30. Who is Jesus?
March 27th, 2010
Biblical Division
Our study through the Gospel of Luke will take about 60 weeks. This is week is week 30 marking our halfway point. We are spending a lot of time in this book studying Jesus life as our goal is to get know more about who Jesus really is.
For generations the church was a hyper controlling, ultra conservative, legalistic entity focused on appearances, traditions, and mindless obedience. Love was not a major theme merely the proverbial spoon full of sugar to help the rules and regulations go down. Out of fear of being associated with the angry gospel of the church that was love has been and is often viewed as a blissful emotion with flower blossoms, sun shine, and rainbows bursting forth from a Jesus who is more like Cosmic Care Bear then an almighty God. When we honestly look at the life of Jesus one thing becomes abundantly clear: love is no gentle thing. True love doesn’t fit on a Valentine’s card. Love is not a happy song from a big purple dinosaur. It is a strong and powerful force that breaks down barriers and transforms lives in a way that cannot be ignored.
As we look at Luke 12:49 we see a very different aspect of who Jesus is as He prepares us for what is to come. This text is a jagged little pill. Sometimes we picture Jesus as this gentle man with a nice trimmed beard, curly brown hair, and blue eyes who came from heaven like a great big hippy to share peace and love to all man-kind. This image is not entirely accurate.
Lk 12:49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! Lk 12:50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!
In Scripture fire is used most commonly to reference two things: judgment, and purification. As Jesus has been preparing us for the coming of the Kingdom of God His words are the standards by which all men will be judged. Those who have followed His teaching will be purified by the refining fire of Jesus judgment. Those who have ignored or neglected His teachings will be consumed by it. Jesus is preparing us for what is to come, He commands us to be ready, and we have no excuse. How faithfully we have carried out the tasks He gave us and how faithfully we lived as His servants will determine whether His fire purifies us or consumes us. Jesus has no problem talking about hell. He talks more about hell than anyone else in the entire Bible. Hell is a real place where real people chose to go.
I wish it were already kindled. When you make a fire you have logs and you have kindling. The logs are the big fuel for the fire and they burn for a long time. Kindling is what you use to light the logs on fire. You need smaller sticks and materials that catch fire quickly and burn for a shorter time to get the logs lit. You need the little stuff to ignite the big stuff. If you want a passionate relationship with Jesus you start by getting the little things right. You start with kindling to get the fire going. The small steps might be changing the way you talk to and about people, learning to be more patient so you don’t react in anger, doing little things to try to live like Jesus. It will look a lot like reading Scripture, praying, and spending time with God and the church. It takes a lot of little things to ignite the big ones. If you want to live a life that looks like Jesus, you start with the little things that help connect you and grow you in your relationship with God.
In addition you need to stay connected. Even after the logs are lit if you take one and separate it from the pile it will burn out. No matter how great the log, one log by itself doesn’t burn for long. You will burn out if you don’t burn together with other believers in the community of the church.
I have avoiding this issue for years because I didn’t want to sound religious. Religion says you have to go to church every week to be a Christian. It uses guilt and obligation to force people into compliance. However, this is not a religious issue it affects your growth in your relationship with God. It is my job as a pastor to deal with it. As a church we struggle with growth, development, and resources because we have a bunch of logs that like to go off and burn by themselves. We have a lot of people who show up one week, don’t the next, show up again, disappear for two weeks without reason.
If you are not here burning with other believes sharing life together then you have already started to remove yourself from the pile. Missing a single week without good reason is the first step towards withdraw from the church and from God. There are legitimate things that will prevent you from being here every week. If that starts happening regularly for anything other than having to work to provide for your family you might need to reprioritize your life. Sleeping in, not getting ready in time, wanting to take 20 weekend getaways a year, or not feeling like it are crappy reasons. Jesus doesn’t say you need to feel like connecting the church He says, you need to do it.
We have one day a week to invest in the community of the body of Jesus. One day a week where our flames can burn together; where we can encourage and support each other. The church connects us, burning together and helping keep each other’s flames lit. If you miss that one day, what will happen is you will begin to drift. Your good spiritual habits will be neglected and one week becomes two and then three. Before you know it your relationship with God is no longer a roaring fire but a Sunday morning spectacle. I have watched it happen too many times. Missing a few times slowly turns into becoming totally disconnected. Some of us are those logs disconnected from the fire. We burned brightly for a while but now we are off on our own. You may come to church somewhat regularly. You may love it when you come but you are away too often to really be a part of it. On any given Sunday you are just as likely to not show up as you are to show up. If that is you, you need to change. If you don’t stay connected to the other logs your flame will burn out and you will have no one to blame but yourself. Being connected is a part of being ready for Jesus return.
Jesus desire is not to condemn but to save the world through His sacrifice on the cross. He wants us to be ready so that we can be a part of the kingdom He is preparing. He is going to suffer and sacrifice Himself for us. His heart’s desire is for us to be ready and to be prepared so that His fire purifies us without consuming us.
Jesus says He has a baptism to undergo. He has already been baptized by John, so what is He referring to? Jesus mission is not easy, following the Command of God will require Him to be separated from His Father for the first time in His eternal existence, He will have to become sin, He will be rejected by His people and the world, He will be tortured, spit on, mocked, and nailed to a cross. The baptism Jesus has to undergo is a baptism an immersion of suffering and death. Out of it He will rise victorious.
Lk 12:51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. Lk 12:52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. Lk 12:53 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.”
The fire excites us and divides us. When we are devoted to Jesus we will come into conflict with those who stand against Him. If you are passionately following Jesus you are going to experience conflict and division in your life. People will mock you, criticize you, disrespect you, and abandon you. This conflict will include your family.
There are people whose family will disown them because they are Christians. Just loving Jesus may make your family hate you. You need to be ready for that. People will attack you, push you, and try to break you down. When you have a fire for Jesus in your life people will do everything they can to put your fire out. The bigger your flame the more people will try to extinguish it.
Before I proposed to Erica I called her mom. Her dad had been absent from most of her life so her mom was the one she was connected to. I called her mom to let her know I intended to marry Erica. Her mom didn’t really like that. She told me I shouldn’t get married, that I should just move in with Erica that we were too young and that we were making a mistake. She came to visit and told me ‘when’ our relationship failed they would still be her family. She didn’t like that I wanted to marry Erica and that created a conflict between us. It created a conflict between Erica and her mother and we were doing the thing that honored Jesus and following Him rather than doing what she wanted. By following Jesus you will come into conflict with people who are opposed to Him.
Jesus may bring peace, but He also brings division. He splits even the closest of family members against each other. He says: anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Meaning anyone who values their family more than following Jesus or puts their family connection above Jesus is not worthy of Him. Jesus has to be first. He has to take priority. If you fail to follow Him because of your family, your closest relationships on earth, then you are choosing people over Jesus. There is no neutral party with Jesus. You are an ally or an enemy. Jesus has no frien-emies.
Jesus does bring peace, but that piece is promised only to His followers. Unbelievers don’t and cant have it. The peace He offers is also not an external peace as Christians are often in conflict with the world around them but an internal peace.
What Jesus is preparing His followers for here is this: if you follow me. If you are truly going to be my disciples and fight on my side you might be abused by your families. You might be rejected by the people who are supposed to love you. You might be attacked by friends. It is sad but inevitable. In that event, knowing that possible reality, do you love me enough to follow me?
Lk 12:54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. Lk 12:55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Lk 12:56 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? Lk 12:57 “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? Lk 12:58 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. Lk 12:59 I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.’”
In Judea a rising cloud in the west was coming from the Mediterranean sea so you know it brings rain. A south wind would blow through the desert of the Negev and bring a heat wave. These signs were obvious, so are the signs of Jesus identity. The prophets all clearly point to Jesus. His miracles are signs of who He is. Why is it people can see a cloud and know it’s going to rain and yet when they see Jesus raise a man from the dead they don’t realize He is the Son of God? It’s not like He is making it difficult.
These signs Jesus refers to are for His first coming not His second. Jesus is talking to His people saying, look at all the signs, they are evidence of who I am. He is not instructing us to live trying to predict His return. That is a waste of time.
Are you ready right now to stand before God and give an account of your life? You realize that the judgment of God is not just for what you do but for what you have failed to do? Are you honestly prepared to tell Jesus who went to a cross for you that you lived your life devoted to Him in every area, that you passionately followed Him, and that you worked using the tools He gave you to advance His kingdom? Yet for some reason you struggled to get out of bed on Sunday morning. If Jesus asked you for evidence, if He asked you to prove that you had invested your life in His kingdom what would you tell Him? What do you have to show Jesus to convince Him your faith is real?
Here is the deal: man sins. Sin is a rejection of God. When we sin we sin against God and we set ourselves up as enemies of God. Jesus comes to earth to save us from ourselves and set us free from the burden of sin. What Jesus is saying is a time is coming when I will take you to my Father. Either you can come as my enemy to be judged by God for your sin because you refuse to follow me, refuse to obey me, refuse to live your life for me, or you can come as my friend. If you will reconcile yourself with me then my Father will adopt you as His child. Time is short, you have to make the decision.
Being ready means repenting from your lives of sin and changing the way you live. You dont repent once, you repent all the time. In every situation where you chose yourself over God the response is: repent. That is the great thing about God. He doesn’t demand perfection. God allows us to change. He allows us to go in the other direction. He allows us to turn to Him. God shares His love with us and He allows us to draw near to Him. You don’t have to live as His enemy, you can repent and become His child. You cant hide a relationship with Jesus. Either it is a raging fire that drives you or it is a smoldering log about to go out. You cannot be ready for Jesus return when you are living your faith outside of the community of the church. Jesus calls us to be ready. We are ready when we live like Jesus in constant community with His people. If that is not how you are living, you need to make a change.
