understood the world around them,

all of it around them, when in fact, they had no clue about the really important

things that were taking place right there in their midst.

That rebuking tone we see from Jesus that he takes with them,

it really just indicates that this failure to understand more a problem of the will.

Than anything else, right? And as we see in this next point,

the remedy for the crowd's failure to interpret the season of Christ's arrival is what?

According to verse 57, judge for yourselves what is right.

Judge for yourselves what is right. And in order to illustrate the importance

of actually acting in light of that pressing reality of the moment here, Think about it.

Jesus presents them with a hypothetical situation in verse 58.

Look at it. Imagine you and maybe an adversary are going before a magistrate,

right, or judge, right, in order that a financial dispute can be settled.

That magistrate might send the matter to a judge, and if the judge decides the

case in your opponent's favor, once you go to all of that litigation, right?

The consequences can be dire for you.

You'll be in prison possibly until your debt is paid or whatever else is done, right?

And in such a scenario, any person with a bit of common sense will interpret

the situation accurately and take action to prevent that potential disaster.

In other words, he'll try hard to be reconciled on the way and prevent the matter

from ever reaching the point of condemning judgment in verse 59.

So just as they were able, let's connect it together real quick.

Just as they were able to read the signs about the weather that indicated,

you know, it was changing.

In the same way, the crowds demonstrated a kind of wisdom in their personal

and financial affairs, Jesus is alluding to.

And that brings us to this last point there. No one with a good head on their

shoulder would let a dispute escalate to the point where they would face condemning judgment.

Y'all, we could learn a lot from that, right?

I mean, many of us would do well to heed Jesus' practical advice here.

For when conflicts escalate, there's rarely a satisfactory resolution.

Let me say that again. When conflicts escalate, there is rarely a satisfactory resolution.

It's the way of wisdom to make peace before things get out of hand.

And it brings the name of Jesus into disrepute when Christians can't resolve

their differences without involving civil authorities.

That tells us that in 1 Corinthians 6 as well. It's much better,

and here Jesus is even saying this to us, it's much better to this crowd.

Saying to make peace before you have to pay the price for your offenses.

If that's true in human interaction, that's all of us, right?

It's even more so in light of this passage when we consider our relationship with God Almighty.

Just as we should be reconciled, y'all,

with our opponents before it's too late, so Jesus is arguing here to the crowds,

if you see it in the text, to show common sense by being reconciled to God during

this time of his ministry among them.

If Jesus has in fact come to bring fire on earth, as he said in verse 49, then what?

It'd be wise to be reconciled to God now before the judgment falls. Amen.

You see, before it's too late, sin has left each one of us. Let me just be clear as we wind up today.

Sin has left each one of us with a debt toward God, y'all, that we cannot repay.

But the coming of Jesus actually signifies that we're in a time when we can

still be reconciled, made right to God through him.

There'll be a time, though, when it's too late and the judgment against us will have been rendered.

And as we see in this next slide, the warning is clear. Do not delay.

Don't miss out on the time to be made right with God. Y'all,

none of us are promised tomorrow, are we?

Are you right with God today? I think that's a question we want to leave with today.

Thinking about what Jesus said in this text, I mean, he didn't come to bring peace.

He came to bring division in the sense of what would happen as a result of him

being here, right? As a result of his mission.

Yes, there's peace on earth and there's peace in the hearts to those whom his favor rest upon.

Those are the ones who actually repent, put their faith and trust in him, and they don't delay.

They make things right with their God today. And that's what he's challenging

these people here and even us today, y'all.

You think about here, to whom are Jesus' words here on the family and division here?

You know, you can think about it. Is that a reassurance? Yes.

You know, to whom would they be a challenge? Maybe some of you've witnessed

unfaithful unity, like Jesus referred to, you know?

Maybe some of you have seen like just unity in the name of unity's sake instead

of based upon Jesus and his words and his mission and his truth.

But I think all of this can remind every one of us that Jesus had a mission.

He fulfilled it, and now we have a time to respond, right?

Don't delay. Don't miss out on the time to be made right with him.

And that's in every area of our life.

Ultimately, our relationship with him in terms of our problem being separated from God, right?

What separates us from God? Our sin, right?

And he dealt with that on the cross. Sometimes we think, well,

man, we know the gospel, Brother Judd. But let me tell you something about the gospel.

You don't ever need to abandon it. You need to dive deeper into it.

I view the gospel like my brother, it is like a swimming pool out here.

You just dive deeper into it every day because you learn the truths of the gospel

deeper and deeper every day.

He rectified that. He reconciles us to God through his death on the cross because

of that baptism in this passage that he was looking forward to dealing with for you and for me.

Amen, brother. Amen. I want y'all to stand just for a moment as we pray.

Father God, I just ask this morning, Lord, as we've studied your word here,

Lord, and as we've looked at it, Father, that your Holy Spirit would just move,

continue to move in our hearts and lives, Lord.

God, help us to glean the wisdom and the challenges that you gave to the people here.

Lord, there's so many truths we could pull from here. Just help us to be obedient to you, Lord.

And most importantly, if there's somebody here today that don't know you,

today would be the day when they would have things made right,

when they would say, Lord, forgive me a sinner.

Lord, I throw myself at your feet and I ask you to save me in Jesus' name.