The Trouble with Jesus

“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”
Luke 12: 51

Isn’t it great that once you have Jesus in your life, everything starts to work out perfectly? Isn’t it awesome that once Jesus has hold of you, all the relationships in your family improve so much that all you do is give each other great big hugs? Isn’t it something that once your co-workers find out that you’re a Christian, they treat you with the utmost respect? Isn’t is exciting to see all your friends applauding your Christian faith, and are all just waiting to hear what you have to say about Jesus?
What’s that? That’s not how things are working out for you? Well, what do you mean? The TV preacher I was watching said that with a little bit of God in my life, I’d become a better me! I’d feel better! I’d enjoy life more! You mean that might not always be the case?
I’ll stop playing the fool here and let Jesus speak: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on, families will be divided—because of me.”
I sincerely doubt that these words of Christ will result in a number one bestseller at the Christian bookstore. But maybe they ought to. Maybe they ought to because they describe life pretty accurately. Instead of making our family relationships easier, sometimes Jesus makes them harder to handle, because Uncle Frank just doesn’t want to hear about Jesus from you. Instead of respect, your co-workers may declare open season on the “Jesus freak,” or more likely they will quietly humor your backward and old-fashioned value system. And your friends wouldn’t be your friends if they treated you like that, but there still is plenty of room for disagreement, especially if your faith keeps preventing you from having the same type of fun you used to have with them. All because of Jesus. That’s the trouble with Jesus, you know. He doesn’t want anyone to stay the same. He doesn’t want anyone to stay in the comfort of their sin. He has the nerve to want to be our first priority. He has the audacity to tell us we need to wake up and go in a new direction. That’s a message that makes people want to run and hide. It might make you squirm, too. One solution to the problem this Jesus is causing is to invent a form of religion that makes us feel better, but that includes no real call to change. Wow! Guess what? People have been attempting just that for thousands of years!
In the Old Testament lesson for today, God levels a devastating accusation at the false prophets who were running around at the time of Jeremiah, about 600 BC. In righteous anger God says, “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They keep saying to those who despise me, “the Lord says: you will have peace.” And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts, they say, “No harm will come to you.” Did you hear that? God is condemning the very type of religion that lots of people love to practice. God is ripping these prophets up and down because they are telling people who hate the Lord and who have no plans to change their lives, “Hey, everything is going to be fine! Nothing bad will happen to you. You don’t have to change who you are! You’re OK!” And God might as well be talking about anyone who presumes to speak on his behalf, anyone who says, “God told me to tell you,” but who refuses to talk about sin, about repentance, about responsibility, about forgiveness. The Lord says, “if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways.” And that’s the problem with God and the problem with His Son. He wants us to turn from evil, to turn from the sin we crave, and to come into His light. Jesus was 100% right—he brings division—division in me! Division in you! When you hear of someone who would voluntarily be punished—so that you wouldn’t be—something changes in your heart. When you hear of someone--the Son of God, no less—who had it all and gave it up to purchase your soul—there’s something different going on inside. When you hear of Jesus, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, do you really want to turn back to feed on the slop of sin? Or do you feel the division? Do you believe Jesus has come to separate you from your sin? That is why He came. To forgive you, to claim you, to change you! To give you a new kind of life—life with no expiration date. To give you identity that is all wrapped up in Him. That is great and awesome news! That means your life today has great promise and purpose and physical death for you is just a bump in the road, because Jesus conquered death when He broke out of the tomb. Jesus has come to divide us from our sin, and by His Spirit we can see things the way they really are. That puts us at war with the devil, the world, and often ourselves. And fight we must.
Winston Churchill at the height of World War II had a counter-question to those who asked, “What are we fighting for?” He said, “Stop fighting and you’ll soon find out.” When the church is preaching God’s Word, when we stand in God’s council and then proclaim what he says—conflict will arise! It will arise because Jesus calls for change! But if we stop preaching the Word to avoid conflict, “we’ll soon find out what you get when you try to shut God’s mouth.”
When you’re an ambassador for Jesus Christ, there are great things that happen, thanks be to God—you see lives changed by Him, and it’s indescribable. But we must not be naïve, either. Standing with Jesus makes you a target. You have to give Jesus credit—he did not whitewash or sugarcoat in any way the cost of being his disciple. He said, point blank, families will become divided because of me. He could’ve added, friendships will be divided because of me. Ethnic groups and nations will be divided because of me. He told us exactly what was going to happen! And one point that I hope you take home with you today is this: when Uncle Frank or your childhood best friend or your brother or sister or whoever has a problem with you because of your faith; it’s not you they have a problem with. It’s Jesus they have the problem with. Either they don’t know him at all, or they correctly sense that Jesus doesn’t want them to stay the way they are. They sense that Jesus is going to ask for some changes to be made. For some folks that’s terrifying. For some that seems impossible. So what do you do for the Uncle Franks of the world? Be Christ-like. Endure the cross of a relationship that is being strained. Show them Jesus by showing them mercy, love, forgiveness, and patience, and don’t leave Jesus’ name unspoken. You don’t have to repeatedly bang someone over the head with Jesus—His Word is enough. God’s Word has all the bang it needs by itself. God even says to Jeremiah, “Is not my Word like fire and like a hammer that breaks rock to pieces?” But if we stop letting the Word of God speak to avoid conflict, what chance will Uncle Frank have? Isn’t that like having the lifeline in your hand and refusing to throw it to a drowning person? As Christians, we all have that lifeline. We carry it around with us every day. When was the last time you threw it to someone?
I know this is a challenging Word to consider today. But there is encouragement here, too. Returning to Hebrews 11 we have an entire list of faithful people who were able to do incredible things by faith. We’re asked to consider their example. Look at what faith prompted these people to do! Faith prompted Moses to stand up to Pharoah and lead a nation out of slavery! Faith prompted the Israelites to walk through the Red Sea as God held the waters back! That would take a little bit of trust, don’t you think? Faith prompted the people to march around the city of Jericho, a rather odd battle plan, but God made it effective when the walls fell down. And the writer of Hebrews says, since we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses; since we have all these examples of people who were faithful to God’s Word in the face of insurmountable odds; now that it’s our turn, what are we going to do? Will we get entangled in sin? Will we keep our mouths shut for fear of offending? Or will we run with perseverance the race marked out for us? Will we run with Jesus, no matter what the cost? Will we run to Jesus—who asks, in the end, not that we change ourselves, but that we let Him change us? As the writer of Hebrews invites us, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Focus on Him, the very author of our faith, the living Word, Jesus, our goal and our way to the goal!

And runner, when the road is long/feel like giving in but you’re hanging on
Oh runner, when the race is won/you will run into His arms!

God grant it by the grace of Jesus. Amen.

August 18 and 19, 2007, Pentecost 12