For This Jesus Came - Luke 12:49-53

If you have a Bible, you can turn to Luke chapter 12, where

Luke 12 · chapter mention

in the second-half of Luke chapter 12 in just to kind of

Luke 12 · chapter mention

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

Luke 9 · chapter mention

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

Luke 12 · chapter mention

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

Malachi 4 · chapter mention

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

Romans 5 · chapter mention

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

Luke 3 · chapter mention

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

Matthew 25 · chapter mention

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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