*Below is Pastor Andrew’s teaching outline from Sunday’s sermon, not a word for word manuscript. This is meant as aid in seeing the thought and direction of the sermon.
Intro: Choose Your Own Adventure
Text context
11-13 Jesus is instructing the crowd & his disciples on what it means to be a follower of Christ,
-There is a back and forth throughout the text and Jesus addresses different struggles and thoughts that arise
When we get to the end of 12, he is dealing with the cost of being a believer and the need for people to choose while the time remains. For we do not know the time or seasons.
I. A Heavenly Focus (49-50)
Luke 12:49–50 ESV
“I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!
- The fire of the Lord
2 main ideas in view
- Brings Purification & Judgement
Luke 3:16–17 ESV
John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
The Holy Spirit will purify with fire the lives of the saints:
The fire of the Lord will consume those who reject him
The world will still face judgment:
2 Peter 3:7–10 ESV
But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Peter here works through this same teaching of Jesus concerning the fact that the world has yet to see the full purification of the saints and the judgment of the world
- The Baptism of the Lord
-He has come to die
The image of Baptism here is a commission or a new beginning.
Luke: Verse by Verse The Divisiveness of Jesus (12:49–53)
immersed” (the meaning of “baptism”) in his destiny, his passion on the cross. Jesus will be overwhelmed with catastrophe (the meaning of the baptism metaphor) when he becomes sin for us and undergoes our judgment on the cross on our behalf.
When we get to this portion of Luke’s Gospel Jesus has firmly set his eyes on the task that lies ahead of him on the cross.
the baptism illustration points to the inauguration of something new and it is for him to walk through
He is set firmly on the task ahead, but in that vein, his commission here is that a disciple must have a similar outlook.
they don’t yet fully understand Jesus’ mission
He is teaching the crowd and the disciples that they need a bigger perspective about what is coming.
Even here we see Jesus feels the weight of the mission and is warning those around
The new kingdom will not be what any of them were expecting
Do we feel the same weight of the Gospel?
Do we feel the reality that the Lord is close at hand with both judgment and Hope?
Jesus’ mission is not all happy feelings and hugs. There is a reality to his warnings.
He doesn’t preach a message of earthly prosperity but of hardship, but through hardship hope
So into this call of fire and mission, he reveals that he has not come to usher in some utopian dream but rather an earthly division
II. An Earthly Division (51-53)
Luke 12:51–53 ESV
Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on in one house, there will be five divided, 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 her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
There is no peace in the world where there is a decision for Christ
Striking in light of Luke 2:14
Luke 2:14 ESV
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Jesus seems to be referencing the OT Family Divisions
Micah 7:5–7 ESV
Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.
The rabbinical teaching was that the Messiah would bring an era of peace within all of Israel healing the brokenness that existed before, jesus is highlighting this will not be the case.
The people believed that the Messiah would usher them into an immediate earthly paradise, destroying their enemies and bringing them new and everlasting peace.
Now again one of the keys here is that the text isn’t calling believers to seek the dissolution of the family but to be aware that the choice of Christ will have the effect of severing familial bonds.
-especially if we look at the original audience ( the 1st-century Jews)
to claim Christ was the true messiah was to reject their leader’s teaching, there was great persecution throughout the land against Jewish converts to the faith. We saw this in Paul’s life before the road to Damascus.
we still see this around the world from those who come from countries where other religions are the majority, and maybe even some in this room have experienced it in some way.
-We are to be given earthly peace in this life, but we are given eternal peace through the prince of peace.
the words of the Angel in Luke 2 were not a lie but it is often misapplied. True peace is not one between the world and Christ but one between God and his children. Those with he has called out.
So the peace the Lord brings is not the peace the world seeks:
The commitment to Christ changes everything about who we are:
He brought a far greater peace than that which is experienced in this world.
The world seeks an untroubled peace, but the nature of sin makes this reality unobtainable. Sin by its nature is self-seeking and self-promoting. It cannot stand too long in the sacrifice of self for the good of others without seeking its reward.
The peace of today is a fleeting allegiance, but the peace of the Lord is eternal.
So as we see the Gospel being put on display in this text we are struck by the reality of Christ’s teaching it is obvious and yet it hits in a way that we don’t often want to deal with, the things of this world are nothing compared to the wonder and glory of Christ.
Now the Gospel will call us out of the world to be attacked by the world, but we must remember that the division that comes is one that the world will force upon us because of our love for Christ and them, There will be division because of the nature of who Christ is, but as we are reminded by both the words of Paul and Peter it must be the love of Christ that leads to division not our sinful desires and behavior.
