Let God Write the Script

Discipleship Questions for Sunday

August 19, 2007

 

Scripture Readings:

 

First Reading: Jeremiah 23:23-39

Psalm: 40

Second Reading: Hebrews 12:1-14

Gospel: Luke 12:49-56 

 

Jer. 23:23

“Am I only a God nearby,” declares the LORD, “and not a God far away?  24 Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD. 25. “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’  26 How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds?  27 They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forgot my name through Baal worship.  28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the LORD.  29 “Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? 30  “Therefore,” declares the LORD, “I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me.  31 Yes,” declares the LORD, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The LORD declares.’  32 Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” declares the LORD. “They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least,” declares the LORD. 33  “When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, ‘What is the oracle of the LORD?’ say to them, ‘What oracle? I will forsake you, declares the LORD.’  34 If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is the oracle of the LORD,’ I will punish that man and his household.  35 This is what each of you keeps on saying to his friend or relative: ‘What is the LORD’s answer?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’  36 But you must not mention ‘the oracle of the LORD’ again, because every man’s own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God.  37 This is what you keep saying to a prophet: ‘What is the LORD’s answer to you?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’  38 Although you claim, ‘This is the oracle of the LORD,’ this is what the LORD says: You used the words, ‘This is the oracle of the LORD,’ even though I told you that you must not claim, ‘This is the oracle of the LORD.’  39 Therefore, I will surely forget you and cast you out of my presence along with the city I gave to you and your fathers.

 

Psa. 40:0

  For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. 1 I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry.  2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  3 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.  4 Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods.  5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done. The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.  6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced; burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not require.  7 Then I said, “Here I am, I have come— it is written about me in the scroll.  8 I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”  9 I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly; I do not seal my lips, as you know, O LORD.  10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart; I speak of your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal your love and your truth from the great assembly.  11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD; may your love and your truth always protect me.  12 For troubles without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails within me.  13 Be pleased, O LORD, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me.  14 May all who seek to take my life be put to shame and confusion; may all who desire my ruin be turned back in disgrace.  15 May those who say to me, “Aha! Aha!” be appalled at their own shame.  16 But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “The LORD be exalted!”  17 Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.

 

Heb. 12:1

  Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, 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.  3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 4  In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.  5 And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,  6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” 7  Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?  8 If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.  9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!  10 Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.  11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 12  Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.  13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed. 14  Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

 

Luke 12:49 

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!  50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!  51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.  52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, 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 daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  54  He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does.  55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is.  56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?

 

Discipleship Questions:

 

1.     Please read the Gospel reading.  When did Jesus mean when He said “I have come to bring fire on the earth.”  Please discuss.

 

2.     Please read the following and discuss: “This call for fire and division has Jesus looking like a fire and brimstone fundamentalist Baptist Tent preacher – preaching His heart out to the echoing “Amen Brother – preach on – preach on!”

 

This picture of Jesus is a bit troubling to some of us who think of Him merely as a gentle messiah who came to spread peace throughout the world.  Here He insists that His coming is comparable to a dramatic prophetic visitation! 

 

He has come to cast fire on the earth, to cause division at the very heart of our human society.  It’s not that Jesus is eager for these disturbing events in themselves to unfold.  Rather, He Himself burns with zeal for the accomplishment of His earthly mission, which, in calling for radical change, will inevitably include such consequences.  While Jesus Himself may have been a man of peace, the message that He proclaimed was clearly divisive – it required a radical turn about in the human psyche which is always terribly painful.  He made demands on people that challenged them to the very heart of their being!

 

But doesn’t this conflict with the announcement of the heavenly host to the shepherds on the night of His birth: “Glory to God in the highest and, on earth, peace to those who enjoy God’s favor” (Luke 2:14).  

 

However, even in the same infancy story of the Gospel, the old man Simeon, in the second part of his oracle, had already foretold that:

 

Luke 2:34-35

. . .  “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against,  35 so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

 

Ah!  The peace that Jesus brings is not a facile thing.  A limp wrested simplistic peace!  It only becomes actual in the context of the true conversion of one’s heart. 

 

Jesus’ message doesn’t leave the depths of human beings untouched!  Jesus’ fire probes beneath a superficial pleasantness and acceptability and brings deep prejudice, narrowness and selfishness to the surface, where such negative qualities can be confronted and just perhaps healed!

 

This fire that He brings is in fact the Holy Spirit – who burns away our pretensions if we will let Him!  Oh, but what a fight we put up! 

 

You may remember that John the Baptist had prophesied that, whereas he himself baptized with water, the coming One would baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire.”  (Luke 3:16).  And indeed at Pentecost the gathered disciples received the Spirit in the visible form of “tongues as if of fire.” (Acts 2:3). 

 

Ah!  Let me read our Gospel reading once more:

 

Luke 12:49-53

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.  52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, 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 daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

 

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” said Jesus!

 

Jesus couldn’t wait for the purging fire to come.  He can’t wait for this fire to come into our lives right now!

 

Yes, the Holy Spirit – the fire of God – comes into our lives to burn away the dross.  The lies we’ve told ourselves.  It seeks to burn the false selves we’ve conveniently constructed! 

 

It come to scour us out.  The ancient mystics referred to this process as “hollowing!”  God wants to carve the gunk out of our lives which befouls our spirits and poisons our bodies and darkens the lives of most of the people around us!

 

Think about it – it takes fire to bust most of us loose!  Something radical has to shake us at our foundations before we wake up as it were!

 

What will it take to free you and me from the addictions in our lives!  Those toxic habits – physical, psychological and even spiritual, that rob us of our God given freedom!”

 

3.     But how do we do this?  How do we allow our sovereign Lord to lead us?  How do submit to His script for our lives and not our own?

 

 “Ah! Please turn with me to our Old Testament reading in the Book of Jeremiah chapter 23:

 

Jer. 23:23

“Am I only a God nearby,” declares the LORD, “and not a God far away?  24 Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD.

Jer. 23:29

“Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

 

Ah!  God is everywhere!  So let’s find Him in all things!  Let’s expect Him to constantly be revealing Himself to us at all times in all situations.  Offering us the fruit of His infinite love for us in all situations!

 

O how much of our lives we waste not entertaining our Holy guest – our God and Brother and Comforter!

 

O how much wonder and glory are fowled in the sewerage of our minds and hearts which are constantly picking up the detritus and offal all around us and claiming that this is life and ignoring God’s constant call to “Look  up” for Him!

 

“Keep looking up!”  Ah!  I just listened to J.I. Packer’s CD entitled “Finishing Well.”  It was given at the occasion of his 80th Birthday and the one thing that stuck in my mind was a simply story about the man who most influenced his life.  It was on old Christian professor who ended every conversation with the gentle exhortation “Keep looking up.”  Such a simple yet sublime challenge that should be a constant chant in the minds and hearts of every one us.   Truly God is calling us to look up for Him and stop staring in the gutters and sewers of the world around us!

 

Paul’s wonderful encouragement.  But listen not to how the author of the Book of Hebrews would encourage us to look up!

 

Listen to chapter 12 beginning at verse 1:

 

Heb. 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, 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.  3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Heb. 12:14

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.

 

Can you imagine what He’s picturing here?  There are a cloud of witnesses cheering us on – therefore let’s throw off everything that slows us down.

 

Now why would “a cloud of witnesses” be such an encouragement to the listeners of the writer to the Hebrews?

 

The writer is picturing athletes in a footrace, running for the winning post and urged on by the crowd around them.

 

Do you believe this – that there is a cloud of spirits who have passed through this life ahead of us who are cheering us on? 

 

Who are these witnesses?  We don’t know but the fact is that there are on our side and want us to run a good good race!  And so they’re cheering us on the let go of all sorts of barge that slows us down!

 

Have you heard the term – “It is what it is!”  Hmmmmm – Our live are what they are!  God is with us!  The cloud of witnesses are all about us – let’s stop trying to write our own script – let’s let our lives but what they are – what God has ordained them to be and stop writing our life’s script and let God but God and let Him write our script for us and let’s then fully embrace our lives while looking up – for Him – listening for the cheering and words of encouragement of the cloud of witnesses who love us so!!!”