ResponsiveReiding

Heavenly Father:

May my joy in you become infectious to everyone I meet.

May my contentment with you and your all-wise providences be such that no earthly good can tempt me, nor lack thereof dismay me.

May my peace in you be imperturbable by any outward circumstance.

May my trust in you be unshakable by any trial.

May my vision of your mercy and grace be unchallenged by any failure of my own or anyone else’s.

May the hallowing of your name mean more to me than life itself.

May you be the supreme treasure of my heart at all times and in all places.

May I be so filled with the knowledge of your love, that I may be filled with all your fullness.

Luke 12:49–53 (ESV) 49 “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! 51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five 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.”

These are startling words aren’t they? We ordinarily think of Jesus’ mission on earth in terms of peace. Remember what the angels sang the night He was born?: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14 (ESV) He is the “Prince of Peace” Isaiah 9:6 says, that is His very name. What then is this purpose statement all about? In John 3 – Jesus told Nicodemus “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. ” Is there a contradiction? “I came to cast fire on the earth” is a bold and troubling statement. And when followed by His desire that “it were already kindled” – one can’t help but wonder what this is all about.

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“But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”” (Matthew 20:25-28, ESV)

People love power. We probably hate powerlessness almost more than anything else. When we lack power to change circumstances – like disease, or the suffering of a loved one, the inward tension can be almost unbearable. If we lose our jobs, or cannot find a new one – left at the mercy of human resources people who know nothing about us except what they see on a sheet of paper or their personal and subjective impressions in a frightening, brief interview – it can be excruciating. When the Government enacts laws we don’t agree with, or fear, we feel discomfort and pain. We desperately want to the power to change whatever distresses, frightens or otherwise threatens to leave us helpless in any way.

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“As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” ” (Matthew 9:9–13, ESV)

So far, we have seen that Jesus understood His own incarnation in 2 ways. First, He said He came to proclaim good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, AND, to actually set at liberty those who are oppressed. All of this He summed up as proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor. He came to tell us of, and give us – grace. Secondly, He said He came to preach the good news of the kingdom. God at long last was beginning to dismantle this world system, to install His own Son as its sovereign, and to call all people to reckon with Him accordingly.

In our text today, we hear Jesus give His third reason for coming to earth in the likeness of sinful flesh: “For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Now THAT’S – GOOD NEWS! (read on)

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“And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, ” (Luke 4:42–5:1, ESV)

Why did the Creator of the universe reduce Himself to take on the likeness of sinful flesh in the person of Jesus Christ? Some say it was so that God could show His love for us. There is a large element of truth in that statement. But it is not sufficient. We’ll see that in more detail later. Some say it was because God could not communicate to us any other way. And while communication again is a part of the answer – thinking that God could not communicate to us so as to be understood any other way ignores the whole of the Bible prior to Christ’s incarnation, the experiences of the many recorded in its pages with whom God did communicate quite effectively, and more importantly, seems to slight God’s ability on the very face of it. There has to be more. Indeed there is. And it is captured magnificently in the reasons Jesus Himself told us were behind His coming. Consider then our text today as the second place where Jesus explicitly explains His arrival – “I must preach the news of the kingdom of God…for I was sent for this purpose.”

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“The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust. ” (Proverbs 11:6, ESV)

This statement opens to us one of the greatest deceptions which the Christian has to overcome. The World thinks of righteousness as restricting freedom. But in God’s economy, freedom is from FROM sin, not freedom TO sin.

James terms this freedom the “perfect law of liberty” (James 2:12). It is on this basis the Christian will be judged. The question will not be “did you refrain from X, Y & Z?” as much as it will be “did you walk in A, B & C?” – did we walk in the freedom Christ procured for us at Calvary? Are we taking advantage of the freedoms He has granted to us at the cost of His blood…(read more by clicking below)

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