Love and Zeal • Luke 12:49-59
1:16:46 Teaching begins
Notes
In order to do what Jesus really wants to do, He really must do something painfully difficult. He perseveres through His love and zeal. He’s into it, even if it’s hard and demanding.
When we follow Jesus He makes us just like Him. We do things we really want to do, we also obey Him to do difficult things. But that’s hard. How do you persevere, when you run out of your own love and zeal?
The secret you learn, is it’s Jesus living in you, giving you His own love and zeal, who enables you.
I’m reading in Luke 12, starting from verse 49.
1. Jesus really wants to do something.
A. You know He really wants to do this because He says, “How I wish it were already accomplished!” Like waiting for your package delivery. How I wish it were already delivered! He’s anticipating. This is what I came to do!
B. He wants to cast fire on the earth. What?
1. Remember when Jesus was rejected by the Samaritans. His disciples said, “Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did?” He rebuked them! Jesus came to save men’s lives, not destroy them.
2. Jesus casting fire on the earth is a good thing that He really wants to do. We’ll see why in a minute.
2. Before He can do that, Jesus really must do something.
A. He has to undergo a baptism.
1. The metaphor of baptism means that you become one with what you are baptised into. You take on the characteristics. If you baptise a piece of white cloth into red dye, the cloth becomes one with the red dye. It comes out having taken on the colour red, it is a red cloth.
2. When we are baptised into Christ, we take on His characteristics. We take on ourselves His death to sin, once and for all. We take on His resurrection to newness of life.
B. Jesus is referring to His becoming one with our sins.
1. He will bear all the sin of the world and be punished for those sins, as a substitute for everyone who has ever lived or ever will live.
2. The Apostle Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:21 He (the Father) made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
C. That means Jesus must suffer rejection, beatings, whipping, mocking, crucifixion, and death.
1. First because it’s the Father’s will. Jesus has come to give Himself as a sin offering because that’s what the Father wants.
2. Second, because the Father really cares about justice. The soul that sins shall die. The wages of sin is death, now and forever. Everyone has sinned against God. We’ve broken His laws and treated others badly. There is no way to make up to God for our sin because we have become corrupt. We can’t make ourselves acceptable to God.
3. Jesus, the perfect Son of God, will receive all the wrath of God for sin. Then God can be just and justify those who trust in Jesus’ sacrifice. There is no other way to save man outside of Jesus dying in our place.
3. Jesus exclaims, “How distressed I am until it is accomplished.”
A. That Greek word can be translated compelled or constrained.
1. Compel means to drive or urge forcefully on irresistibly. 2. To cause to do by overwhelming pressure.
2. Constrain means to force by imposed stricture, restriction, or limitation. To cause a person to give in to pressure.
B. Nobody is forcing Jesus to die for the sin of the world.
1. John 10:17-18 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
2. Jesus made it clear He did it because He loved the Father. John 14:31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.
C. No pressure is coming from somewhere else is forcing Jesus to die for the sin of the world. He constrains Himself, He compels Himself to obey the Father and allow Himself to be crucified and take up His life again.
4. What motivates Jesus, what constrains Him to accomplish salvation, is love and zeal.
A. Jesus said in John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
B. The Father is compelled by His own love and zeal, John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
C. Zeal is eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something. A related word is fervour: having or expressing great depth of feeling, intensity of feeling or expression. We say, wow, he’s really into it. He’s focused with laser-like intensity.
D. Love and zeal are two sides of the same coin.
1. Love without zeal means no feelings. Apathy. I don’t care. How can love not care what happens to the beloved?
2. Zeal without love is fanaticism, intensely or excessively devoted to a cause. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, are intensely devoted to the destruction of Western civilisation. There’s no mercy or kindness in their devotion.
3. Love must have zeal, zeal must have love, they are terrible by themselves.
E. When God reveals Himself first to Moses, He reveals Himself as a fire burning in a bush. But Moses is amazed because the fire is not destroying the bush. Love and zeal are burning to save.
F. God will save because He loves, and His zeal will accomplish this through suffering, loss, anguish, and death. That’s Isaiah 9, the announcement of the Messiah accomplishing our salvation.
5. When Jesus does what He must do, then He gets to do what He really wants to do. And that is, cast fire on the earth!
A. After He rose from the dead, Jesus poured out His Holy Spirit on all flesh.
1. John the Baptist said Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Love and zeal.
2. In Acts 2 you remember the disciples heard a rushing, mighty wind, and tongues of fire separated and rested upon each one and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They were filled with the love and zeal of the Father, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit Himself. They became like what amazed Moses, burning with zeal for God, but not destructive, not fanatic. They loved with zeal.
B. That’s what astounded the world. The Christians told everybody about Jesus risen from the dead, they loved everybody, even their tormentors. They forgave even as Jesus forgave. They took care of their older folk, they saved unwanted babies when they were left exposed to die. The ancient glamorous people kept asking themselves, how can these nobodies love like this? How come we with all our superiority and arrogance can’t love?
C. Jesus cast love and zeal to the earth and started a big conflict.
6. Not everyone is happy with you getting saved and transformed to love God zealously like Jesus.
A. Jesus alludes to this in verses 51-53. This is going to divide families.
1. Some members are going to be zealous for Jesus. That will be the most important relationship, the highest priority, the highest obedience.
2. Others will look at that and say, “You’re becoming a fanatic. You are showing excessive devotion to this Jesus.”
B. This conflict comes from conviction of sins. The status quo is disturbed. The equilibrium becomes unstable.
1. They will disapprove of family that show zeal and love for Jesus because they don’t believe that Jesus is God. They don’t believe that He died for their sins, or that they’re even sinners. I’m perfectly normal, thank you very much. Don’t be pointing fingers at me.
2. You don’t want division, you don’t want conflict. You want peace. You are not pointing fingers or being obnoxious. But you are bringing God close, closer than He’s ever been, and that is uncomfortable.
3. It used to be we were all in agreement, we were all on the same page and now you’ve changed. You got all religious on us, and you’re saying Jesus is risen from the dead and He is Lord. Well, that’s not for me.
C. This happens at home in a family, it happens in marriages, it happens on the job. At school. Everywhere you go you will run into difficulties with people just because you believe that Jesus died for the sin of the world, rose from the dead, and is coming to judge the living and the dead. Jesus is the new normal.
D. This is what Jesus is so excited about? Causing division in families and making believers’ lives more difficult?
7. God is going to break up what everyone considers normal all over the earth. Normal is zeal for myself.
A. Jesus says, you can read the signs and know what weather is coming in the future, but you can’t read the signs of the times. Here’s a man who heals the blind, feeds 5,000 on a few bread rolls, preaches the kingdom of God, says it’s time to repent and believe the good news. What’s it all mean? I dunno. Ya got me.
B. You’re hypocrites. You could read the signs easily if you wanted to. But you can’t read them because you don’t want to read them.
C. The first commandment is: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Love and zeal for God.
D. You? You don’t care. Why not? Because you’re doing okay. You don’t need that God stuff. Too much trouble to follow. Interferes with your life. I’m doing my own thing. I’m apathetic for God because I have zeal for myself.
E. Jesus says you need your normal destabilised. You need to grasp that your life is headed to a court case against God. You can’t avoid His lawsuit and you are going to lose. God the magistrate will cast you into prison until you pay the last penny of absolute perfection. You are broke. You will never get out of punishment.
8. So what?
A. God requires perfect love and zeal for Him and for all men. Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength? Do you love your neighbour as yourself? Have you been perfect?
B. Here’s a good definition of sin: I don’t want to love God. I don’t care. I just want what I want. Everything wicked will come out of that.
C. Thank God that He loves us with zeal. He cares about us. If He didn’t, we’d be dead. Jesus still really wants to cast His love and zeal on you. His lovingkindness is better than life.
D. Say to Jesus, cast Your fire on me. Pour out Your Spirit in my heart, give me Your love and zeal.
1. It’s possible to quench the Spirit. All you have to do is say, “No.” He wants you to do something, you say, “No.”
2. It’s not because what you are going through is tough or demanding, costly, causes you suffering or anguish, or even death to yourself. None of those things are really the issue.
3. It’s because you tell the Lord, “No, I don’t want to do that.” You might say, “It’s too much, too costly, too inconvenient, but really it’s because you don’t want Jesus to mess you up. He’s not the Lord of your life, you are. It’s subtle, but you know when you’re doing it.
E. The issue today is this, I want a nice, calm life, I don’t want friction. Three for, two against—I don’t want Jesus to cause an upheaval in my family.
1. Remember, He wants to break up the “ we’re normal—we don’t do God” lifestyle. That’s not normal. Living for Jesus is normal—it is for you now, as a believer in Jesus.
2. Remember, Jesus wants to work in your family. You’re not the only one He wants to save. He cares about your whole family.
3. He wants you to love your family. There’s nothing weird about love. For that matter, there’s nothing weird about Jesus. He doesn’t want you to be obnoxious. Love is not rude. The question is, how does He want to work in your family? That’s what you pray about. Commit it to Him and let Him work out how He wants to do things.
4. As you pray and ask God to work, things might get a little crazy. You might be on the outside for a while. Do not lose your courage. Keep living for Jesus, keep loving your family, or your co-workers, or whatever your situation is.
5. People need to see true love with true zeal. They look at your life and see there is something real about this guy. Then they know Jesus is real because they can see Him in your life.
F. Quick story: I worked at a place where my lead was a hellraiser. Rode a 1200 turbo motorcycle so he could outrun the police. Helmet said, “Road Warrior”. Found out I was a Christian, treated me badly, insulted me, made me feel bad. Eventually we got along but he could blow up at any time, and he did. But other co-workers were watching all this. One of them came to me and said, “I have four kids, my wife got pregnant, I thought, I can’t afford another kid. I got my wife an abortion. I feel so bad. I know that was wrong.” I said, “You need to come to Jesus and let Him cleanse you.” That’s why he came to me, he wanted to come to Jesus but he didn’t know how. We went into my workbooth to pray, and the Road Warrior burst in and said, “You can’t pray in there!” We went out the back door and prayed, and Jesus really met this guy and cleansed him. He was crying. He saw the way I endured Road Warrior and I wasn’t being nasty back. I was just reacting like a sheep for the slaughter. Only Jesus can do that.
G. If you put your life in Jesus’ hands and say, “Let me have Your love and Your zeal,” you can do anything He wants you to do. He’s going to give you His love and zeal so you can do the fun stuff and the stuff you don’t like. Just like Him.
H. Today we’re having communion. It’s a perfect time to let the Holy Spirit show you where you need to repent. Let Him search your heart and let Him point out if there’s anything on which you need to change your mind, to go His way, not your way.
Let’s pray.