Oak Grove Baptist Church
Sunday, September 05, 2010
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Truly Following Christ
Luke 12:49–59
Everyday we take a stand for the things we believe – in fact, we do it all the time
-We have certain political views, sports teams, schools, music, style of clothing, etc. that we use to show the world just
who we are and where we stand -And in the course of the day we make choices based on those beliefs and those choices affect the way the people around us
see us -Sometimes our beliefs draw people to us, and sometimes those beliefs push people away
This morning we’re going to read a passage where Jesus explains that the Christian faith is either going to draw people to us or run them off
-Because if we’re really living for Christ there are going to be some people who won’t have anything to do with us
-But what we’ll hear Jesus saying today is that giving Him first priority is the most important thing we can do (READ
SCRIPTURE) Jesus used three different examples in this passage and at first glance, they don’t seem to go together
-But I think we’ll see that all three emphasized the same thing – that following Christ with all we have is the most important
thing we can do The Coming Fire
In vv49-50 Jesus said, 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!
When some people hear Jesus saying that He intended to bring fire to the earth, it might seem a little out of character to their understanding of who Jesus is
-Because when we think of fire we think of destruction and it doesn’t seem right that Jesus would come to the earth to
bring destruction -And even if He did, it doesn’t seem right that He’d be so enthusiastic about it
Of course we understand that fire doesn’t just bring destruction it can also bring purification
-When we want to sterilize or purify some things we run them through the heat of fire to make sure that they aren’t
contaminated – the fire doesn’t destroy them it purifies them Well, the fire that Jesus is talking about will bring both destruction and purification
-That fire will destroy anything opposed to God and refine and perfect those that have trusted in Him
The fire Jesus is talking about started with the coming of the Holy Spirit, and will be completed at the second coming
-And Jesus was certainly anxious for that process to start, but before it could, He said he had a baptism to go through
Now, that could be a little confusing because if you remember, Jesus had already been baptized
-In Matthew 3:15 it says that Jesus went to John the Baptist and asked him to baptize him in order to fulfill all
righteousness -But that’s not the baptism that Jesus was talking about
In Greek the word baptize means to be plunged deeply into something
-In Christian baptism, a person is plunged under the water
But the baptism that Jesus spoke about was being plunged into God’s wrath on our behalf
-The crucifixion was something that Jesus knew was coming
-And He understood that for order to ultimately be restored to the earth He would have to take the penalty of sin onto
Himself There’s a good chance that the people didn’t completely understand what Jesus was saying, but in verse 51 He continued by saying, do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division
Now, that statement might also seem strange to a lot of folks because we usually think of Jesus as someone who loved peace
-In Isaiah 9, Jesus is described as “the Prince of Peace”
-When the angels announced His birth, they said that there would be peace on earth
-So if that’s the case, how can Jesus say that He didn’t come to bring peace?
Well, we forget that Jesus’ primary goal wasn’t to make everyone live at peace with one another
-Jesus came to the world to make it possible for human beings to have a restored relationship with God
-Jesus came to show us that He was the only way of salvation for all people and anyone who chooses not to follow Him will
miss the salvation that only He can bring -That’s not a popular message but it’s the message Jesus preached
But that’s different from the picture that a lot of people have of Jesus
-People see Jesus as someone who wants everyone to be happy
-In fact, there’ll be people who won’t believe in hell because they’ll argue that if Jesus really does love people then why
would people have to die and go to hell And in the society we live in today that’s trying to be accepting of anything that anyone does when they hear the message of the gospel they almost hear it as if it’s hateful to people
-“How dare you say that someone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven will end up in hell! Why one of
my best friends isn’t a Christian and she’s never done anything but help people in need. Are you telling me that if she doesn’t become a Christian then after a life of service she’ll end up in hell!?” -These people will tell you, “If that’s what Jesus is about I wouldn’t want any part of it.”
-And of course they’re wrong, but their confusion isn’t new
Jesus wanted those disciples and us to understand that some people will react to the gospel with resentment and anger rather than gratitude
-And with that in mind Jesus told His disciples that believing in Him would have a polarizing effect on everyone around
them, even to the point of dividing families In Jewish society at the time (and in some Jewish and Muslim societies today), a person who became a Christian would be disowned by their family
-When a person took a stand for Christ, they wouldn’t be welcome at home and their family acted as though they were dead
So, what Jesus was saying was an accurate description of what would happen to a lot of His followers
-If a man and his wife became Christians, they would be put at odds with the rest of their family
Now, that doesn’t seem like a concern that most of us would have today
-A lot of families have no problems with their family members going to church or calling themselves Christians
In some families, switching denominations would be a cause for conflict, but generally American families are pretty accepting of religious beliefs, as long they don’t disrupt the status quo
-But even though our society is different, what Jesus said is still true for us today
-Jesus was telling the people that if they put Him first, there would be division
There’s a difference between going to church and calling yourself a Christian and actually putting Jesus first in your life
-The fact is that most of our country (and a lot of people in the church) bristle at the idea of actually making Jesus the first
priority in their lives -And people who actually do put Jesus first are seen a lot of times as strange to others and they might be labeled as
fanatics Most people are ok with Jesus as long as He doesn’t make any demands on their lives
-As long as people see Jesus as someone to make things better for us, we’re ok with Jesus and with Christianity
-We love Jesus when we need something, but we ignore Him when everything’s going well
But when you start saying that Christians should live differently and should shift their priorities, people start getting uncomfortable
-When you say that Christians shouldn’t participate in the same things that everyone else is doing, you’re being
unreasonable -And the bottom line is that if you insist on putting Jesus first, there’s going to be division
Think about some of the things we would be doing if Jesus were really first in our lives:
-In business we’d refuse to lie to make a sale (or get a better deal)
-Refuse to let our children do something that dishonors or distracts their attention from God just because “everyone else”
is doing it -We’d be sharing the gospel with the people around us
-And that list could go on and on…
But the truth is too often people don’t genuinely put Jesus first in their lives because they know that if they do they’ll have to deal with the conflict that can come from putting Christ first
-As parents, your kids will complain that you’re being unfair
-People around you will tell you that you’re being fanatical
-There might even be people in the church who’ll tell you that it’s ok if you compromise just a little
But one thing is certain, when we insist on putting Jesus first, it will create conflict
Forecasting
He told the crowd that they paid more attention to the weather than they did to what was happening around them
-He said that they paid far more attention to the trivial things of life on earth than they did to the major issues of eternity
in Heaven As a public speaker one of the things you learn to notice is who pays attention or who doesn’t
-If you’re speaking and start to lose the audience it can get pretty frustrating
I wonder if as Jesus was making these statements He started noticing the way that some of the people stopped paying attention to what He was saying
-And to get back that attention maybe Jesus started talking about the weather and trivial things that the people were
focused on to help them see how unfocused they really were I can’t help but wonder if maybe as Jesus was talking He looked out and saw people noticing clouds forming in the west and thinking about that rain that was coming
-And as one person noticed they would catch the attention of others as if to say, “Jesus better wrap this up soon – the rain
is on the way and we’ll all get wet standing out here!” But when Jesus saw that people were worried about the rain clouds forming to the west, He saw an opportunity to show the people how they were allowing themselves to focus on temporal things when there were eternal things at stake!
So starting in verse 54 Jesus turned back to them and said, 54 “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
What made that such a big deal was that Jesus’ disciples didn’t even notice what was going on, but other people did
-Here Jesus was trying to help them understand that He wasn’t here to make life easy, and they were wasting all their
mental energy forecasting the weather! -Jesus reprimanded the disciples because they were aware of what the weather was doing, but didn’t seem to care what
God was doing! The Pharisees saw what Jesus was doing and they realized He was claiming to be the Messiah, and they didn’t like it at all
You might remember in Luke 7 toward the end of John the Baptist’s life John sent some messengers to Jesus to ask Him if He really was the one or should they look for someone else
-Jesus told him to look around and see that the signs of the Messiah were being fulfilled in him
Anyone who’s focused on what God is doing can see who Jesus is
-But too many people are wrapped up in their own lives to notice
Our situation may be a bit different from Jesus’ original audience in Luke 12 but we’re facing the same struggles they did
-We can get so distracted by the things of the world that we don’t see what God is doing
-We don’t know what God wants from us (or have wrong ideas about what God wants from us) because we aren’t trying to
understand Him The way to fix that is to start having the same kind of devotion to understanding God as we do to:
-Watching the weather
-Following sports teams
-Keeping up with politics and world situations, etc…
Think about how closely we follow those things, and how little time we devote to understanding what God’s doing and what He would have us do
If we want to understand God’s will for our lives, we have to spend time with Him
-That’s why Bible study, prayer, and worship are so important
It’s not enough for us to ask other people what God wants us to do; we have to work to understand God for ourselves
-We should take a hard look at how we spend the time we have
-Chances are that a lot of folks are better at predicting the weather or the winner of the Super Bowl or American Idol than
they are at seeing what God is doing around them Jesus called the people around him hypocrites, because they spent lots of time chasing silly things, and little time on the things that were really important
-So, the question we have to ask ourselves is would Jesus call me a hypocrite?
We need to work to…
Be Reconciled
Jesus wasn’t condemning the people because they were paying attention to the weather
-He called them hypocrites because they weren’t applying that same energy to the things of God
Jesus’ point was that they knew how to think for themselves, so they should’ve used that ability to do what God wanted them to do
So starting in verse 57 Jesus used an illustration from the legal system to help them understand what they should do; 57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? 58 As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled to him on the way, or he may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. 59 I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”
In Roman society if two people wanted to have a case decided by a judge, they had to come to the court together
-Jesus said that if they were going to court with someone, their best bet was to work to be reconciled with that person on
the way -If they waited until they got to court, they would have no recourse when the judge decided to throw one of them in jail
Now that illustration can be understood in two ways…
It can be understood as just good practical advice because it is certainly good advice
-But I think it was advice that the people didn’t need
They knew that it was better to reach an agreement with a person they had wronged rather than have a punishment given to them without any appeal or way out
But Jesus wasn’t just giving practical advice - He had a spiritual point
He was telling the people, if you know that it’s foolish to stand before a judge and get the punishment you know you deserve when there’s a way to settle out of court and avoid that punishment - That’s just common sense
Now, apply that same reasoning to the spiritual realm
-We’re all guilty before God, and we need to be reconciled to Him while there’s still time, because if we wait until we’re
standing before the Righteous Judge, it’ll be too late There were probably a lot of people there who didn’t understand what Jesus meant
-They didn’t see that Jesus was offering a way for them to be reconciled to God
-In fact, a lot of them probably didn’t understand that they needed to be reconciled to Him
There may even be people here today that think God should be pleased with how much they do
-Some of you may think that God must be happy that you make time for Him when you can because surely He understands
how busy you are But we all have to pay attention to what Jesus said here and realize that unless we’ve trusted in Christ and put Him first in our lives, we’ll stand before the Judge of the Universe and we’ll be declared guilty
-And at that point it’ll be too late to cut a deal
The fact of the matter is we don’t know how long the trip to the courthouse is
-We don’t know how long we have left
-We need to be reconciled before we get to the courthouse
-The question we have to answer is will we apply that same common sense to our spiritual life or not?
Now, I realize that these types of passages can make people feel really uncomfortable
-Because if we’re honest we realize how often we aren’t following Jesus wholeheartedly
-But I really think that’s the point
-Jesus wanted to shake those people up so they would change course and we should do the same thing this morning
There are several things we should do…
First, we should be clear about what the gospel involves
Jesus didn’t come to the earth to make our lives easier; He came to make it possible for us to have a restored relationship with God
-God is far less concerned with our earthly successes than He is with teaching us to put Him first
Second, we should work to understand what God wants us to do and then do it
We put a lot of energy into all sorts of earthly pursuits, but how much time do we put into our relationship with God?
-If you recognize that you’re neglecting time with God then maybe it’s time to cut back on the things that are distracting
you Third, we should take action today
Jesus condemned the disciples because they had the ability to understand what God wanted from them, but they chose to ignore it
-God’s given us the Bible and the Holy Spirit
-So, if we don’t know what to do, it’s because we haven’t really tried to find out
If you feel God prompting you to do something today and ignore it, you’ve made your priorities clear
In every facet of our lives we have to take a stand
-Some stands are more important than others (like standing up for your freedom or for what’s right)
But there’s no more important stand than to stand with Jesus
Because that’s our most important choice – stand with Jesus or stand with the world
-It’s a choice we have to make every day many times a day
The line is clear and the consequences are eternal so why not take that stand right now? |
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