Luke 12:49-53 - Division

Welcome to Sure Foundation Lutheran Church's podcast channel.

The following sermon was preached on August 17th, 2025, on the basis of Luke

Luke 12:49–53

chapter 12, verses 49 to 53.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our sermon text from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Jesus says, I have come to bring fire on the earth and how I wish it was already

kindled but I have a baptism to undergo and what constraint is there until it's

completed do you think I came to bring peace on earth?

No, I tell you, but division.

From now on, there will be five in one family divided against each other,

three against two and two against three.

They will be divided, father 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 mother-in-law. And this is God's word.

I met a man once and he knew I was a pastor and I found out pretty quickly from him.

He made it known to me pretty quickly that he used to be a Christian,

but he doesn't really get into that anymore.

He doesn't consider himself a Christian anymore.

And one of the main reasons that he didn't want to be a Christian anymore was

because he saw religion in general and Christianity in specific as something

that caused painful division in the world.

He blamed Christianity for division amongst family members, emotional pain and distress.

He blamed Christianity for claiming even lives of people.

The main issue in his mind was this division, that the world would be a far

better place if it were just unified.

I'm going to do my best this morning to convince you that it wouldn't be.

The world would not be a better place if it was unified. Do I have your attention?

I want you to think for a second, go back in your mind, cycle through the history

that maybe you went through a long time ago. Maybe some of you was a little closer.

Can you think of a time in world history where you think the world was the most

united and you can't say Adam and Eve, that's cheating.

Okay. When was the world the most unified?

And while you're thinking, we'll have an audience participation section in a second.

But let me give you two that I think came to mind for me. One would have been

maybe one that was called the Pax Romana back in the Roman Empire.

I suppose it depends on what kind of peace we're talking about here,

or what kind of unity we're talking about here.

But at that time, a lot of the known world was unified under the banner of the Roman Empire.

That didn't mean that everybody liked being under the banner of the Roman Empire,

but they were all under that banner.

They were unified sort of in that way. Maybe you could point to that.

Another one, maybe a different kind of unity that I thought of was during World

War II, believe it or not, there was a lot of the world that was unified against

a common enemy, Germany, Italy, Japan.

They were unified in, they were not unified in a lot of other ways,

but they were unified against that common enemy.

Did I give you enough time to think? Could you think of any other ones?

You can say it. Don't be shy.

That's okay. Tell me afterwards if you think of one.

But the one that I think beats all of those, the time where there's been the

most unity on earth, aside from when Adam and Eve, before they sinned,

the time where there was the most unity was in the time just before the flood.

You see, the entire world was unified with the exception of Noah and his family.

This is what Genesis 6 says. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human

race had become on the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of the

human heart was only evil all the time.

Maybe that's not the direction you thought this was going, but it teaches us

that we can be unified in wickedness.

We can be unified against God. We can be unified according to our sinful nature,

that unity isn't necessarily a good thing if it's unity in this sort of way.

And what the Bible actually teaches us is if we are left completely alone,

if God didn't come to intervene, but we're left to live according to our sinful

nature, then we will be unified.

We'll be unified in our wickedness. We'll be unified against God. And here's why.

Because we're born in sin. If you've been coming here for a while,

you've heard us talk about this.

We talk about it maybe not every Sunday. We talk about it a lot, though.

We confess it in the confession and absolution part of the service that we are by nature sinful.

But here's what that means. It means that what comes natural to us,

what's instinctual to us from the time that we existed is not to live out of

love for God. It's not even to like God.

It's to rebel against him. What's natural to us is to want our own way and not God's way.

In fact, what's natural to us is to want any other way besides God's way.

Scripture teaches us that the spirit of our sinful nature is always working

contrary to the spirit of God.

And so if left alone, without God's intervention, we would be unified,

but we'd all be unified in our wickedness.

But Jesus came to bring division. He says, I have come to bring fire on the

earth and how I wish it were already kindled.

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

Do you think I came to earth to bring peace?

No, I tell you, but division.

So if the thing that would have unified the world was sin, Jesus came to reverse that course.

Jesus came to put the sins of the world on his shoulders to intervene to take

that sin to the cross, to die on the cross,

sacrifice himself for the sins of the entire world, rise from the dead to give

life so that he could open the path to heaven.

Previously, we were all unified in walking that path to hell together,

but Jesus has created another path and it is only through Jesus that we get to heaven.

That's why Jesus says, I've come to bring division. I've come to create another path.

I don't want you to be unified in your wickedness. I want you to be walking

the path to heaven. I want you to believe in me.

So he talks about this baptism that he has to undergo. Now, when we think baptism,

we think water, right? Water baptism.

Baptism is typically used in that sense. but sometimes baptism can be used in

a sense of you're being immersed, you're being initiated into.

And so the baptism that Jesus is talking about is not a water baptism.

What he's talking about here is the passion.

His passion is sacrificed on the cross that in Luke chapter 12,

Luke 12 · chapter mention

at the time of Luke chapter 12, still lies ahead of him.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

And so he's looking forward to this. He's getting pretty close to the time when

he's going to be on the cross.

And he's saying, I wish it was already here.

I wish it has already happened. I wish this fire of my passion was already kindled.

Because this was a heavy weight for Jesus to carry. He came to earth for this one purpose.

To sacrifice himself on the cross for you. To save you. That was his one purpose in coming to earth.

He knew he had to do this, but this was still a heavy weight for him to bear.

And so he says, until that happens, he will synercomai.

That's a Greek word that means to be under constraint. That's what our text

says here. It can mean like I'm under distress.

Jesus felt this distress within him until that baptism on the cross was completed.

And it would be. He would say it is finished. He would bow his head.

He would give up his spirit.

And with that sacrifice, he would win the salvation for you.

He would create another path, a path to heaven for you. so that you wouldn't

be unified in your wickedness any longer, but that you would be unified with

him one day forever in heaven.

The cross of Jesus causes division because those who believe in Jesus will be

divided from the rest of the world that's unified in wickedness.

I hope maybe I've convinced you at this point that we can be thankful that Jesus

didn't leave us to be unified in our wickedness, but came and brought division.

But there's a second part to this. You believe in Jesus as your savior.

You have the sure hope of heaven and you have to live in this reality right here and right now.

And so as a believer, you have to hold a couple of things in tension.

And one, the first truth that you hold intention is that everyone who believes

in Jesus as their savior, they'll be saved. They'll be in heaven with Jesus.

Jesus created that. That's truth number one.

But truth number two is also true. those who don't believe in Jesus as their

savior will not be in heaven.

Those who don't believe in Jesus as their savior stand condemned already and

will be condemned on judgment day. That's truth number two.

And that truth reveals a painful reality.

The painful reality that within us, within you and me too, but within humans

in general, we have a terrible power. We have the terrible ability and power to reject Jesus.

We have the terrible power and ability to not believe in him.

In fact, Jesus says there will be people that don't believe in him. There will be division.

That's a painful reality. Now, I don't think you should imagine that when Jesus

came and brought these words to his disciples, that he was smiling.

He's not saying that he wants division. Time and time again in the Bible,

he convinces us that he doesn't delight in the death of the wicked.

That's an actual passage from Ezekiel.

He doesn't take pleasure in that, the death of the wicked. He wants people to repent.

He wants people to turn from their evil and to believe in Jesus and trust in

him for their forgiveness.

In Paul's letter to Timothy, he said he wants all people to be saved and come

to the knowledge of the truth.

That's the heart of your God. That's the heart of Jesus. us.

But the painful reality for you

and me is that as long as we live on this earth, there will be division.

God wants you as his believers to live with eyes wide open.

That's going to be your reality. And he wants to warn you.

He wants to warn you that it's not even just as painful as there's some people

out there somewhere that might not believe in Jesus as their savior.

He says as a warning to you, there might even be people that are close to you,

family members, friends, people that you love that reject Jesus as their savior.

So how, how is a believer supposed to live,

in that reality, knowing that there's going to be division, knowing that there's

going to be people that reject God's word, either parts of it or all of it.

I want to give you three things here.

Thing number one, expect it, but don't accept it.

Expect it, but don't accept it. And what I'm saying is not don't believe it.

Believe it. Believe what Jesus says. There's going to be division.

You can expect it because Jesus says that's the way it's going to be.

But let that be something that kind of lights a fire within you.

Don't accept it because you know something else that Jesus teaches us in his

word. You know the power of the Spirit.

You know that the power of the Spirit took you who were dead in your sin and

made you alive in Christ.

That Spirit created that transformation in your own heart. You know how powerful that Spirit is.

And you know that as long as somebody draws breath on this earth,

their time of grace is still going.

There's still time for the Holy Spirit to work on their heart,

for them to believe in Jesus as their savior and that Holy Spirit can change eternity.

So we accept or we expect the truth that there's going to be division,

but within us, we don't accept it.

We don't accept it. We reach out with God's word to others. We encourage,

we pray and pray and pray for those loved ones who do not yet believe.

How is a believer supposed to live in a world where there's division?

Here's thing number two, be on your guard.

Be on your guard. If you love anyone more than you love your Savior,

you have those things in the wrong order.

The Savior always needs to be number one. If you love anyone more than your

Savior, you're sinning against your savior. You've created another God in your heart.

Have any of you taken Strength Finders before?

Okay, a few hands. Strength Finders is a book that has a quiz that's attached to the beginning of it.

A lot of times companies will make you take it, or if you work on a team, you'll take it.

It helps to reveal maybe what your strengths are after you take that quiz.

And the book talks about how you can use those strengths.

There's like over 30 some strengths that they put different characterizations on in there.

One of, uh, I've taken a few times for different, different reasons.

And one of the, I guess the quit pretty accurate because the top strength comes every single time.

So, but my top strength is heart is called harmony.

And so a harmony person is, is somebody that, that can bring somebody to bring

people together is pretty good at mediating between groups of people that maybe

have disagreements or something like that.

I'm sure it is a strength. A lot of times I tend to think of it as a weakness.

And I know there's a lot of things that there's a lot of things with these strengths

where there's a bad side to it too.

And so a harmony person, a harmony person doesn't like, there's this internal

angst when there's not harmony.

When something's not quite right between whether it's between you like one person

and another person or between a group of people that just eats a harmony person

up on the inside and so confrontation rebuking someone that's not something

a harmony person really likes a whole lot,

you might not consider yourself maybe that's not on your top five strengths

or maybe you wouldn't consider yourself purely a harmony person but i think

maybe there's some things in there that you can maybe relate to.

And there's a danger because we do all to some degree have a desire for some

sort of harmony or unity with other people within us.

There's a danger there because the devil can use that and he can twist it.

He can twist your desire for harmony with someone else or with another group

of people in such a way that causes you to leave parts of God's truth to the side.

I'm just going to forget about these things for the sake of harmony in this, in this relationship.

This is just going to be the thing that we're never going to talk about,

that I'm never going to bring up just, just so that we can have a harmonious

relationship here or he can twist it.

So, okay, now, now I am going to change what I believe.

I'll believe all this other stuff about God, but I'm going to leave that thing

out and I'm not going to believe that anymore.

Because it makes relationships hard in my life.

The devil can twist our desire for harmony, our desire for our compassion for

others as a way to leave out parts of God's truth in the hope that if he can

get you to leave out parts of God's truth,

then he can get you to leave out another part of God's truth.

And he hopes eventually that'll get you to deny your savior altogether. together.

If you love anyone more than you love your savior, that person or that thing

is an idol for you. Be on your guard.

How should a believer live in a world where there's division?

Here's the last one, point or three. A believer should recognize that division exists out there.

Division exists in here too A believer ought to confess That they are a divided person as well.

You have a sinful nature that you were born with. We talked about that. We're born in a sin.

God created a new life in you when he baptized you into the spirit.

When he brought you to faith through the gospel, you are now sinner and saint, a divided person.

And for the times when you act according to your sinful nature,

when you live according to your sinful nature, God wants you to confess.

To confess that like we did here, to confess that individually,

one-on-one with somebody and hear the words of forgiveness and hear someone

say to you, you are not that sin.

That sin has been taken away by Jesus.

You aren't defined by your sinful nature. You may be a divided person in this

life, but that's not who you are to God.

You are his own dear child that he has made you to be at your baptism.

I hope I may be convinced you that we can be thankful in one sense.

That Jesus came and brought division?

Because if he wouldn't have, if he never would have intervened,

we would have been all unified and we would all have been unified in Israel too.

But Jesus came and brought division. He created another path,

a path to heaven that only goes through him and we could be thankful for our savior.

But I also don't expect you to leave here today saying, yay,

division. We love division.

Because Jesus doesn't either. Jesus doesn't want people to be divided.

He wants people to be united, but he wants you to live in reality.

And so as believers, we keep reaching out. We keep reaching out with the good

news of our Savior that we rejoice in.

We keep praying for those who don't believe and we look forward to a day,

a day that Jesus has promised that we will all be unified when we're together

in heaven and made perfect in him.

We're no longer a divided person, but we are made perfect individually in him.

We are no longer a divided people. We are made perfect and we enjoy perfect unity in him.

Until that day, keep praying for the ones that don't know Jesus yet.

Keep reaching out to them and watch God's Holy Spirit do amazing work.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Hey, Pastor Wilkie here. Thanks for listening to this week's sermon.

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Music.