STAY DIVIDED

STAY DIVIDED

Luke 12:49-53 NET.

⁴⁹ “I have come to bring fire on the earth — and how I wish it were already kindled! ⁵⁰ I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is finished! ⁵¹ Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! ⁵² For from now on there will be five in one household divided, three against two and two against three. ⁵³ They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

God has a plan. He is working out his plan in this world today because he has a purpose for this world. He is not a victim of his own creation. He does not sit on his throne, wringing his hands, with sweat pouring from his face, anxious about what is going to happen today. He knows what is going to happen today. He knows what is going to happen tomorrow. He has a plan, and that plan will come together.

Most of us are aware of God having a plan, and that awareness causes us more problems than it solves. The trouble is that we experience things in our personal, and family lives and as citizens that we cannot line up with God’s plan. Our church bulletins list people with problems that we pray for regularly. Sometimes those prayers are answered, and we have a reason to praise God for the answers. But many people just stay on the list because the problems don’t seem to go away. We have problems reconciling that fact with what we know about God’s sovereignty, his omnipotence, and his compassionate mercy.

The Book of Job helps us to deal with that inner conflict we feel. In that book, Job underwent a personal upheaval. He was attacked with a horrible and uncontrollable disease. He lost almost all his family members. He had tremendous wealth, and he suffered catastrophe after catastrophe all at once and lost everything. His wife told him to curse God and die. His friends got together to counsel him, and all they could offer to comfort him was accusation and rebuke.

Of course, that is not all that the book reveals. If it were, we would all despair. But Job goes on to tell us of God’s intervention. God vindicates Job and restores his health and all the aspects of his life. Job also points us to the fact that Job’s series of misfortunes were all caused by the devil. The problems Job was facing were not caused by his disobedience, but God allowed them to prove that Job was obedient and faithful.

What encourages us when we read Job’s story is that his problems did fit into God’s plan – just not in the way everybody else thought they did. The book of Job uncovers the secret to the things in his life that looked out of place.

Now, if we fast-forward from Job’s time to the first century A.D., we come to a portion of Jesus’ discourse as recorded in Luke 12. Jesus is doing for us a similar thing that the Book of Job does. He is uncovering some of the things that are going to happen in history because they fulfill God’s plan. He wants us to have an awareness of how certain unexplainable events fit into God’s overall plan.

He says that because of God’s plan, Jesus had to endure a baptism (50).

Jesus said he had a baptism to undergo, and that he would distressed until it is finished. We know that Jesus is not talking about his literal baptism by John in the Jordan River. That had already taken place.

Later, in Mark 10, we learn that this baptism is tied to Christ’s coming crucifixion. The sons of Zebedee — James and John — ask Jesus for places of honor at his right and left hand when he is glorified. Jesus replies by asking them if they can drink the cup that he is going to drink and can be baptized with the baptism he will experience. They said yes. Then he revealed that those two – James and John, the sons of Zebedee – would drink the cup that Jesus drank and be baptized with the baptism that he would experience. Both these men suffered persecution for their loyalty to Christ, and both eventually died because of their faith in Christ.

The baptism that Jesus predicted that he would experience would include all the opposition, persecution, false accusations, and trials that he would undergo, up to and including his crucifixion and death. In the Gospels, Jesus warns his apostles that he would suffer these things numerous times. He wanted them to know that these experiences were not just personal challenges they would have to face. He wanted them to know that they were part of God’s plan.

The apostles had a hard time getting their heads around that fact. Peter himself personally rebuked Jesus for saying that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and experts in the law, and be killed. Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but on man’s.” (Matthew 16:23).

Peter could not figure out how Jesus suffering and dying could be in God’s interest. There are lots of things in God’s plan that you and I cannot figure out either. In today’s passage, Jesus reveals some other things that we will find difficulty with. They are things that don’t seem to fit. We have problems saying that God planned these things. They seem out of character with the God of love, mercy, and compassion that we read about in the Bible.

Because of God’s plan, the whole earth will experience catastrophe (49).

Jesus says that he has come to bring fire on the earth. His relative – John the Baptist – predicted the same thing. He was speaking to the Judean crowds and said that the one who comes after him would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and Fire. Then he goes on to say that the Messiah has a winnowing fork in his hand, and he is going to clean out his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into his storehouse and burning up the chaff.

John was revealing that Jesus would have two ministries to his own people – the Jews. He would pour out his Holy Spirit on some of the Jews and they would come to faith. They would be the harvested wheat. The remainder would experience the fire – the destruction.

The fire that Jesus predicts in today’s text is the same kind of fire. It is the fire of judgment and destruction. Jesus says he is going to bring it on the earth. He literally says he is going to cast it on the earth. That is a picture of fire coming from the sky. It is an Old Testament image of God’s judgment upon his enemies.

Isaiah says “as flaming fire devours straw, and dry grass disintegrates in the flames, so their root will rot, and their flower will blow away like dust. For they have rejected the law of the LORD who commands armies, they have spurned the commands of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:24).

Jeremiah says “You must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the LORD and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. If you do not, my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you that no one will be able to extinguish” (Jeremiah 4:4).

Ezekiel says that Israel “was plucked up in anger; it was thrown down to the ground. The east wind dried up its fruit; its strong branches broke off and withered — a fire consumed them” (Ezekiel 19:12).

The crowds that Jesus was speaking to that day in Judea would all understand his prediction. He was saying that God was going to begin judging his own people. In fact, the way Jesus said it, the judgment would not be limited to just the Jews of Judea. Jesus was going to cast fire down onto the whole earth.

They understood that it was the whole planet who had rebelled against God, not just the Jews. So, they could probably justify that coming judgment. What they probably had problems with is Jesus’ other statement about it. He said, “How distressed I am until it is finished!” What Jesus is saying is that there is a purpose for the catastrophe to come. God has a plan to cleanse the earth of all its impurities to bring down the new Jerusalem and establish a new heaven and new earth, in which only righteousness dwells. The fire is not the end. The fire makes way for the new forest.

But then Jesus throws another wrench into the works. He says that there is still another thing that is going to happen as a direct result of Jesus and his ministry.

Because of God’s plan, families will experience division (51-53).

Our Christmas cards say that Jesus brought peace on earth. He did not. What the angels said on that Christmas night was “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14).

Herod did not experience peace when he found out about the newborn king. He “was alarmed, and all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:3). His fear sent him on a murder spree, bringing disorder, chaos, and catastrophe to all the families in or near Bethlehem.

The peace that Jesus brought only applies to those who put their faith in him. For the rest of the world, there will be division, and that division will affect our families. King Jesus cannot be ignored. We are all forced to take sides. No one is allowed the luxury of abstaining from the vote. Every family seems to have some believers and some unbelievers. Even some marriages are mixed.

This division among families is not a problem to be fixed. It is a reality to be recognized. It is essential that those who are true Christians stay separate from those who are not.

Because of God’s plan, Jesus wants us to stay divided, not to compromise.

Jesus had taught this before. He knew that sometimes our loyalty to our families would tempt us to be disloyal to him. Jesus was told that his own family had come to see him. He said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35).

Jesus taught us that his mission comes first. Somebody told him “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say goodbye to my family.” He told him “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:61-62). If family is your priority over the kingdom of Christ, you are not in the kingdom of Christ.

The Apostle Paul also knew that family – and society in general – would tempt us to compromise on the principles of the kingdom. That is why he wrote, “Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God — what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:1).

We will be tempted to find unity where we should not be looking for it. That is what I see in a lot of modern-day churches and families. People confess that abortion is wrong because it is the taking of an innocent life. Then someone in their family has an abortion. Then – suddenly – it is not so wrong. In fact, it is a person’s reproductive right. People confess that God’s design is a monogamous heterosexual marriage for a lifetime. Then, someone in their family comes out of the closet. Then they start talking about how God is a God of love, and he doesn’t care who you love.

Jesus’ command implied in today’s text is a hard one, but it is his command. We ignore this instruction to our own peril. He is telling us that when we face conflict between what the world is saying and what God says in his word, we should avoid compromise. Jesus is the source of the division. If the truth divides us, we need to stay divided. We are called to be salt in a saltless land. If we are saltless ourselves, how can people taste him? We are called to be light in a dark world. If we hide the light, who will be able to see him?

Get on Jesus’ side and stay on his side. Don’t switch sides. Don’t be paralyzed by indecision. “If the LORD is the true God, then follow him, but if Baal is, follow him!” (1 Kings 18:21). If religion separates you, it also defines you. If we stay committed to him today, we will find that he has stayed committed to us on Judgment Day. God has not called us to make all our enemies friends by compromising. He has called us to reconcile God’s enemies to him by loving them as enemies, not by pretending to be their friends. The temptation is for us to avoid conflict by removing those aspects of our lives that unbelievers object to. Jesus teaches us not to give in to that temptation. We must remain 100% sold out to him. Compromise is selling out to the enemy.