“ROAD SIGNS”

[Pages:9]"ROAD SIGNS" Luke 12:49-56 August 14th, 2016 The basis of the sermon for today is Luke 12:49-53. These are some of the most difficult Bible verses in Luke to understand. But those same Bible verses are also found in the Gospel of Matthew. The Bible verses in Matthew's gospel are clearer than in Luke's gospel so I want to read the gospel story from the Gospel of Matthew as well. It starts off the same as the Gospel of Luke but it has a different twist to it. Matthew 10: 34-38. "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother in law; and one's foes will be members of one's own household Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me." In the novel titled Trinity by Leon Uris, the author tells the story of a perpetual conflict between Irish Catholics and British Protestants. The conflict is still in the newspapers today. Recently there was an article about a Protestant woman who sent her children to school. This woman had married a Catholic man. A mob shot two of her children and killed them or so the newspaper claimed. Yes, religious wars and religious killings are still going on in Ireland. It is still a mess. Prejudices still run deep. In the book, Trinity, the hero is a man by the name of Conner Larkin. Connor Larkin is an Irish Catholic. He is the biggest and the best in his school. He has the brightest brains. He is a scholar and the valedictorian of his class. He

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is also the greatest athlete in his class. He is a star rugby player in Ireland. He is a great artist. As Connor Larkin grew up, he became part of the Irish Liberation movement. He became passionate about it. He became fanatical about it. The movement became his whole life, so much that he didn't want to fall in love and get married. To fall in love and get married would make him soft and less passionate about the mission that was so important to him. He was to be fully dedicated to the Irish Liberation Movement. He was not going to fall in love with a woman and get married.

Do you see where this is headed? Just like many people who make solemn vows and lofty promises, Conner Larkin fell in love anyhow, in spite of his glowing intentions. His mistake though was to fall in love with a Protestant woman and he secretly married her while he continued to be a gunrunner for the Irish Liberation Movement. Talk about feeling conflicted by his choices?!?!? Conner Larkin was not only running guns, but he also blew up a castle, just about the time that his marriage to a Protestant woman was being exposed. The secret about his marriage leaked out, and it leaked out through a Protestant prayer circle. The women of that Protestant prayer circle quietly spread the news about "that woman" and her secret marriage to a Catholic man. By that evening, that so called "prostitute" had been murdered, dismembered and thrown into a garbage can. Meanwhile, Conner Larkin was captured and tossed into prison. When Connor Larkin found out that his true love had been assassinated and her body torn apart, he fell apart. He emotionally disintegrated in prison. Ever so slowly, every so slowly Conner Larkin gradually healed from this enormous trauma. As he healed, he became even more fanatical for the mission of the Irish Liberation Movement. He became totally committed to this movement for the rest of his life.

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It is with this mood that we approach the gospel lesson for today in the tenth chapter of Matthew and the twelfth chapter of Luke. In the gospel story found in Matthew 10 and Luke 12, you find a radical kind of commitment that God is asking from his true disciples. Last Sunday we talked about radical Hospitality and this Sunday it's "Radical Commitment." These disciples were to give their total commitment to Jesus Christ in the world. But what does that committed to Jesus Christ mean in this day and age?

So...let's talk about what that means--to give our total commitment to Jesus Christ. What does that mean in this twenty-first century when terrorists give their total commitment to a cause and wear bombs and blow themselves up for their cause? What does total commitment to Jesus Christ mean when terrorists clearly embrace their cause more that their love for their family, friends and even their own life? In our day and age, what does it mean to love Jesus Christ and be committed to him and his mission more that our love and commitment for our family? What does that mean for us in today's real world?

In Matthew 10, like in Matthew 5,6, and 7, Jesus was addressing his true and loyal disciples. Immediately prior to Matthew 5,6,7, Jesus had been talking to the crowds, but in Matthew 10 Jesus takes his disciples up away from the crowds and he goes up into the mountain and Jesus gives his Sermon on the Mount to his disciples. Jesus delivers his teachings to those people whom he thinks have the potential to be totally committed to his mission. In these disciples, Jesus saw the potential of great commitment, a great commitment that Jesus didn't see in the crowds.

In the words in Chapter 10 of Matthew, we hear Jesus' great call to Radical discipleship, his call to total commitment, his invitation to revolutionary

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Christianity. This is an invitation for you to be committed to Christ, the church, and the mission of the church. It is a total commitment, a passionate commitment to the Jesus Christ who died on the cross for you and was resurrected on the third day--the Christ who died for our sins and the sure promise of eternal life for us!

But whoa--wait a minute! This is not just a commitment to Christ. Some people only want to be committed to a personal, private relationship with Jesus and avoid the church and Christ's mission in the world. Such people quietly think to themselves, "It is me and Jesus, having our little prayer life together. Just the two of us. Reading the Bible and talking to Jesus. We have our sweet little time together in the morning and the night. That's what devotion is, isn't it?

And then it's not just committed to the church either. Some people unconsciously minimize their personal relationship with Jesus or minimize the mission of Christ in the world. Such people emphasize how important the church is to their personal existence. Such people often think to themselves, "I will come to the church and see all my friends. I will see all my friends before and after worship, have some coffee, and go out for breakfast with the gang. That's what church is, isn't it? To have your primary friends and social patterns be through the church?

To be a disciple of Christ is to be committed not only to Christ and not only to the church but also committed to the mission of the church as well. Yes, the mission of the church as well. The mission of the church is to be the love of Christ in all situations of life. The mission of the church is to evangelize other people so that those other people would come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The mission of the church is to work for social justice and social compassion for all people on the globe.

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As a popular saying goes, "Every child should have the equivalent of a glass of milk and two chocolate chip cookies before they go to bed at night." Jesus would add, "Every child in the world should have cookies and milk before bed." In the world! If you have a gallon of milk in your refrigerator and a tin full of cookies in your cupboard and do not share them with the world, you do not have the passion for the mission of Christ inside of you. You may be one of those people who want to be close to the person of Christ and want to be part of the church of Christ but not the mission of Christ in the world.

And so we find in this passage from Luke 10 and Matthew 12 that great obsession, that passion for Christ, the church, and the mission of Christ. Just as Connor Larkin had this great obsession for his mission for the liberation of Ireland, so as Christians, we are obsessed with these.

One of the people who was obsessed with mission was Scott Carpenter. He was one of the great citizens of the United States of America. He was one of our seven first astronauts. He was truly a great man. Scott Carpenter was a man who had a sense of mission. He said, "This project of being an astronaut and going to the moon, gives me the possibility of using all of my capabilities and all of my interests and gifts at once. This is something I would be willing to give my life for. I think a person is fortunate to have something that you care that much about that you would give your life for. There are risks involved, that's for sure." Then Scott Carpenter went on to say in the following words in a letter to his wife, "My dear, if this comes to a fatal, screaming firey end for me, I will have three main regrets. I will have lost the opportunity to prepare for my children's life here on this planet. I will miss the pleasure of seeing you and loving you when you are a grand-

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mother. And will have never learned to play the guitar." Signed, Scott. He cared for his wife. He cared for his children. He wanted to play the guitar. But more than that, more than his love for his wife and children, more than his wanting to learn to play the guitar, Scott Carpenter was willing to give his life for the mission to go to the moon.

What does it mean to give your life for THE mission of Jesus Christ? Another example of a person willing to give themselves and their lives for the mission was Julius Caesar when he was a soldier/emperor. You may remember that story about Julius Caesar and his soldiers when they were going to conquer Great Britain. As Julius Caesar and his army approached the isle of England in their boats, and as they approached the land and were still in their boats, the Brits were on the highlands and high cliffs, looking straight down at the boats in the water. The Brits were looking down and the Romans were looking up and all the boats came in to land on shore. And the Romans did one particular thing. Do you remember what they did in that classic story? The Romans burned their boats. There was no turning back. They were committed to the mission that was before them and they were willing to die for that mission. As Conner Larkin was committed to the mission of freeing Ireland; as Scott Carpenter was committed to the mission of going to the moon; as the soldiers of Julius Caesar were so committed to their mission that they burned their boats on the shores of England, so you and I are called to be committed to the mission of Jesus Christ in this world. The number one loyalty of our lives is to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, more than to our wife, more than to our children and grandchildren, more than to anything of this world. What does that mean for us, in our world here in America? Do these words apply to our lives?

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The great temptation of Christianity is always to have sugar coated Christianity with a sugar coated gospel, with a sugar coated cross, and to eliminate this great call to discipleship for the world. Our greatest temptation is that the cares, the riches and pleasures of this life become more important than the call of Jesus Christ. And so the security of family, wife and friends and jobs and homes and vacations become more important to us than Christ and his mission. The result is a watered down faith, a middle-class Christianity; it is complacent Christianity; it is a comfortable Christianity. Come and sit in our soft padded pews and worship Jesus Christ with your personal style of music and comfort.

One of the great passages in the Bible is in the Old Testament where God says at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God." He is a JEALOUS God. Rev. Edward F, Markquart tells this story about learning what jealousy feels like. "I remember when I was a sixteen year old boy growing up in Jackson, Minnesota, so many years ago. I was madly in love with a girl by the name of Lorna Finkelbaum. Lorna had this crush on this guy who was a little older than I was. He was bigger and better looking than I was and he was a leader on the football team. Worse yet, he seemed to be interested in Lorna. I want you to know that I became intensely jealous. I thought of nothing else morning, noon and night. I was jealous for Lorna because I was so much in love with her."

The Bible says that the Lord our God is a jealous God. If you love your wife, your children, your grandchildren, your way of life, your home, your job, your fireplace, your lifestyle more than God, you and I need to remember that this is the sin of idolatry. We need to remember that our God is a jealous God for he wants you to love him more than anything else on this earth. What

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Jesus wanted more than anything else was not to have 120 half committed disciples but Jesus wanted 12 fully committed disciples. Those 12 fully committed disciples would change the world!!! We are called to be fully committed to Christ. the church, and the mission of Christ!

In closing today I would like to look briefly at the part of today's Scripture where we see how Jesus describes humans as being able to interpret certain signs. This is going to require your participation--yes, once again, I need your help!! So when we see dark clouds roll in we figure that it is going to-- Right, rain. What Jesus does not understand is how we can be shown so many signs by God through the Bible and yet we don't know where our bad/ inappropriate actions are leading us. It's like He wants to knock on our foreheads and ask, "Is anyone in there?"

To help us along, I have used some signs that we should know. Traffic/ Road Signs, we use them everyday and I think they can help us. Let's look at this "Road Sign Bible". Are you ready? I hope so!!

(Show "construction" sign) The Bible starts with construction. God created the world and he created humankind. He created us in His image and wants us to know that He is our Creator. But when He created us, He gave us free will, which means it's up to us to decide which...(hold up "double arrow" sign and allow group to answer "direction"). That's right, which direction we want to go. But as the Bible shows, when left up to humankind and not given direction, we always seemed to go down the wrong path. So God provided commandments and rules to follow so that we would...(hold up "stop" sign, let group answer)... yes, stop sinning. We need to stop sinning and (hold up "yield" sign, let group answer)...right, yield to His will. And if we didn't we would end up at a...

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