Jesus, the Plumb Line

A couple months ago we were seeing Christmas songs…one of them, Hark the Herald, Angels Sing.

Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled

Or the phrase from I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day:

Peace on earth, good will to men.

The sentiment comes straight from the Bible. Luke 2:14

Luke 2:14 ESV

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Jesus brings peace. But listen to this...

Luke 12:49–59 ESV

“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 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.” He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? “And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

Sermon Introduction:

So why does the Gospel of Luke tell us that Jesus came to bring peace? Is Jesus one who brings peace or division? How do we square these things?

I want to answer that question for us, but that’s not just a philosophical question. If it’s true, and I believe it is, then this is an absolutely vital question for our lives. What Jesus says here matters for you—it matters today and it matters for eternity.

Here is what I think this text is teaching us. First, Jesus is a plumb line. And then two points from this—a) we do well to recognize this truth and b) we do well to respond appropriately to this truth.

I. Jesus is the plumb line.

When we were trying to remodel our house in Aurora—I thought I could save a bit of money and make the cabinets myself. I had to build three upper cabinets. The first one went pretty well. I eye-balled it and the thing looked really good. Who needs a professional?

But then I set it next to my square…my plumb line…my standard…the thing that it’s supposed to match up to. And let me tell you…I did really quite well for a non-professional. It wasn’t square…not 100% but it wasn’t off by much at all. Just a little off.

You’ve got a couple options. 1) You can address the issue and work towards squaring the thing up—maybe even starting over completely. 2) You can pretend like it’s not off and readjust the rest of your kitchen to fit that which isn’t square.

I chose option 2. That was not the correct choice. You can get away with it being just a wee little bit off one cabinet 1 or maybe even cabinet 2…but those little things are magnified once you get to that third cabinet.

You might get away with it on cabinet 1 or 2 but eventually it’s going to get really ugly.

In the book of Amos we read this.

Amos 7:7–9 ESV

This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them; the high places of Isaac shall be made desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste, and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

What Jesus is saying here in this text is something very similar.

“I came to cast fire on the earth...” that’s judgment.

“I have a baptism to be baptized with...” that’s going to be his death. And then he says, this baptism this fire—do you think it’s going to bring peace to the earth? Do you think I’ve come to make myself cozy with the world system?

No, I tell you division.

What is Jesus doing here? He is saying that he is like that plumb line in Amos’ day. He’s the dividing line. Remember this is connected with everything we’ve seen so far in Luke 12.

Go back to the guy with large barns. Luke 12:20

Luke 12:20 ESV

But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

Your soul is required of you. That’s Jesus laying the plumb line. And saying this isn’t square. This doesn’t cut it. It’s drawing a line. That’s why you see this about families. We’d maybe draw lines differently. Blood is thicker than water. We go with our family. But Jesus is splitting even there. Some will follow Jesus. Some won’t. He’s the dividing line. Not your family name.

And his language in verses 52-53 is very similar to Micah 7:6

Micah 7:6 ESV

for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.

So here is the picture. Jesus is laying down this plumb line. Love God, love people. Follow Jesus. Be a disciple of Jesus. Be united to Christ. Repent and believe the gospel. Give yourself to the king.

Let’s go back to Amos for a moment. Here is what happened. Amos was from Judah and Amaziah was from Israel. They were rivals at this point. The kingdom had been divided into two. The Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom had Jerusalem....and that is where the Law of Moses prescribed worship was to take place in the temple.

So this created a bit of a problem for the leaders in the Northern Kingdom. But Jeroboam comes up with what he thought was a great idea.

He makes two golden calves—one of them he puts in the tribe of Dan and then the other one he sets up just north of Jerusalem in a little place called Bethel. Then he tells all the people—“It’s too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt”. He sets up the first Burger King... “Have it your way” he tells them. God is asking too much of you. No sense in going to Jerusalem. God is everywhere. So it’s cool for us to set up a temple here and worship him.

Jereboam made religion a matter of convenience. Or to put that another way… you set the plumb line. God’s Word isn’t the standard anymore. It’s not about what God wants. It’s not about his righteousness. It’s about what works best for you. Bethel is shorter. Worship there…it’s easier.

Religion became convenient and then it also become non-judgmental. They forgot the God of justice. They weren’t hating on Jerusalem. It was fine to worship there. Bethel is fine to worship at. So is Dan. It doesn’t really matter…so long as you are sincere.

And it’s “working”. At least practically speaking. The Northern Kingdom experiences a time of great prosperity. There isn’t much conflict. Everybody is getting along just fine. No judgment here. So apparently God doesn’t care much about where he is worshipped. It’s a new day…a new era.

Enter a priest from Judah named Amos. And he’s preaching judgment. God isn’t okay with this whole thing. Amos lays down a plumb line and says…y’all aren’t legit. You aren’t square. You don’t match up. You don’t make the cut.

How hard would that be to hear? How hard would it be for that guy with the abundant crops and the big barns to hear…things aren’t lining up? It’s tough when things are going just peachy to hear God say—this isn’t legit. Everything is off. You need to scrap the whole thing.

And so Amaziah—who is the king during the time of Amos has a choice. Scrap the whole thing and get in line under God’s Word or tell Amos that he needs to go back and check his level. Amaziah turns on Amos. Calls him a liar…says, “look at the results…things are going swell.”

And this is precisely what Jesus is doing here in Luke. He’s laying the plumb line and saying…you aren’t in line. Your religious leaders aren’t in line. This system isn’t in line. This is a broken mess. You can unite with me and we can go about fixing this thing…making all things new…or you can be on the side of judgment.

But let’s think about Amaziah and the people of Israel for a moment. That’s going to be painful isn’t it? I think it was Tony Robbins who said, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” We don’t like change. And we certainly don’t like change when things seem to be going quite alright.

It’s one thing to change when things aren’t going right. It’s obvious that this thing isn’t working. It’s quite another to change simply because it doesn’t match up to God’s Word.

Think about your life for a moment. If you’re a Christian has the gospel of Jesus brought comfort or affliction? Now, don’t too quickly go to what you think is the answer. Gospel. Good news. Comfort. But wait…if we’re being honest, and if we’ve really had to deal with being transformed by the gospel we have to admit that it’s also an affliction. I agree with Wesley Hill

If the gospel brings comfort, it also necessarily brings affliction.  The gospel resists the fallen inclinations of Christian believers.  When we engage with God in Christ and take seriously the commands for purity that flow from the gospel, we always find our sinful dreams and desires challenged and confronted.  From God’s perspective, our [sinful] inclinations are like “the craving for salt of a person who is dying of thirst. Yet when God begins to try to change the craving and give us the living water that will ultimately quench our thirst, we scream in pain, protesting that we were made for salt.  The change hurts.  (Hill, 67)

Think of a butterfly. One of my favorite books as a kid was the very hungry caterpillar. This cute little caterpillar just keeps eating and eating and eating and then he feels sick…and spoiler alert…he goes to sleep and transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

But that’s the G-rated version. What actually happens to a caterpillar isn’t the stuff of children’s books. In short, for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly, it digests itself using enzymes triggered by hormones. Or to say that less nerdy…it turns itself into a soup. Then, sleeping cells (similar to stem cells) grow into the body parts of the future butterfly.

The caterpillar has to essentially die in order to become a butterfly. Change hurts.

Now if you’re not a believer in Jesus you’ve maybe not experienced this kind of affliction. You’ve had stuff note exactly work, you’ve had things fall apart. But your affliction is more like the results of trying to put a square block into a circular hole. There’s a type of affliction there—frustrating—things sometimes don’t go how you want but it’s not quite the same thing. You don’t feel this division that Jesus is talking about here nearly as sharply. I hope to make that a bit more clear as we proceed.

Jesus is the plumb line. He’s laying that down and measuring our lives. What needs to go? What isn’t square? What doesn’t line up? And what do we do whenever we God reveals something to us? That’s the point Jesus is making in this next little section.

We do well to recognize this.

What’s going on here. You can look at the weather and see signs…uh oh, difficulty is coming. Red sky in the morning sailors take warning. Weather dictates their life. They plan accordingly. We do really well at studying and learning and shaping our lives around things that we believe are going to impact us.

Why do you check the weather? Why did we get that forecast from Doug Heady last week and then all of a sudden Wal-Mart doesn’t have milk, break, eggs, and for some reason Doritos? Because we hear that bad weather is coming…and we plan accordingly.

Jesus is coming and calling us to give an account. Do we respond with the same fervor?

We can be very smart and very resourceful. What Jesus is saying is that it’s an indictment of their hearts that they are so apt at making a judgment based upon those things, but they have the Son of God standing right before them and they aren’t responding appropriately. They are taking the Amaziah response.

They are trying to change Jesus to shape their life instead of the other way around. Why are they not planning accordingly with Jesus right in front of them. Make a choice.

We do well to respond appropriately to this.

Settle with accuser? Is this going all the way back to the guy trying to settle a dispute with his brother? Maybe. Matthew does use this part of Jesus’ sermon to teach that we ought to settle disputes with our brothers and sisters before standing before God.

But here I think something a little different is happening. I think it’s connected with being reconciled to Jesus. Return to the Lord before the final day of reckoning. He’s graciously laying the plumb line. Respond today.

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So does Jesus come to bring peace or division?

He came to give peace…but when you are giving peace to people who are dying of thirst but craving salt that peace often looks like division. Jesus is aiming to give you peace. He’s not aiming to make peace with our lust, our greed, our anger, our pride, our addictions, our self-centeredness. He’s not coming to help the guy with big barns be successful and better at his idolatry.

Jesus is not going to make peace with anything that destroys us. And so redemption at times is going to look like division…but it’s for the purpose of giving actual true and lasting peace. And following Jesus might mean it even brings division in our relationships. It might mean we have to make a break from old friends. But Jesus is better.

If you don’t know Jesus, God is saying to you today that things aren’t okay. He is dropping the plumb line. Your life doesn’t match up to his perfect holiness. That’s true of every single one of us. God sets the standard not us. And his standard says that all have sinned and fall short of His glory. Will you heed the message of Jesus today?

As we close I want to go back to Amos. Amaziah was a priest. He had quite a bit to lose from Amos. And so he didn’t listen to God’s Word and tried to convince others not to listen to Amos either.

Amos 7:10–13 ESV

Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. For thus Amos has said, “ ‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel must go into exile away from his land.’ ” And Amaziah said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.”

Apart from grace what will happen is that you’re going to have an Amaziah type response. What is that?

1. Blame-shifting to divert attention from ourselves

We’ll try to change the conversation. Do whatever we can to numb it. Drown it out. What’s really interesting here is that the non-judgmental religion that they’d established in Bethel now all of a sudden gets really judgmental. (The tolerance police).

I think Amaziah really believes these charges, but look at verse 11. He makes this whole discussion about fidelity to the king. It’s about conspiracy. Amos is a conspirator. He doesn’t fit in here. Let’s get him!

Go make money in your homeland dude. Your gonna make more money there. It’s insulting. It’s misunderstanding Amos. But that’s what he is doing here he is changing the conversation. Changing the narrative. Let’s not talk about the plumb line and whether or not you square up. Let’s talk about anything else.

DARVO (Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender)

2. Silencing

These two are really similar but this one I guess takes it maybe a step further. If you can’t distract or drown it out…if you can’t silence the word that way you’ll just boot it out. Stop going to church. Don’t open your Bible. Don’t get around believers. Run away from conviction. Maybe you’ll be here this morning and God is pressing in on you…you are aware of your guilt. An Amaziah response is going to just run as far away from this as you possibly can. (Our bladders seem to be proportional to this). Go away Amos!

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What will we do with Jesus this morning?